Oona, Living in the Shadows A Biography of Oona O'Neill Chaplin

Warner Books. Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 1998. Hardcover. 0446517305 . Very minor shelf wear on DJ, otherwise clean. ; 1.25 x 9.75 x 6.5 Inches; Her father, the only American playwright to receive a Nobel Prize, was a chronic alcoholic. When she was a child, her father deserted her; when she turned 18, he disinherited her. Her older half-brother, a Pulitzer Prize-winning classical scholar, and her younger brother, a drug addict, each committed suicide. A product of New York society, she was accepted at Vassar, but chose instead to seek an acting career in Hollywood. There she met her future;and only; husband. He was the comic genius of motion pictures and 36 years her senior. She was America's darling. Why did she give up everything to marry a much older man? Did she stifle herself? Were her children good to her? Were there other men? And, most crucial, how did she escape the family curse of alcoholism and mental illness? This in-depth biography sheds light on a truly fascinating woman and the many extraordinary people whose lives touched upon hers.Other books about fascinating women in the public eye have sold well, most notably Life of the Party (Little, Brown, 1994), which has more than 100,000 hardcover and over 150,000 paperback (Warner, 1995) copies in print, and the New York Times bestseller, Slim (Warner, 1990).Five years of research went into the writing of the first major biography of Oona Chaplin, including interviews with some of Oona's closest friends and colleagues. Includes two 8-page photo inserts. .