Howard Hawks, Signed Presentation (Hollywood Years of Slim Keith)
[Signed Presentation] McCarthy, Todd. Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood. First Edition. 1997. Book and dust jacket are both in very good condition. Book is warmly inscribed on the half title, “To George—Whose stories are some of the best in the book—hope their inclusion here doesn’t detract much from your book. Best, Todd McCarthy, June 24, 1997.”
Considering the number of films directed by Howard Hawks now considered classics (The Big Sleep, To Have and Have Not, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) and the actors whom he made into superstars (Lauren Bacall, Montgomery Clift, Marilyn Monroe), it is astonishing how little love Hawks received at the Academy Awards (a single Best Director nomination in 1942). This excellent critical and personal biography joins the bandwagon in remedying that, analyzing Hawk’s films in fascinating detail. Just as interesting is the look into Hawks’s personal life, particularly the decade when he was married to pre- Swan-era Slim Keith (Hawks was the first of her three husbands), which “represented the greatest and most creatively vibrant period of his career.” It was also a defining era for Slim, which the book covers more extensively than anywhere else, including Slim’s own memoir.
“For a while, Slim made it evident that Hawks actually had a beating heart somewhere behind his hard, impenetrable shell.”
--Todd McCarthy