Anne Edwards (born August 20, 1927) is an American writer best known for her biographies of celebrities that include
Princess Diana
Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997) was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and mother of Princes William and Harry. Her ac ...
,
Maria Callas
Maria Callas . (born Sophie Cecilia Kalos; December 2, 1923 – September 16, 1977) was an American-born Greek soprano who was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century. Many critics praised her ''bel cant ...
,
Judy Garland
Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922June 22, 1969) was an American actress and singer. While critically acclaimed for many different roles throughout her career, she is widely known for playing the part of Dorothy Gale in '' The ...
,
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress in film, stage, and television. Her career as a Hollywood leading lady spanned over 60 years. She was known for her headstrong independence, spirited perso ...
,
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh ( ; 5 November 1913 – 8 July 1967; born Vivian Mary Hartley), styled as Lady Olivier after 1947, was a British actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, for her definitive performances as Scarlett O'Hara in ''Gon ...
,
Margaret Mitchell
Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American novelist and journalist. Mitchell wrote only one novel, published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel '' Gone with the Wind'', for which she wo ...
,
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
,
Barbra Streisand
Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand (; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment, and is among the few performers List ...
,
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black (born Shirley Jane Temple;While Temple occasionally used "Jane" as a middle name, her birth certificate reads "Shirley Temple". Her birth certificate was altered to prolong her babyhood shortly after she signed with Fox in ...
and
Countess Sonya Tolstoy.
Life and career
She attended
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
and
SMU.
A child performer on stage and radio, she began her writing career as a junior writer at
MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
in 1944 and became a noted Hollywood screenwriter and television writer during the late 1940s and early 1950s.
She lived in the UK and Europe from the mid-1950s until 1972.
After returning to the United States in 1973, she lived in Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut before returning to Beverly Hills, California, where she currently resides.
Her film credits include co-writing the first draft of the screenplay for the film ''
Funny Girl'' (1968)
starring
Barbra Streisand
Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand (; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment, and is among the few performers List ...
. She wrote her first novel, the best-selling ''The Survivors'', in 1968 and subsequently (as of 2015) has written eight novels, sixteen biographies, three children's books, two memoirs (one with her late husband—composer-musicologist-pianist
Stephen Citron
Stephen Citron (1924-2013) was a graduate of the Juilliard School and a writer of songs performed by the likes of Liza Minnelli, Dory Previn, and Édith Piaf. He was married to the writer and fellow avid amateur cook, Anne Edwards.
He has writ ...
) and an autobiography.
She is a past president of the
Authors Guild
The Authors Guild is America's oldest and largest professional organization for writers and provides advocacy on issues of free expression and copyright protection. Since its founding in 1912 as the Authors League of America, it has counted among ...
and currently serves on its board of directors.
Her collection of literary manuscripts, papers, and related materials is now part of the Special Collections Department of the
Charles E. Young Research Library
The Charles E. Young Research Library is one of the largest libraries on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles in Westwood, Los Angeles, California. It initially opened in 1964, and a second phase of construction was completed ...
at
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
, where she has taught writing.
In the mid-1970s, Edwards was hired by the Zanuck-Brown Company to write a story that could be adapted as a film sequel to
Gone with the Wind. She produced a meticulously researched novel, which in the end was not used for the sequel and was itself never published. It was through working on this novel that she decided to write her biography of Margaret Mitchell.
[ ]
In an interview for ''
Publishers Weekly
''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...
'', Edwards said, "An idea hits me, then I develop the story or, in the case of a biography, think of a person who exemplifies that theme. Vivien
eigh Judy
arlandand Sonya
olstoywere vastly interesting people and symbolic of certain things: Judy, the exploitation of a woman; Vivien, somebody who suffered from manic-depression; Sonya, an intelligent woman subjugated to a man who used her, drained her, made a villain of her."
Bibliography
Biographies
* ''Judy Garland: A Biography'' (
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...
, 1975)
* ''Vivien Leigh: A Biography'' (Simon & Schuster, 1977)
* ''Sonya: The Life of Countess Tolstoy'' (Simon & Schuster, 1981)
* ''Road to Tara: Life of Margaret Mitchell'' (
Hodder & Stoughton
Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint (trade name), imprint of Hachette (publisher), Hachette.
History
Early history
The firm has its origins in the 1840s, with Matthew Hodder's employment, aged 14, with Messrs ...
, 1983)
* ''Matriarch: Queen Mary and the House of Windsor'' (
William Morrow and Company
William Morrow and Company is an American publishing company founded by William Morrow in 1926. The company was acquired by Scott Foresman in 1967, sold to Hearst Corporation in 1981, and sold to News Corporation
News Corporation (abbrev ...
, 1984)
* ''A Remarkable Woman: A Biography of Katharine Hepburn'' (Morrow, 1985)
* ''The DeMilles: An American Family'' (
Harry N. Abrams
Abrams, formerly Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (HNA), is an American publisher of art and illustrated books, children's books, and stationery.
The enterprise is a subsidiary of the French publisher La Martinière Groupe. Run by President and CEO Michael ...
, 1988)
* ''Shirley Temple: American Princess'' (Morrow, 1988)
* ''Early Reagan: The Rise to Power'' (Morrow, 1990)
* ''Royal Sisters: Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret'' (Morrow, 1990)
* ''The Grimaldis of Monaco: Centuries of Scandal/Years of Grace (Morrow, 1992)
* ''Throne of Gold: The Lives of the Aga Khans'' (Morrow, 1995)
* ''Streisand: A Biography'' (Little, Brown, 1997)
* " Diana: The Life She Led " (
St. Martin's Press
St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in Manhattan, New York City, in the Equitable Building. St. Martin's Press is considered one of the largest English-language publishers, bringing to the public some 700 titles a year under si ...
, 1999)
* ''Maria Callas: An Intimate Biography'' (St. Martin's Press, 2001)
* ''The Reagans: Portrait of a Marriage'' (St. Martin's Press, 2003)
Novels
* ''The Survivors'' (
Holt Rinehart Winston, 1968)
* ''Miklos Alexandrovitch Is Missing'' (Coward-McCann, 1970)
* ''Shadow Of A Lion'' (Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1971)
* ''Haunted Summer'' (
Bantam Books
Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by parent company Random House, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. ...
, 1974)
* ''The Hesitant Heart'' (Random House, 1974)
* ''Child of Night'' (Random House, 1975)
* ''Wallis: The Novel'' (Morrow, 1991)
* ''La Divina'' (
Mandarin Publishing
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
, 1996)
Autobiography
* ''The Inn and Us'' (Random House, 1976), co-authored with husband Stephen Citron
* "Scarlett and Me" (The Marietta Gone with the Wind Museum, 2011)
* ''Leaving Home'' (Scarecrow Press, 2012)
Children's books
* ''P. T. Barnum'' (
Putnam, 1977)
* ''The Great Houdini'' (Putnam, 1977)
* ''A Child's Bible'' (Topeka Bindery, 1987), co-authored with Shirley Steen
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Edwards, Anne
1927 births
American children's writers
20th-century American novelists
American women screenwriters
Novelists from New York (state)
Living people
People from Port Chester, New York
American women children's writers
American women novelists
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American women writers
University of California, Los Angeles alumni
Southern Methodist University alumni
American women television writers
American television writers
20th-century American biographers
21st-century American biographers
American women biographers
Screenwriters from New York (state)
Historians from New York (state)