Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford

(Paperback, Reissue)

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Description

When the legend becomes fact, print the legend. This line from director John Fords film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance serves as an epigraph for the life of the legendary filmmaker.

Through a career that spanned decades and included dozens of filmsamong them such American masterpieces as The Searchers, The Grapes of Wrath, The Quiet Man, Stagecoach, and How Green Was My ValleyJohn Ford managed to leave as his legacy a body of work that few filmmakers will ever equal. Yet as bold as the stamp of his personality was on each film, he was reticent about his personal life. Basically shy, and intensely private, he was known to enjoy making up stories about himself, some of them based loosely on fact but many of them pure fabrications. Ford preferred instead to let his films speak for him. What mattered to Ford was always what was up there on the screen.

Now, in this definitive look at the life and career of one of America's true cinematic giants, noted biographer and critic Scott Eyman, working with the full participation of the Ford estate, has managed to document and delineate both aspects of John Fords lifethe human and the legend.

Reviews

"Eyman has emerged as one of the most distinguished and reliable of popular film historians. Print the Legend displays his broad knowledge, his tact, his willingness to credit other writers, his capacity to avoid sensationalism but not to flinch from difficult truths." --Robert Sklar, Washington Post Book World * Review *
"Everything about this model biography is a pleasure." -- Malcolm Jones * Newsweek *
"A quietly magnificent biography of an American original. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *
A thorough, honest, empathetic biography that examines both the man and his towering achievements. -- Leonard Maltin

Author Bio

Scott Eymanis the author or coauthor of eighteen books, including the bestsellerJohn WayneandPieces of My HeartandYou Must Remember Thiswith actor Robert Wagner. Eyman,formerly the literary critic atThe Palm Beach Post,also writes book reviews forThe Wall Street Journal, and has written forThe New York Times,The Washington Post, and theChicago Tribune. He and his wife, Lynn, live in West Palm Beach.