The product of a lifetime immersed in the literary, performing arts, and
entertainment worlds, Lives and Letters spotlights the work, careers,
intimate lives, and lasting achievements of a vast array of celebrated
writers and performers in film, theater, and dance, and some of the more
curious iconic public figures of our times.
From the world of literature, Charles Dickens, James Thurber, Judith
Krantz, John Steinbeck, and Rudyard Kipling; the controversies
surrounding Bruno Bettelheim and Elia Kazan; and Marjorie Kinnan
Rawlings and her editor, Maxwell Perkins.
From dance and theater, Isadora Duncan and Margot Fonteyn, Serge
Diaghilev and George Balanchine, Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse.
In Hollywood, Bing Crosby and Judy Garland, Douglas Fairbanks and
Lillian Gish, Tallulah Bankhead and Katharine Hepburn, Mae West and Anna
May Wong.
In New York, Diana Vreeland, the Trumps, and Gottlieb's own take on the
contretemps that followed his replacing William Shawn at The New
Yorker.
And so much more . . .