Overview

Oscar Micheaux was the Jackie Robinson of film, the black D. W. Griffith-a bigger-than-life American folk hero whose important life story has been nearly forgotten today. The son of freed slaves, he roamed America as a Pullman porter before making his first mark as a homesteader in South Dakota-and going on from there to become the king of the ""race cinema"" industry, producing and/or directing nearly forty films during a time of Jim Crow segregation when African-American artists were not welcome in Hollywood. In this groundbreaking new biography, award-winning film historian Patrick McGilligan offers a vivid and fascinating portrait of a true pioneer of American culture who was equal parts visionary, hustler, huckster, innovator, and raffish Barnum-like showman-and the first great African-American filmmaker.

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9780060731403

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Reviews

McGilligan has made this incredible, half-forgotten life newly available to us all. -- The Guardian

In the skilled hands of Patrick McGilligan, Oscar Micheaux s life story bristles and takes flight. --Pearl Bowser, author of Writing Himself into History: Oscar Micheaux, His Silent Films and His Audiences

Praise for Alfred Hitchcock: ""Staggering... illuminating... The Master of Suspense finally gets and authoritative life."" - Kirkus Reviews (starred) Praise for Alfred Hitchcock: ""Enthralling, scholarly, and candid."" - Publishers Weekly Praise for Alfred Hitchcock: ""Magnificently exhaustive, absolutely definitive, marvelously magesterial..."" - Los Angeles Times Book Review Praise for Alfred Hitchcock: ""A hugely satisfying portrait of the artist."" - Entertainment Weekly ""McGilligan deftly assembles the sterling research of scholars of early black filmmaking into an enormously moving and compelling account of a quixotic life defined by arduous toil and perpetual optimism."" - DGA Quarterly ""a lively, readable tale"" - New York Times Book Review ""Comprehensive . . . this pioneering filmmaker . . . has finally been honored by a biography that does justice to his provocative and indispensable work."" - New York Sun ""An enormously moving and compelling account of a quixotic life defined by arduous toil and perpetual optimism."" - Directors Guild Association Quarterly ""McGilligan has made this incredible, half-forgotten life newly available to us all."" - The Guardian McGilligan does a fine job of reaffirming Micheaux's significance beyond the appreciation of cineastes. - Publishers Weekly ""a well researched, passionately felt and endlessly fascinating look at a singular American life."" - Kirkus Reviews ""In the skilled hands of Patrick McGilligan, Oscar Micheaux's life story bristles and takes flight."" - Pearl Bowser, author of Writing Himself into History: Oscar Micheaux, His Silent Films and His Audiences

Author Information

Patrick McGilligan is the author of Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light; Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast; George Cukor: A Double Life; the life stories of the directors Nicholas Ray, Robert Altman, and Oscar Micheaux; and the biographies of the actors James Cagney, Jack Nicholson, and Clint Eastwood. He also edited the five-volume Backstory series of interviews with Hollywood screenwriters and (with Paul Buhle) Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist. He lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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