Baxter, John 1939- (Martin Loran, a joint pseudonym)

PERSONAL:

Born December 14, 1939, in Sydney, Australia; son of John Archibald William (a chef) and Cathleen Baxter; married Merie Elizabeth Brooker, September 1, 1962 (divorced, 1967); married Joyce Allison Agee, 1978 (divorced); married third wife, Marie-Dominique (a television newscaster); children: one daughter. Education: Attended Waverly College, Sydney, Australia. Hobbies and other interests: Collecting rare books; avant-garde music.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Paris, France. Agent—Curtis Brown Ltd., 2 Boundary St., Level 1, Paddington, New South Wales 2021, Australia.

CAREER:

New South Wales State Government, Sydney, Australia, staff controller, 1957-67; Australian Commonwealth Film Unit (now Film Australia), Sydney, director of publicity, 1967-70; spent 1970 visiting European film festivals and archives, studying facilities for film research; British Broadcasting Corporation Radio (BBC-Radio), London, England, film critic on "Kaleidoscope" program and regular contributor to "Meridian," "Amphitheatre," "The World at One," and other programs, 1972-82; producer, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, beginning 1984, became consultant. Served as co-director of Madeleine Associates (media consultancy), Sydney, Australia; Paris through Expatriate Eyes (Web site), Paris, France, dean of faculty. Member of board, Sydney Film Festival, 1968-69. Visiting professor, Hollins College, 1974-76; lecturer, for U.S. Embassy, London, 1973-74, for U.S. Department of State in Europe, 1974-78, at International Science Fiction Conference, 1980 and 1985, at Australian Film and Television School, 1982, at Mitchell College of Advanced Education, 1987, and at Stephens College, University of Missouri, and State University of New York. Assessor, Creative Development Fund, Australian Film Commission, 1983.

MEMBER:

Royal Commonwealth Society (London, England), British Film Institute, Sydney Film Study Group (president, 1967-68).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Bronze Medal in Australian Film Awards, 1969, for script, "After Proust"; Silver Medal, Kranj Film Festival (Yugoslavia), 1970, for script, "Golf in Australia"; first prize, Benson and Hedges Australian Film Competition, 1970, for television documentary "No Roses for Michael"; Ditmar Award, 1971, for Science Fiction in the Cinema; Australian Council Literature Board fellowship, 1984.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

Hollywood in the Thirties (also see below), A.S. Barnes (New York, NY), 1968.

(Compiler, and contributor with Ron Smith under joint pseudonym Martin Loran) The Pacific Book of Australian Science Fiction, Angus & Robertson (Sydney, Australia), 1970, published as Australian Science Fiction I, Arkon (Sydney), 1975.

Science Fiction in the Cinema, A.S. Barnes (New York, NY), 1970.

The Australian Cinema, Angus & Robertson (Sydney, Australia), 1970.

The Gangster Film, A.S. Barnes (New York, NY), 1970.

(Compiler) The Second Pacific Book of Australian Science Fiction, Angus & Robertson (Sydney, Australia), 1971.

The Cinema of Josef von Sternberg, A.S. Barnes (New York, NY), 1971.

The Cinema of John Ford, A.S. Barnes (New York, NY), 1971.

Hollywood in the Sixties (also see below), A.S. Barnes (New York, NY), 1972.

Sixty Years of Hollywood, A.S. Barnes (New York, NY), 1973.

An Appalling Talent: Ken Russell, M. Joseph (London, England), 1973.

Stunt: The Story of the Great Movie Stunt Men, Macdonald & Co. (London, England), 1974.

The Hollywood Exiles, Taplinger (New York, NY), 1976.

(With Thomas A. Atkins) The Fire Came By: The Great Siberian Explosion, introduction by Isaac Asimov, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1976.

King Vidor, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1976.

Hollywood, 1920-1970 (contains Hollywood in the Thirties and Hollywood in the Sixties), A.S. Barnes (New York, NY), 1977.

(With Brian Norris) The Video Handbook: Getting the Best from Your VCR, Fontana (London, England), 1982.

Who Burned Australia? The Ash Wednesday Fires, New English Library (London, England), 1984.

Filmstruck: Australia at the Movies, ABC Enterprises/Thomas Nelson (Melbourne, Australia), 1987.

Bunuel, Fourth Estate (London, England), 1994.

Fellini, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1994.

Stanley Kubrick: A Biography, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 1997.

Steven Spielberg: The Unauthorised Biography, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1997.

Mythmaker: The Life and Work of George Lucas, Spike (New York, NY), 1999.

Woody Allen: A Biography, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 2000.

De Niro: A Biography, HarperCollins Entertainment (New York, NY), 2002.

A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2002.

We'll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2006.

Dictionary of Modern Erotica, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2007.

SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS

The Off-Worlders, Ace Books (New York, NY), 1966, published as The God Killers, Horwitz (Sydney, Australia), 1966.

The Hermes Fall, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1978.

The Black Yacht, Jove, 1982.

NOVELS

Adam's Woman (adaptation of screenplay by Richard Fielder and T.E.B. Clarke), Horwitz (Sydney, Australia), 1968.

The Bidders, Lippincott (New York, NY), 1979, published as Bidding, Granada (London, England), 1980.

The Kid, Viking (New York, NY), 1981.

(With James Blackstone) Torched, Grafton & Co., 1986.

RADIO SCRIPTS

"Revolution 24 Times a Second," BBC-Radio, 1981.

"Ready When You Are, Mr. De Mille" (profile of Cecil B. De Mille), BBC-Radio, 1981.

"There's Something Out There," BBC-Radio, 1981.

"The Australian Cinema," BBC-Radio, 1982.

"The Australian Literary Scene," BBC-Radio, 1982.

"The Film Up Till Now," BBC-Radio, 1982.

"Italia," ABC-Radio, 1983.

"An Irregular Man," ABC-Radio, 1986.

"Tell Me Now, You Folks Down Under, Do You Have a Sense of Wonder?," ABC-Radio, 1986.

"All in Colour for Sixpence," ABC-Radio, 1986.

"Little Wing" (science fiction drama), ABC-Radio, 1986.

"The Demolished Man"(adaptation of Alfred Bester's novel), ABC-Radio, 1986.

"One Man's Way" (profile of Cecil Holmes), ABC-Radio, 1986.

"One Man's Meat" (features the writings of E.B. White), ABC-Radio, 1987.

"The Films That Would Not Die" (ten-part series on Australian cinema), ABC-Radio, 1987.

Also author, with David Stratton, of "In Camera" (documentary on contemporary filmmakers), 1987. Contributor to ABC-Radio programs "Books and Writing" and "First Edition," 1983-85.

TELEVISION DOCUMENTARY SCRIPTS

"No Roses for Michael," Catholic Office for Film and Television, 1970.

"The Cutting Room" (five-part series on Australian independent cinema), Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 1986.

"Filmstruck" (ten-part series on film history), Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 1986.

"First Take" (fifteen-part series on Australian independent short films), Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 1986.

Also author of "Understanding Film," "Song of a Mighty City," and, with Michael Caulfield, "The 1984 Australian Film Institute Film Awards Telecast."

DOCUMENTARY FILM SCRIPTS

"Beyond the Pack Ice" (on Antarctic exploration), Australian Commonwealth Film Unit, 1968.

"Golf in Australia," Australian Commonwealth Film Unit, 1969.

"After Proust," Galadriel Films, 1969.

"Australian Diary," Australian Commonwealth Film Unit, 1969.

"The Amazing Years of Cinema: The Early Westerns," VPS (London, England), 1972.

(With Brian Hannant) "Nightshade," Samson Productions, 1982.

(With Brian Hannant) "Champion 13," Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 1985.

"The Road to En-Dor" (adaptation of E.H. Jones's book), Chateau Productions, 1986.

(With Brian Hannant) "The Time Guardian," Hemdale International, 1987.

Also author of film script "Waiting for the End of the World," based on Lee Harding's book, 1986; author, with Brian Hannant, of "A Great Place to Make Movies," 1986.

OTHER

Author, with Ron Smith, under joint pseudonym Martin Loran, of novelettes and short stories. Contributor to books, anthologies, dictionaries, and critical studies, including Zoo 2000, Australian Horror Stories, Urban Fantasies, Penguin New Australian Writing, Great Film Directors, Graphic Violence in the Cinema, The International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and The Dictionary of Biographical Quotations. Contributor of short stories to magazines such as Science Fiction Adventures, New Worlds, Science Fantasy, Analog, Hemisphere, and Masque. Contributor of feature articles and articles on film and related subjects to periodicals, including Telegraph, Observer, Penthouse, Vogue, Sight and Sound, Focus on Film, and Film Journal.

SIDELIGHTS:

John Baxter is respected as a film critic, historian, and commentator. He is also an avid rare book collector, with a personal library worth millions of dollars. In his book A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict, he recalls his early attraction to books, something that was considered very peculiar in rural Australia, where he grew up. Baxter later moved to Los Angeles, where he established his reputation. Eventually he married a French newscaster and took up residence in Paris, where he became an important figure in that city's cultural scene, especially its expatriate community. His recollections of life, and of his hunts around the world for collectable books, are "sprawling, unedited, but quite engaging," commented GraceAnne A. DeCandido in her Booklist review. In addition to recalling his various adventures in book collecting, he reflects on the nature of the book business and the changes that the Internet and other technological advances have made on it. A Pound of Paper is "tasty junk food for book lovers," advised a Kirkus Reviews writer.

Baxter offers readers an unusual tour of his adopted city in We'll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light. He links various locations around the city to films, both French and American, in which they have been featured. Additionally, he discusses the erotic history of the city, doing "a particularly stunning job" analyzing the reasons that Parisians were so captivated by African-American singer Josephine Baker during the 1920s, noted Mark Knoblaunch in Booklist. A Publishers Weekly reviewer believed the book would be enjoyed by "anyone who appreciates Paris and its myths."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 1, 2003, GraceAnne A. DeCandido, review of A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict, p. 460; March 1, 2006, Mark Knoblaunch, review of We'll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light, p. 57.

California Bookwatch, June, 2006, review of We'll Always Have Paris.

Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2003, review of A Pound of Paper, p. 1258; January 1, 2006, review of We'll Always Have Paris, p. 24.

Publishers Weekly, September 8, 2003, review of A Pound of Paper, p. 62; January 30, 2006, review of We'll Always Have Paris, p. 58.

Library Journal, March 1, 2006, Matthew Loving, review of We'll Always Have Paris, p. 108.

San Francisco Chronicle, December 13, 2003, James Sullivan, profile of John Baxter.

ONLINE

Paris through Expatriate Eyes,http://www.paris-expat.com/ (February 3, 2007), interview with John Baxter.