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.
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.
"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 well researched, passionately felt and endlessly fascinating look at a singular American life." -- Kirkus Reviews
"McGilligan has made this incredible, half-forgotten life newly available to us all." -- The Guardian
"An enormously moving and compelling account of a quixotic life defined by arduous toil and perpetual optimism." -- Directors Guild Association Quarterly
McGilligan does a fine job of reaffirming Micheaux's significance beyond the appreciation of cineastes. -- Publishers Weekly
"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
"a lively, readable tale" -- New York Times Book Review
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