Lambert, Gavin 1924–2005

PERSONAL: Born July 23, 1924, in East Grinstead, Sussex, England; naturalized U.S. citizen, 1964; died of pulmonary fibrosis, July 17, 2005, in Los Angeles, CA; son of Mervyn and Vera (Pembroke) Lambert. Education: Attended St. George's Windsor, Cheltenham College, and Magdalen College, Oxford. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, music, travel.

CAREER: Editor, Sight and Sound (film magazine), 1950–56; freelance writer, 1950–2005.

MEMBER: Writers Guild of America West.

AWARDS, HONORS: Thomas R. Coward Memorial Award, 1966, for Norman's Letter.

WRITINGS:

The Slide Area: Scenes of Hollywood Life, Viking Press (New York, NY), 1959, Serpent's Tail (New York, NY), 1998.

Inside Daisy Clover, Viking Press (New York, NY), 1963, Serpent's Tail (New York, NY), 1996.

Norman's Letter, Coward-McCann (New York, NY), 1966.

A Case for the Angels, Dial Press (New York, NY), 1968.

The Goodby People, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1971, published as The Goodbye People, Serpent's Tail (London, England), 2000.

On Cukor (interviews), W.H. Allen (London, England), 1972, Putnam (New York, NY), 1973, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 2000.

GWTW: The Making of "Gone with the Wind," Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1973.

The Dangerous Edge, Barrie & Jenkins (London, England), 1975, Grossman Publishers (New York, NY), 1976.

In the Night All Cats Are Grey, W.H. Allen (London, England), 1976.

Running Time, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1983.

Norma Shearer: A Life, Knopf (New York, NY), 1990.

(Author of introduction) Dear Paul, Dear Ned: The Correspondence of Paul Bowles and Ned Rorem, Elysium Press (North Pomfret, VT), 1997.

Nazimova: A Biography, Knopf (New York, NY), 1997.

Mainly about Lindsay Anderson (biographical memoir), Knopf (New York, NY), 2000.

Natalie Wood: A Life, Knopf (New York, NY), 2004.

(Editor and author of foreword and afterword) The Ivan Moffat File: Life among the Beautiful and Damned in London, Paris, New York, and Hollywood, Pantheon Books (New York, NY), 2004.

SCREENPLAYS

"The Road to Edinburgh," General Electric Theater, Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), 1953.

"Strange Witness," General Electric Theater, Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), 1953.

Another Sky, Edward Harrison, 1954.

(Uncredited, with others) Bigger than Life, Twentieth Century Fox, 1956.

Bitter Victory, Columbia, 1957.

"The Closed Set," Startime, National Broadcasting Company (NBC), 1960.

Sons and Lovers, Twentieth Century-Fox, 1960.

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, Warner Brothers, 1961.

Inside Daisy Clover (based on his novel of same title), Warner Brothers, 1965.

Interval, AVCO Embassy Pictures, 1973.

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, New World, 1977.

Second Serve (television screenplay), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) Television, 1986.

Caftan d'amour, Centre Cinematographique Morocain, 1988.

Liberace: Behind the Music, 1988.

Sweet Bird of Youth (television screenplay; adaptation of Tennessee Williams play), National Broadcasting Company (NBC), 1989.

Dead on the Money (television screenplay), Turner Pictures, 1991.

Also author and director of Another Sky, 1956. Also author of screenplays for television. Contributor of articles to New Statesman, Observer, Harper's Bazaar, and other periodicals. Founder, Sequence (magazine).

SIDELIGHTS: Although he was born and raised in England, Gavin Lambert spent most of his life in the United States—more specifically, in Hollywood. Hired as a screenwriter in 1958, Lambert became better known as an observer and biographer of the film industry. Both his fiction and nonfiction speak candidly about the pleasures and pitfalls of stardom and the devastating effects a movie career can have upon sensitive people. Lambert's best-known novel, Inside Daisy Clover, charts the mental collapse of an exploited teen star, played in the film version by Natalie Wood. Another Lambert novel, Running Time, follows a child screen star from her earliest years as a sensation to her later years as a television talk show host. As Elizabeth Jakab put it in the New York Times Book Review, "Hollywood's a glamorous place, even when it isn't, and nobody understands that better than Gavin Lambert."

In the latter part of his career, Lambert focused on producing biographies of film and theater artists. Two of these biographies, Nazimova: A Biography and Norma Shearer: A Life, cover the lives and work of two actresses who were well known in their time but who have since almost lost their places in film history. Alla Nazimova was a Russian immigrant who did her best work on the stage, and Shearer, while one of the biggest stars of her era, stopped working in movies in the early 1940s. In a People review of Norma Shearer, Leah Rozen wrote: "Lambert, blending thorough research with able prose, gives Norma her due without overstating her talent, or intellectual or emotional depth." New York Times Book Review correspondent Arthur Lubow called Nazimova "a gracefully written, highly entertaining, surprisingly poignant biography" in which Lambert is able to "evoke the thrill that her audiences felt."

Mainly about Lindsay Anderson is a combination biography-memoir in which Lambert muses about his relationship with the brilliant British director Lindsay Anderson. Close friends in their teens in England, Lambert and Anderson pursued different paths in the theater and film industry, with Lambert moving to California and Anderson staying in England. According to Stanley Kauffmann in the New York Times Book Review, "from his long friendship and from Anderson's extensive diaries, Lambert is able to paint a full portrait of his friend, even though he spent his own life out of England." Booklist contributor Ray Olson noted of the work: "Anderson is fascinating, and Lambert describes his work with the keen insight of a fine critic." A Publishers Weekly reviewer likewise found the work a "thoughtful meditation on art, politics and sexuality" that "deftly elucidates Anderson's troubled … life." Kauffmann observed that Lambert "writes a fluent, wry, purring prose," and the critic concluded that Mainly about Lindsay Anderson is a "candid yet affectionate book."

Lambert served as editor and author of the foreword and afterword for The Ivan Moffat File: Life among the Beautiful and Damned in London, Paris, New York, and Hollywood. The book contains "curious and evocative fragments of autobiography by boulevardier and screenwriter Moffat, gathered and embellished by Lambert," remarked a Kirkus Reviews critic. Moffatt was a "sophisticate, socialite, and appreciator of beautiful women" whose life as a bon vivant in Hollywood "is arguably more fascinating than his filmography," observed a Publishers Weekly reviewer. The son of renowned actress Iris Tree and the grandson of prominent actor Sir Robert Beerbohm, Moffatt remained true to his own Hollywood roots and carved out his own personal and professional life there. His own work includes such films as They Came to Cordura, Shane, and Tender Is the Night, all critically praised but also considered to be flawed. Moffat also wrote the movie that cemented James Dean's image as a cinema icon, Giant. Moffat was known as a womanizer who lived in luxury, and his account reveals that he had as much of both as he could manage. But Moffatt also lived many years in the wan glow of fading glory, constantly near financial ruin, but maintaining the facade of elegance and gregariousness that had served him his entire life. Lambert "matches Moffat's beautiful, polished style with his own chapters, penned after Moffat's death," noted the Publishers Weekly reviewer.

Once again turning to biography, Lambert wrote Natalie Wood: A Life, "a sympathetic telling of the short and often unhappy life of actress Wood," noted Library Journal reviewer Nann Blaine Hilyard. Lambert was also a personal friend of Wood and her husband, Robert Wagner, who urged Lambert to write the biography. Lambert covers Wood's early childhood, her dominating mother, her intermittently abusive father, the origins of many of the actress's fears and insecurities, and her rise to stardom. He covers the time period in which Wood worked in film, including the political climate and the other film notables Wood counted as friends and business associates. He also closely examines Wood's death by drowning, and attempts to dispel long-time speculation that the actress was the victim of foul play. Lambert's "riveting biography of Natalie Wood is sure to surprise and enlighten even veteran industry insiders as well as neophytes, film buffs and social anthropologists," commented reviewer Beatrice Williams-Rude in Variety. "It's an honest, meticulously researched work."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Advocate, June 10, 1997, review of Nazimova: A Biography, p. 77.

Artforum International, January, 2001, "Gary Indiana," review of Mainly about Lindsay Anderson, p. 30.

Back Stage, July 22, 1983, George L. George, review of Running Time, p. 18.

Booklist, April 15, 1997, Jack Helbig, review of Nazimova: A Biography, p. 1374; September 15, 2000, Ray Olson, review of Mainly about Lindsay Anderson, p. 201; June 1, 2001, Ray Olson, review of Mainly about Lindsay Anderson, p. 1815; December 15, 2003, Ray Olson, review of Natalie Wood: A Life, p. 718.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, October, 1997, review of Nazimova: A Biography, p. 308.

Christian Science Monitor, August 3, 1990, Nat Segaloff, review of Norma Shearer: A Life, p. 10.

Cineaste, winter, 2002, review of Mainly about Lindsay Anderson, p. 60.

Film Quarterly, summer, 1973; spring, 2002, Linda A Robinson, review of Mainly about Lindsay Anderson, p. 65.

Films in Review, January, 1992, review of Norma Shearer: A Life, p. 61.

Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2000, review of Mainly about Lindsay Anderson, p. 1169; November 15, 2003, review of Natalie Wood: A Life, p. 1352; August 15, 2004, review of The Ivan Moffat File, p. 791.

Library Journal, February 15, 1983, review of Running Time, p. 412; April 1, 1990, John Smothers, review of Norma Shearer: A Life, p. 117; November 15, 1996, review of Inside Daisy Clover, p. 93; April 15, 1998, Michael Rogers, review of The Slide Area, p. 120; August, 2000, Neal Baker, review of Mainly about Lindsay Anderson, p. 107; January, 2004, Rosellen Brewer, review of Natalie Wood: A Life, p. 116; July, 2004, Nann Blaine Hilyard, review of Natalie Wood: A Life, p. 126.

Los Angeles Times, August 7, 1983, Elaine Kendall, review of Running Time, p. 10; August 5, 1997, Mary Susan Herczog, "Sunset Blvd.," review of Nazimova: A Biography, p. E1; December 14, 1997, Eric Lax, review of Nazimova: A Biography, p. 12.

New Republic, November 20, 2000, David Thomson, "Fool Britannia," review of Mainly about Lindsay Anderson, p. 38.

New York, November 21, 1988, John Leonard, television review of the Closed Set, p. 128; October 2, 1989, John Leonard, television review of Sweet Bird of Youth, p. 76.

New Yorker, April 25, 1983, review of Running Time, p. 153; August 11, 1997, review of Nazimova: A Biography, p. 79; April 25, 1983, review of Running Time, p. 153.

New York Review of Books, January 15, 2004, John Gregory Dunne, "Star!," review of Natalie Wood: A Life, p. 35.

New York Times, May 1, 1983, Elisabeth Jakab, review of Running Time, p. 14; June 12, 1983, review of Running Time, p. 37; October 8, 1988, John J. O'Connor, film review of Liberace: Behind the Music, p. 52; July 30, 1989, Stephen Farber, television review of Sweet Bird of Youth, p. H27; June 17, 1991, John J. O'Connor, television review of Dead on the Money, p. C14.

New York Times Book Review, May 1, 1983, Elisabeth Jakab, review of Running Time, p. 14; June 12, 1983, review of Running Time, p. 37; April 27, 1997, Arthur Lubow, "Sunset Boulevard," review of Nazimova: A Biography, p. 12; November 12, 2000, Stanley Kauffmann, "Angry Young Man: The Life of the British Director Lindsay Anderson as Seen by an Old Friend," p. 9; December 3, 2000, review of Mainly about Lindsay Anderson, p. 80; January 18, 2004, Stephanie Zacharek, "A Star is Born," review of Natalie Wood: A Life, p. 8.

Opera News, January 3, 1998, F. Robert Schwartz, review of Dear Paul, Dear Ned: The Correspondence of Paul Bowles and Ned Rorem, p. 50.

People, June 25, 1990, Leah Rozen, review of Norma Shearer: A Life, p. 29; January 19, 2004, Arion Berger, review of Natalie Wood: A Life, p. 46.

Publishers Weekly, January 21, 1983, review of Running Time, p. 70; April 6, 1990, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Norma Shearer: A Life, p. 108; February 24, 1997, review of Nazimova: A Biography, p. 72; July 3, 2000, review of Mainly about Lindsay Anderson, p. 56; December 8, 2003, review of Natalie Wood: A Life, p. 57; August 23, 2004, review of The Ivan Moffat File, p. 44.

Sight and Sound, October, 2002, John Wrathall, interview with Gavin Lambert, p. 12.

Spectator, June 28, 1978; May 27, 2000, Helen Osborne, review of Mainly about Lindsay Anderson, p. 36; November 18, 2000, review of Mainly about Lindsay Anderson, p. 53.

Times Higher Education Supplement, June 16, 2000, Mamoun Hassan, review of Mainly about Lindsay Anderson, p. 22.

Times Literary Supplement, June 30, 2000, Patrick O'Connor, review of Mainly about Lindsay Anderson, p. 21; July 2, 2004, Philip French, "Splendour on the Screen: Child Stardom, Adult Glamour, a Mysterious Accident: The Troubled Life and Death of Natalie Wood," p. 16.

Variety, October 19, 1988, film review of Liberace: Behind the Music, p. 496; November 23, 1988, television review of The Closed Set, p. 90B; October 25, 1989, television review of Sweet Bird of Youth, p. 65; June 20, 1990, review of Norma Shearer: A Life, p. 75; September 11, 2000, Jonathan Bing, review of Mainly about Lindsay Anderson, p. 30; February 9, 2004, Beatrice Williams-Rude, review of Natalie Wood: A Life, p. 95.

Video Business, November 20, 2000, Samantha Clark, "A Book of a Legend," review of On Cukor, p. 24.

Vogue, June, 1983, Leo Lerman, review of Running Time, p. 51.

Women's Review of Books, September, 1997, Susan Manning, review of Nazimova: A Biography, p. 6.

ONLINE

Beatrice, http://www.beatrice.com/ (November 10, 2005), Ron Hogan, two interviews with Gavin Lambert.

Books Unlimited, http://www.booksunlimited.co.uk/ (May 20, 2000), Brian Cox, review of Mainly about Lindsay Anderson.

Internet Movie Database Web site, http://www.imdb.com/ (October 31, 2005), biography of Gavin Lambert.

OBITUARIES:

PERIODICALS

Advocate, August 30, 2005, p. 30.

Daily Variety, July 25, 2005, p. 11.

Hollywood Reporter, July 19, 2005, Gregg Kilday, "Clover Author Lambert Dies," p. 8.

New York Times, July 19, 2005, Sharon Waxman, "Gavin Lambert, 80, Writer Who Chronicled Hollywood Life," p. B7.

Time, "Milestones," p. 19.

Time Canada, "Milestones," p. 9.

Variety, July 25, 2005, p. 55.