William J. Mann
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William J. Mann is an American novelist, biographer, and Hollywood historian best known for his biography of Katharine Hepburn, Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn (2006). Kate was declared the "definitive" work about Hepburn by The Sunday Times and was named one of the 100 Notable Books of 2006 by The New York Times.
Mann was born in Connecticut and, after working briefly as a Capitol Hill aide, received his Master's degree at Wesleyan University. He worked as a journalist at Metroline magazine from 1992 to 1995. Mann published his first novel, The Men From the Boys, in 1997, and continued with a series of books featuring the same characters, including 2003's Where the Boys Are and 2007's Men Who Love Men. In addition, Mann has written the widely praised Wisecracker, a biography of film star William Haines, for which he won the Lambda Literary Award; Edge of Midnight: The Life of John Schlesinger; and Behind the Scenes: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood.
In November 2006, Publisher's Marketplace reported that Mann's next biography, How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood, would be published by Henry Holt and Company on September 1, 2009. His next novel, Object of Desire, is also slated for a 2009 release. [1]
Mann lives in Palm Springs, California, and Provincetown, Massachusetts, with his partner, Dr. Timothy Huber.
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[edit] Quotations
"Allowing for the possibility that people have always been multi-faceted human beings with limitless opportunity for experience and identity is the most responsible course for a biographer or historian."
"Many gays and lesbians were publicists during Hollywood’s golden age. It makes sense: gays have experience with telling the truth without telling all of it. It’s actually a fascinating irony that the myth and magic of Hollywood has, in large part, been spun by gays and lesbians themselves."
"I believe that we can get so caught up in misery that we forget to have a good time. Since September 11, it’s been seen as callous or insensitive, and certainly unpatriotic, to have too much fun. Remember all that talk about the death of irony? That’s so ridiculous. Like all the people who died would want us to lose what makes us most human."
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Fiction
- The Men From the Boys (1997)
- Grave Passions: Tales of the Gay Supernatural (1997)
- The Biograph Girl (2000)
- Where the Boys Are (2003)
- All American Boy (2005)
- Men Who Love Men (2007)
- Object of Desire (forthcoming, 2009)
[edit] Non-fiction
- Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines (1998)
- Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood (2001)
- Edge of Midnight: The Life of John Schlesinger (2005)
- Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn (2006)
- How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood (forthcoming, September 2009)
[edit] References
- ^ "Publisher's Lunch Deluxe: Lunch for Friday, November 3, 2006" (fee required). Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
