The Choreographer Who Set Marilyn in Motion
According to a new biography, Jack Cole was Broadway and Hollywood’s greatest choreographer, yet he is unfairly overlooked today.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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Mr. Rollyson is the author of The Life of William Faulkner and The Last Days of Sylvia Plath. He has published fourteen biographies and has written about biography for the Wall Street Journal, the Washington, Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the New Criterion, and other publications.
According to a new biography, Jack Cole was Broadway and Hollywood’s greatest choreographer, yet he is unfairly overlooked today.
By CARL ROLLYSON
||Arts+
Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark forensically chronicle Roy Cohn’s trouble with the truth, but his childhood and hunger for proximity to power make him comparable to George Washington.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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Without Mark Gruenwald’s work to establish a consistent superhero universe, we might not have President Trump posting superhero images of himself online.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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Unlike some Lincoln biographers, Jonathan Earle is careful not to give his subject too much credit, stressing the weaknesses of his political opponents.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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Laurence Jurdem’s new biography of the 41st president argues that he was far wiser and more adventurous than he is given credit for.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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What recent biopic ‘Young Washington’ got right and wrong about the first American president’s formative years.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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Phillip Lopate’s study shows that the ‘Rip Van Winkle’ author has been unfairly relegated to minor literary status.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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The actress and the poet shared certain affinities, but Arden achieved a balance of family life and artistic fulfilment that eluded Plath.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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The Swedish film legend’s great-nephew scotches many myths surrounding her, chief among them that she was a recluse; she simply wanted to be left alone.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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Jill Craigie has been written out of most histories of cinema, yet a new book shows how she ushered in a new form of documentary storytelling.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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A wistful, suitably Faulknerian picaresque reminiscence of a literary couple’s coast-to-coast travel writing, published between 1980 and 2000.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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Fiona Sampson’s biography of the French Romantic writer is beautifully written and innovative, but offers little insight into her subject’s novelistic technique.
By CARL ROLLYSON
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