Nancy Schoenberger

As one of the reviewers said, the book isn't literature but it's certainly an entertaining read. Richard Burton kept a diary and this book contains a few selections of his entries about Elizabeth which made for interesting reading. It's also fun to read about the people they worked and socialized with, the jewels she received, and the studio contracts. Now that I've finished reading about their relationship and their movies, I want to re-watch the Taming of the Shrew and Cleopatra, etc. to see what I can see. Overall though, their lives seemed sad since alcohol and drugs played a large part in their dysfunctional relationship.… (más)

John Wayne and John Ford brought out the best in each other, as Nancy Schoenberger shows in her 2017 book “Wayne and Ford: The Films, the Friendship and the Forging of an American Hero.”

Schoenberger confesses to having a "John Wayne problem," meaning not just that she is a big John Wayne fan but that she has from girlhood admired the kind of hero John Wayne so often portrays, especially in those many films, mostly westerns, directed by Ford. Such heroes are not universally admired by modern, feminist women, but this author begs to differ. She explains why in her fine book.

Wayne was a college boy when he began working for Ford, mostly moving sets and doing an occasional stunt. Before Ford recognized Wayne's onscreen potential, another director signed him to star in some cheap westerns made for boys. Ford refused to speak to the young actor for a decade, apparently as punishment for what he considered disloyalty, but these years gave Wayne time to mature into the physical presence that helped make him a star in Ford films.

“Stagecoach” was the first of these, and Schoenberger devotes much attention to this great film in which Wayne plays, as she puts it, "a good bad man." Later she discusses the 7th Cavalry movies and the other films, although surprisingly she has relatively little to say about “The Quiet Man,” surely one of the pair's best films. But the author's focus falls mostly on the westerns.

The book is as much biography as film study, and she tells us about Ford's drinking problem (between films), his apparent homosexuality and his bullying abuse of his stars (including both Wayne and Maureen O'Hara). Wayne admired Ford too much to be too troubled by the harsh treatment he received, but he had other worries, including his difficult marriages and his money problems. Later came the cancer that would eventually kill him.

Schenberger shows us two flawed, you might even say weak, individuals who nevertheless managed to construct an ideal of what a real hero should look like.… (más)