Monday, November 10, 2008

What is Tom Santopietro reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Tom Santopietro, author of Considering Doris Day, The Importance of Being Barbra, and the newly released Sinatra in Hollywood.

One book from Santopietro's entry:
The Lion of Hollywood by Scott Eyman. A terrific biography of Louis B. Mayer that rescues Mayer from the cliched portrait of Hollywood moguls, and delves into his extraordinary drive and Horatio Alger-like life. A terrifically entertaining examination of exactly how much the Hollywood dream factories influenced American culture in the twentieth century.[read on]
About Sinatra in Hollywood:
Sinatra in Hollywood details the brilliant, fascinating, and occasionally inexplicable film career that earned Frank Sinatra standing as one of the last legends from Hollywood's golden age, and grants Sinatra status as an actor equal to his fabled career as vocalist and recording artist. Laced throughout with Sinatra's own observations on his film work, the book deals head-on with the tumultuous marriages to Ava Gardner and Mia Farrow and directly addresses the rumors of Mob involvement in Sinatra's career. The complete arc of Sinatra's astonishing 60 year run as an actor is traced, from his rise in musicals like Anchors Aweigh and On the Town, through his fall from grace with legendary flops like The Kissing Bandit, to the near-mythic comeback with his Oscar winning performance in From Here to Eternity. In the process, Sinatra in Hollywood comes to examine just how Sinatra's iconic screen image did nothing less than embody America at the height of its standing in the second half of the twentieth century—the "American Century."
Visit Tom Santopietro's website.

Writers Read: Tom Santopietro.

--Marshal Zeringue