Celebrates the life and work of the powerful newspaper publisher, and includes information on his relations with Hitler, Mussolini, Churchill, and Roosevelt, as well as on his turbulent private life.
The first definitive biography of William Randolph Hearst in forty years incorporates new information, based on recently released private and business papers and interviews, on the powerful publisher's relations with Hitler, Mussolini, Churchill, Roosevelt, and the movie industry, as well as on his turbulent private life. BOMC Alt.
A hefty biography of "a huge man with a tiny voice; a shy man who was most comfortable in crowds; a war hawk in Cuba and Mexico but a pacifist in Europe; an autocratic boss who could not fire people; a devoted husband who lived with his mistress; a Californian who spent half his life in the East." In short, this is a definitive history, based largely on private and business papers and interviews that were unavailable to previous biographers. It includes newly released documentation of Hearst's interactions with Hitler, Mussolini, Churchill, and a role call of American presidents, as well as with movie giants Louis B. Mayer, Jack Warner, and Irving Thalberg. Nasaw (City U. of New York) is also the author of Going out: the rise and fall of public amusements . Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
David Nasaw's magnificent, definitive biography of William Randolph Hearst is based on newly released private and business papers and interviews. For the first time, documentation of Hearst's interactions with Hitler, Mussolini, Churchill, and every American president from Grover Cleveland to Franklin Roosevelt, as well as with movie giants Louis B. Mayer, Jack Warner, and Irving Thalberg, completes the picture of this colossal American. Hearst, known to his staff as the Chief, was a man of prodigious appetites. By the 1930s, he controlled the largest publishing empire in the country, including twenty-eight newspapers, the Cosmopolitan Picture Studio, radio stations, and thirteen magazines. As the first practitioner of what is now known as synergy, Hearst used his media stronghold to achieve political power unprecedented in the industry. Americans followed his metamorphosis from populist to fierce opponent of Roosevelt and the New Deal, from citizen to congressman, and we are still fascinated today by the man characterized in the film classic CITIZEN KANE. In Nasaw's portrait, questions about Hearst's relationships are addressed, including those about his mistress in his Harvard days, who lived with him for ten years; his legal wife, Millicent, a former showgirl and the mother of his five sons; and Marion Davies, his companion until death. Recently discovered correspondence with the architect of Hearst's world-famous estate, San Simeon, is augmented by taped interviews with the people who worked there and witnessed Hearst's extravagant entertaining, shedding light on the private life of a very public man.
