Review
José Ferrer: Success and Survival is a well-researched book that illuminates much about Ferrer’s life and legacy. -- Annette Bochenek ― Hometowns to Hollywood
No one else has examined Ferrer’s career with such close attention, judiciously praising his successes and explaining his failures. Peros has recovered a great personality and artist. This biography comes at a welcome time when we need precisely this story about a man who remained faithful to his roots and made a success of himself in mainstream American culture. -- Carl Rollyson, author of many biographies including A Real American Character: The Life of Walter Brennan; Hollywood Enigma: Dana Andrews; and Marilyn Monroe: A Life of the Actress, Revised and Updated
Mike Peros’s José Ferrer: Success and Survival explores the brilliant, mercurial, and protean actor and director with astonishing honesty, clarity, and attention to detail. Based upon careful scholarship, new sources, and a love for his subject, Peros unmasks the many facets of Ferrer’s uncanny rise in American theater and film, doing great tribute to Ferrer’s Puerto Rican roots while celebrating a great American actor. Unique in his ability to adapt to the landscape of American theater and film, Ferrer’s personal story―particularly his stormy relationships with stars such as Uta Hagen, Paul Robeson, Rosemary Clooney, Margaret Webster, and others and the challenges arising from his blacklisting in the 1950s―makes this book an enormously satisfying read. For those who don’t know Ferrer’s work, Peros’s masterful storytelling inspires his readers to seek out Ferrer’s brilliant and iconic roles in film such as Cyrano de Bergerac, Toulouse-Lautrec in Moulin Rouge, and Barney Greenwald in The Caine Mutiny, as well as his memorable turns as a director of films such as The Shrike and plays such as The Fourposter and Stalag 17. In an age when performers of color are just now finding more representation on the stage and in film, Peros’s biography provides insight into Ferrer’s success and, yes, survival as the first major Latinx theatrical and film star in the US―this book should be on the reading list of scholars entering the field. -- David A. Crespy, professor of playwriting, acting, dramatic literature, and theater history, University of Missouri
Review
Mike Peros’s José Ferrer: Success and Survival explores the brilliant, mercurial, and protean actor and director with astonishing honesty, clarity, and attention to detail. Based upon careful scholarship, new sources, and a love for his subject, Peros unmasks the many facets of Ferrer’s uncanny rise in American theater and film, doing great tribute to Ferrer’s Puerto Rican roots while celebrating a great American actor. Unique in his ability to adapt to the landscape of American theater and film, Ferrer’s personal story―particularly his stormy relationships with stars such as Uta Hagen, Paul Robeson, Rosemary Clooney, Margaret Webster, and others and the challenges arising from his blacklisting in the 1950s―makes this book an enormously satisfying read. For those who don’t know Ferrer’s work, Peros’s masterful storytelling inspires his readers to seek out Ferrer’s brilliant and iconic roles in film such as Cyrano de Bergerac, Toulouse-Lautrec in Moulin Rouge, and Barney Greenwald in The Caine Mutiny, as well as his memorable turns as a director of films such as The Shrike and plays such as The Fourposter and Stalag 17. In an age when performers of color are just now finding more representation on the stage and in film, Peros’s biography provides insight into Ferrer’s success and, yes, survival as the first major Latinx theatrical and film star in the US―this book should be on the reading list of scholars entering the field. -- David A. Crespy, professor of playwriting, acting, dramatic literature, and theater history, University of Missouri
Book Description
No one else has examined Ferrer’s career with such close attention, judiciously praising his successes and explaining his failures. Peros has recovered a great personality and artist. This biography comes at a welcome time when we need precisely this story about a man who remained faithful to his roots and made a success of himself in mainstream American culture. (Carl Rollyson, author of many biographies including A Real American Character: The Life of Walter Brennan; Hollywood Enigma: Dana Andrews; and Marilyn Monroe: A Life of the Actress, Revised and Updated)
Mike Peros’s José Ferrer: Success and Survival explores the brilliant, mercurial, and protean actor and director with astonishing honesty, clarity, and attention to detail. Based upon careful scholarship, new sources, and a love for his subject, Peros unmasks the many facets of Ferrer’s uncanny rise in American theater and film, doing great tribute to Ferrer’s Puerto Rican roots while celebrating a great American actor. Unique in his ability to adapt to the landscape of American theater and film, Ferrer’s personal story―particularly his stormy relationships with stars such as Uta Hagen, Paul Robeson, Rosemary Clooney, Margaret Webster, and others and the challenges arising from his blacklisting in the 1950s―makes this book an enormously satisfying read. For those who don’t know Ferrer’s work, Peros’s masterful storytelling inspires his readers to seek out Ferrer’s brilliant and iconic roles in film such as Cyrano de Bergerac, Toulouse-Lautrec in Moulin Rouge, and Barney Greenwald in The Caine Mutiny, as well as his memorable turns as a director of films such as The Shrike and plays such as The Fourposter and Stalag 17. In an age when performers of color are just now finding more representation on the stage and in film, Peros’s biography provides insight into Ferrer’s success and, yes, survival as the first major Latinx theatrical and film star in the US―this book should be on the reading list of scholars entering the field. (David A. Crespy, professor of playwriting, acting, dramatic literature, and theater history, University of Missouri)
About the Author
Mike Peros chairs the English Department at Bishop Loughlin High School in Brooklyn, New York. He is author of Dan Duryea: Heel with a Heart and José Ferrer: Success and Survival, both published by University Press of Mississippi. He also reviews films for NoHoartsdistrict.com.
