




St. Martin’s Press Brings You a New, Exciting Book:
Vincente Minnelli: Hollywood’s Dark Dreamer Emanuel Levy

Long-time critic (Variety) and film professor Emanuel Levy has written nine books on film, including All About Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards, Cinema of Outsiders: The Rise of American Independent Film, George Cukor: Master of Elegance, John Wayne, and others.
In the first full-length comprehensive biography of film director Minnelli (1903–1986), Levy unveils a compelling portrait. A “lonely, awkward, painfully shy boy,” Minnelli was born into show business because his father and uncle operated a touring theater company. In New York, during the 1930s, Minnelli graduated from costume and set designs to becoming the first director of the Radio City Musical Hall.
After a decade on Broadway, he was sent by producer Arthur Freed to MGM, where Minnelli’s stylish and exuberant élan captivated audiences for the next 25 years. “Meet Me in St. Louis” became a huge WWII home-front hit, establishing Minnelli as a major Tinseltown talent. Levy delivers an outstanding chapter on the making of that film and how it brought Minnelli and Judy Garland together: “Judy could never separate professional from emotional relationships, and that kind of blend—or confusion, if you will—was at the very foundation of her marriage to Minnelli.”
Levy discusses Minnelli’s contribution to three Hollywood genres: musicals, such as the Oscar-winning “American in Paris” in 1951 and “Gigi” in 1958, melodramas, such as “The Bad and the Beautiful,” “”Lust for Life,” “Tea and Sympathy,” and “Some Came Running,” and comedies, such as “The Father of the Bride” and “The Long, Long Trailer.”
During his career, Minnelli worked with the best professionals of the studio system and with its greatest stars: Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra, Cyd Charisse, Liz Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Shirley MacLaine, Lana Turner, and of course, Judy Garland and Kirk Douglas, his quintessential and favorite actors.
Levy’s exhaustive research taps into three key sources: the Special Minnelli Collection at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; letters and documents kept by Minnelli’s widow, Lee Anderson Minnelli; and various drafts of Minnelli’s 1974 memoir, I Remember It Well. Along with coverage of memorable musical and nonmusical films, the work tells Minnelli’s personal life with illuminating insight. Levy captures the color, verve and panache of the director’s life and legacy in high-gloss Hollywood.
Available wherever books are sold.
Hardcover / $37.95 / 978-0-312-32925-9
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