He Ran All The Way (The Life of John Garfield)

He Ran All the Way (The Life of John Garfield). Limelight. Hardcover. 354 pages. Limelight Editions #0879109858. Published by Limelight Editions.

This definitive biography, superbly reseached and compellingly written about the original film rebel, is as exciting as the best of Garfield's films. In a sense, Garfield never left the Bronx, but he began his acting career not far away, on Broadway as a member of the Group Theater in the mid-thirties. But soon, seduced by the myth of Hollywood and the reality of Warner Brothers, he made his movie debut, in 1938, in Four Daughters and immediately established himself as an earthy, rebellious and electrifying presence on the screen – in retrospect the James Dean of the Depression era. Frequenty cast as a lawbreaker, in such films as They Made Me a Criminal, Dust Be My Destiny, Castle on the Hudson and, late in his career, the cult favorite Force of Evil, Garfield went on to roles in classics like The Postman Always Rings Twice (with Lana Turner), Body and Soul and Gentleman's Agreement.