Book Review: Accidental Star: The Life and Films of Warner Baxter
There is a scene in the 1933 Warner Bros musical 42nd Street where the exhausted producer sits on the stairs of the exit and listens to people walking out raving about the show he worked so hard to produce. Everything about the performance works, from the positioning of his body to the expression on his face, subtly reacting to every sound with discernible nuance. The actor playing that role is Warner Baxter, the subject of a great new book.
Top film history biographer Dan Van Neste has written a mammoth 500-page study of actor Warner Baxter for BearManor Media. It is certainly one of this fine author’s best works.
It is really two books in one. Van Neste covers the actor’s life very completely, and then spends hundreds of pages going film-by-film and discussing the actor’s career. So, along with being a thorough and fascinating biography, it is a complete study of the actor’s work.
So much information about the actor is discussed in detail. His Oscar for the 1928 film In Old Arizona, his being the highest paid actor in 1936, the stresses of hard work, the aging process, and a drinking problem are all carefully covered with intelligence and sensitivity. What I found most interesting is that Baxter was much happier when his stardom was relegated to B movies by the 1940s. He lived very comfortably doing the Crime Doctor series at Columbia, where he only worked around eight weeks per year. The collaborative support he got from his wife, actress Winifred Bryson adds another positive layer to this study.
The biography is fascinating, revealing, and enlightening. And the film-by-film segment of the book reminds us of fine performances in films like John Ford’s Prisoner of Shark Island, Frank Capra’s Broadway Bill, and Tay Garnett’s Slave Ship, among others.
This book is value-packed with information and one of the finest biography/filmography books on any actor. The fact that it was written by someone with the experience, knowledge, and talent of Dan Van Neste makes it indispensable for libraries, research centers, and classic movie fans.
The book can be ordered at this link: BAXTER