Lively, entertaining reviews of, and essays on, old and newer films and everything relating to them, written by professional author William Schoell.

Thursday, June 19, 2014

LADIES MAN: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- PAUL HENREID

LADIES MAN: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Paul Henreid with Julius Fast. St. Martin's; 1984.

Debonair and suave without being especially handsome in the Hollywood tradition, Viennese-born Paul Henreid nevertheless became a romantic leading man in such pictures as Now, Voyager, Deception, and Casablanca, among others. In his autobiography, written with Julius Fast, Henreid is fairly frank about those days and the more difficult days afterward, when he was unofficially blacklisted and then simply became too old to be a leading man. He writes of his television assignments -- acting but especially directing --  the motion pictures he directed (such as Dead Ringer), touring with "Don Juan in Hell" with Agnes Moorehead and Ricardo Montalban, and his happy marriage and children. Along the way he relates anecdotes of the many different actors that he worked with along the way, such as leading ladies Bette Davis, Hedy Lamarr, and Ingrid Bergman. Henreid also appeared in Stolen Face and Exorcist II: The Heretic, among many others.

Verdict: Very interesting insider bio. ***.

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