Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage, and the Making of Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf

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"Smart and entertaining . . . Gefter shows why Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf hit the 60s like a torpedo." NPR, Fresh Air

"Delicious." New York Times Book Review

The behind-the-scenes story of a provocative play, the groundbreaking film it became, and how two iconic stars changed the image of marriage forever.

From its debut in 1962, Edward Albees Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf was a wild success and a cultural lightning rod. It scandalized critics but magnetized audiences. Across 644 sold-out Broadway performances, the drama demolished the wall between what could and couldnt be said on the American stage and marked a definitive end to the I Love Lucy 1950s.

Then, Hollywood took a colossal gamble on Albees sophisticated playand won. Costarring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the sensational 1966 film minted first-time director Mike Nichols as industry royalty and won five Oscars. How this scorching play became a movie classicsurviving censorship attempts, its directors inexperience, and its stars own tumultuous marriageis one of the most riveting stories in all of cinema.

Marfield Prizewinner Philip Gefter tells that deliciously entertaining story in full for the first time, tracing Woolf from its hushed origins in Greenwich Villages bohemian enclave, through its tormented production process, to its explosion onto screens and its permanent place in the canon of American cinema. This deliciously entertaining book explores how two couplesone fictional, one all too realforced a nation to confront its most deeply held myths about relationships, sex, family, and, against all odds, love.

Reviews

A lively, well-researched book that displays great affection for the film and the highly gifted and vastly troublesome people who made it. * Glenn Frankel, Washington Post *
Good, harrowing fun. * The Wall Street Journal *
Gefter deftly blends social history, textual analysis, and Hollywood gossip. * The New Yorker *
Terrific! With a dynamically deft touch, Gefter chronicles how a uniquely volatile mix of timing, talent, pressure, and passion turned a landscape-altering play into a cinematic detonation. * Steven Soderbergh, Academy Award-winning filmmaker *

Author Bio

Philip Gefter is the author of What Becomes a Legend Most: The Biography of Richard Avedon; Wagstaff: Before and After Mapplethorpe, which received the Marfield Prize for arts writing; and an essay collection, Photography After Frank. He is a regular contributor to the New Yorker's Photobooth, Aperture, and the New York Times, where he was an editor and photography critic for over fifteen years. Gefter produced the award-winning documentary, Bill Cunningham: New York. He lives in New York City.