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From Silent Film Idol to Superman
The Life and Career of John Stuart
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Book Presentation:
A popular romantic actor with a fan club rivalling that of Ivor Novello, John Stuart was frequently mobbed by his adoring fans. He starred in films by Alfred Hitchcock and G.W. Pabst, played opposite British stars such as Madeleine Carroll, Fay Compton, Gracie Fields, and German actor Conrad Veidt, and was also the first actor to ever speak on screen in Britain. Yet despite a film career lasting six decades and 172 films, his name and achievement are little known today.
With access to Stuart’s private archive, his surviving films, press cuttings, film reviews, interviews, profiles, features, and gossip columns, his son Jonathan Croall presents a detailed account of an actor who made a significant contribution to the British film industry of the 20th century.
About the Author:
Based in Putney in south-west London, Jonathan Croall is a journalist, theatre and film historian, and the author of 25 books. He was formerly an editor at Penguin and Oxford University Press, features editor of the Times Educational Supplement, editor of the National Theatre’s magazine StageWrite and program editor at the Old Vic theatre in London..
Press Reviews:
"Jonathan Croall [John Stuart ‘s son] is an outstanding biographer of actors… He has a way of bringing the protagonists of these books to life, clarifying their talents, their progress over the decades, and the changes that those decades can bring. He has a remarkable gift for establishing, or recreating, the media context in which these stars operate, and how this context operates in the world at large. … His wonderfully readable and extensively illustrated book grows from an amazing amount of research, involving masses of documents and letters left by his father, all of which have enabled him to create a moving study of the man as well as of the actor. A major bonus is the insight it offers into the wider British film culture, that bred the ‘silent film idol’ who stayed around for nearly six productive decades."—Brian McFarlane, editor of The Encyclopedia of British Film
See the publisher website: McFarland & Co
See the complete filmography of John Stuart on the website: IMDB ...
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