Three Phases of Eve

""Early in my life I realized that I was going to have to cultivate longevity to crowd in all the kinds of lives I wanted to live. Acting was the only way I knew of accomplishing this. Spying was tempting, with all the disguises and languages and mysterious locales, but being realistic, I feared I lacked the necessary courage."

So begins Eve Arden's thoroughly delightful and immensely entertaining autobiography. Three Phases of Eve is packed with wonderful anecdotes about the stars and celebrities Eve encountered in her long and rich life. She writes with the warmth and wit that were always her hallmark.

In a career spanning half a century, Eve Arden firmly established herself as one of America's best-loved and most admired actresses. She starred in scores of popular movies ranging from such classics as Stage Door, Ziegfeld Girls, and Mildred Pierce -- for which she won an Oscar nomination -- to more recent hits like Grease, as well as playing the lead in the number one radio and television show, "Our Miss Brooks" (for which she won an Emmy). In addition, she starred in countless theatrical performances, both on Broadway and off -- and in cities across the country and around the world.

But this is much more than a star's "and-then-l-made" memoir of a career. Rather, it is suffused with Eve's joy in raising her children, running her household (and keeping track of its animals, including dogs, horses, goats, and iguanas). Her deep love for her husband of thirty-five years, the actor and artist Brooks West, is movingly and poignantly told as she recounts his courageous battle with alcoholism and the devastating impact of his death in 1984.

Three Phases of Eve is a life-affirming account, full of humor and joy, and sparked with a natural storytelling ability. Few celebrities have captured the reality of both the glamour and the hard work of a life in the public eye as has Eve Arden in this spellbinding autobiography.