Book description
The legendary, incendiary novel of the film industry back in print
after 20 years. A Hollywood Babylon for our time
Marshall Stone, international superstar and charismatic member of
Hollywood's elite. Abundantly blessed with charm, genius and wealth, the
one gift he most desires - everlasting youth - seems within his grasp
when an eminent writer begins the star's biography. But painful memories
and suppressed scandals threaten to expose the fiction of his life.
Dazzled by flattery and numbed by threats, the biographer is caught up
in the big-daddy world where books are properties, films are
investments, ratings are rigged, and stars and directors are bought and
sold like slaves at an auction.
The rituals, the wheeler-dealing politics, and back-stabbing tactics of
the richest industry in the world have never been more effectively
portrayed. And at the heart of this glittering machine, a brilliant star
who will do almost anything to remain untarnished.
This reissue includes a foreword from the cover designer, Oscar-winning
filmmaker Arnold Schwartzman, and a brand new introduction by Len
Deighton, which offers a fascinating insight into the writing of the
story. 'Immense skill… a stylish and stimulating performance' The Times
'The richness, the sardonic humour, the wheeling and dealing world of
the films with its parties, its highly coloured characters… The power of
the book is undoubted' The Standard
'The film industrry is in many ways the ideal subject for Mr Deighton's
talents' Times Literary Supplement Born in London, Len Deighton served
in the RAF before graduating from the Royal College of Art (which
recently elected him a Senior Fellow). While in New York City working as
a magazine illustrator he began writing his first novel, The Ipcress
File, which was published in 1962. He is now the author of more than
thirty books of fiction and non-fiction. At present living in Europe, he
has, over the years, lived with his family in ten different countries
from Austria to Portugal.
