William J. Mann is a New York Times-bestselling author of many books on Hollywood and the American film industry, including his most recent The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando, for which he was granted access to Brando’s private estate archive, as well as Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn (named a Notable Book of the Year by the Times); Hello Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand (praised by USA Today for its “meticulous research and insightful analysis”; and Edge of Midnight: The Life of John Schlesinger, for which he worked closely with the Oscar-winning director. Mann won the 2014 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood, which reveals how an unsolved murder in 1922 created the American studio system. He’s recently completed Bogie and Bacall: The Surprising True Story of Hollywood’s Greatest Romance, forthcoming from HarperCollins in spring 2023. Mann is also a professor of film and popular culture at Central Connecticut State University. He’s been featured in several documentary films about Hollywood history and has served as a consultant for various television programs. His interest in writing about Hollywood has always been to explore how movies both reflect and shape their times, as well as how the business of filmmaking—the selling of dreams and illusions—can reveal so much about society and ourselves.
Books by William J Mann