Who would have expected the juiciest Hollywood biography of the year to be about a screenwriter? The meticulously researched Ernest Lehman, written by Jon Krampner (Female Brando: The Legend of Kim Stanley), is so delectable that it's impossible to put down. Lehman's top-tier screenplays include North by Northwest, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Sound of Music, West Side Story, The King and I and Hello, Dolly! Even film buffs who have read countless biographies of the directors with whom Lehman collaborated, such as Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder and Mike Nichols, will discover delicious new tales of on-set fights, feuds and firings.
In the 1960s, Lehman was the most bankable screenwriter in Hollywood, but he was seldom happy on set or at home. His wife of 50 years called him "a psychosomatic invalid" and openly engaged in an affair with another man for nearly a decade. Lehman was a hypochondriac who withheld affection to his troubled son and increased tensions on movie sets because of his paranoia and insecurities. The chapter on Portnoy's Complaint, the sole movie Lehman both directed and scripted, is a jaw-dropping compilation of instances of an oversized ego and constant directorial missteps. Five decades later, the film's leading man, Richard Benjamin, refused to be interviewed. Costar Lee Grant succinctly describes Lehman's directorial style as "a cross between Cecil B. DeMille and Caligula."
Krampner's access to the 400-page journal Lehman kept while making Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? unearths a mother lode of infighting and bad behavior. (Ironically, stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton come off best.) This is a superbly written, flat-out boffo Hollywood tell-all. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant