SAL MINEO His Life, Murder, and Mystery

Author: Jeffers (H. Paul)
Year: 2002
Publisher: Carroll & Graf (New York)
Edition Details: 1st US p/b Edn. (1st pub. h/b 2000)
Book Condition: F.
ISBN: 9780786710126
Price: £5.00
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Softcover. The first full-length biography of the movie star who refused to live by Hollywood's rules and the true-crime story behind his untimely death. From the Bronx to Broadway to Hollywood, from street crimes to stage plays to movie stardom, Sal Mineo grew up tough and moved fast. He was only 16 when he received his first Oscar nomination, for his portrayal of Plato, the soulful teenager in the 1955 James Dean film 'Rebel Without a Cause', and in 1961 his performance in 'Exodus' won him a second. Yet, by the end of the decade, at 30, he was a movie has-been. The 1950s made Mineo famous. Often cast as a troubled young delinquent, roles that saddled him with the nickname Switchblade Kid, Mineo on screen brought a romantic aura to danger, and his dreamy-eyed, baby-face good looks quickened the heartbeat of teenage girls across America. While Mineo's talents far exceeded the limits of studio typecasting, his attempts throughout the sixties to redefine his movie persona failed, as the author shows in this biography. With care and caring, the author's volume tracks the dramatic ups and troubled downs of the career that eventually, in 1969, took Mineo back to the theatre, as the director of the prison play 'Fortune and Men's Eyes'. It recounts, too, how the screen idol of the fifties strove to come to terms with his homosexuality, ultimately to declare himself an "erotic politician," and compellingly it reconstructs the circumstances that surrounded Mineo's mysterious and shocking death, at the age of 37, by a stab wound to the chest. Illus., Sal Mineo's Credits (Feature Films, Television, Theatre, Awards), + Index. 239pp. trade size softcover. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. F. with no creasing to covers.

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