"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." This line from
director John Ford's film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance serves as
an epigraph for the life of the legendary filmmaker.
Through a career that spanned decades and included dozens of
films--among them such American masterpieces as The Searchers, The
Grapes of Wrath, The Quiet Man, Stagecoach, and How Green Was My
Valley--John Ford managed to leave as his legacy a body of work that
few filmmakers will ever equal. Yet as bold as the stamp of his
personality was on each film, he was reticent about his personal life.
Basically shy, and intensely private, he was known to enjoy making up
stories about himself, some of them based loosely on fact but many of
them pure fabrications. Ford preferred instead to let his films speak
for him. What mattered to Ford was always what was up there on the
screen.
Now, in this definitive look at the life and career of one of America's
true cinematic giants, noted biographer and critic Scott Eyman, working
with the full participation of the Ford estate, has managed to document
and delineate both aspects of John Ford's life--the human and the
legend.