Movie Stars

 - Books -

A collection of photographs Gianni Bozzacchi has taken of Elizabeth Taylor, most of them previously unpublished, capturing her as a film star, a woman, and a personal friend. It was 1965 when Bozzacchi, an impetuous 22-year-old was given the chance of a lifetime. The streetwise kid from Rome was sent to Africa as special photographer on the set of "The Comedians", a movie starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Alec Guiness, and Peter Ustinov. As the film wrapped, Taylor offered Bozzacchi a job as her personal photographer. Elizabeth Taylor was the world's most famous woman at the time and undoubtedly its most glamorous. Her marriage to Richard Burton claimed international attention, and together they were the quintessential jet-set couple. Bozzacchi was to work with Taylor and Burton for the next eleven years. They opened the door to their world for him, and his own talent, drive, and artistic style earned him extraordinary success. Publications wanted his services, as did the movie and fashion industries, celebrities, political figures, and the merely famous. Bozzacchi was awarded the honor of International Photographer of the Year three times and became a celebrity himself, the subject of magazine layouts and television interviews.     

(source: Amazon)

Paul Newman's best-known films, including The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, and The Color of Money, are cherished both by movie lovers and within the wider popular culture. Dan O'Brien now explores the lineage of Newman's life. His father did not approve of his son's acting ambitions, but Newman forged on regardless and graduated from New York's fabled Actors Studio. He made a stunningly successful marriage with Joanne Woodward, but lost a son in tragic circumstances, and embraced political activism and good causes in later life.  

(source: Amazon)

Barry Paris loves Audrey Hepburn, and who can blame him? His exuberant profile of the movie star traces Hepburn's life from her childhood in the Netherlands (where she aided the Dutch resistence) through her Hollywood career (from her Oscar-winning performance in Roman Holiday to Steven Spielberg's Always). Paris, a veteran of Hollywood biography books, wants to free his readers of any false impressions that might sully the late star's reputation. The impression that Hepburn was a snob, he persuades us, was the result of an introverted character formed by her experiences during the war. This wartime experience both fed Hepburn's love of the spotlight and inspired a concern for the poor and powerless that compelled her to campaign for UNICEF from 1988 until her death in 1993. Some of the most fascinating material in this delightfully readable volume concerns the impact the ever-elegant Audrey Hepburn had on women's style and self-conception. If you don't already love her, Paris's book will at the least evoke admiration of her, if not enlist you in a movement for her beatification.    

(source: Amazon)