Fay Wray and Robert Riskin: A Hollywood Memoir

Fay Wray and Robert Riskin: A Hollywood Memoir

A Hollywood love story, a Hollywood memoir, a dual biography of two of Hollywoodâ€™s most famous figures, whose golden lives were lived at the center of Hollywoodâ€™s golden age, written by their daughter, an acclaimed writer and producer.

Fay Wray was most famous as the womanâ€”the blonde in a diaphanous gownâ€”who captured the heart of the mighty King Kong, the twenty-five-foot, sixty-ton gorilla, as he placed her, nestled in his eight-foot hand, on the ledge of the 102-story Empire State Building, putting Wray at the height of New Yorkâ€™s skyline and cinematic immortality.

Wray starred in more than 120 pictures opposite Hollywood's biggest starsâ€”Spencer Tracy, Gary Cooper (The Legion of the Condemned, The First Kiss, The Texan, One Sunday Afternoon), Clark Gable, William Powell, and Charles Boyer; from cowboy stars Hoot Gibson and Art Accord to Ronald Colman (The Unholy Garden), Claude Rains, Ralph Richardson, and Melvyn Douglas. She was directed by the masters of the age, from Fred Niblo, Erich von Stroheim (The Wedding March), and Mauritz Stiller (The Street of Sin) to Leo McCarey, William Wyler, Gregory La Cava, â€œWild Billâ€ William Wellman, Merian C. Cooper (The Four Feathers, King Kong), Josef von Sternberg (Thunderbolt), Dorothy Arzner (Behind the Make-Up), Frank Capra (Dirigible), Michael Curtiz (Doctor X), Raoul Walsh (The Bowery), and Vincente Minnelli.

The bookâ€™sâ€”and Wrayâ€™sâ€”counterpart: Robert Riskin, considered one of the greatest screenwriters of all time. Academy Awardâ€“winning writer (nominated for five), producer, ten-year-long collaborator with Frank Capra on such pictures as American Madness, It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, and Meet John Doe, hailed by many, among them F. Scott Fitzgerald, as â€œamong the best screenwriters in the business.â€ Riskin wrote women characters who were smart, ornery, sexy, always resilient, as he perfected what took full shape in It Happened One Night, the Riskin character, male or femaleâ€”breezy, self-made, streetwise, optimistic, with a sense of humor that is subtle and sure.

Fay Wray and Robert Riskin lived large lives, finding each other after establishing their artistic selves and after each had had many romantic attachmentsâ€”Wray, an eleven-year-long difficult marriage and a fraught affair with Clifford Odets, and Riskin, a series of romances with, among others, Carole Lombard, Glenda Farrell, and Loretta Young.

Here are Wrayâ€™s and Riskinâ€™s lives, their work, their fairy-tale marriage that ended so tragically. Here are their dual, quintessential American lives, ultimately and blissfully intertwined.
Country USA
Brand Pantheon
Manufacturer Pantheon
Binding Hardcover
ItemPartNumber unknown
Color Celadon/Pale green
ReleaseDate 2019-02-26
UnitCount 1
Format Deckle Edge
EANs 9781524747282

Country	USA
Brand	Pantheon
Manufacturer	Pantheon
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	unknown
Color	Celadon/Pale green
ReleaseDate	2019-02-26
UnitCount	1
Format	Deckle Edge
EANs	9781524747282

Fay Wray and Robert Riskin: A Hollywood Memoir

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