Throughout the 1940s, Zachary Scott (1914-1965) was the model for
sophisticated, debonair villains in American film. His best-known roles
include a mysterious criminal in The Mask of Dimitrios and the indolent
husband in Mildred Pierce. He garnered further acclaim for his portrayal
of villains in Her Kind of Man, Danger Signal, and South of St. Louis.
Although he earned critical praise for his performance as a heroic
tenant farmer in Jean Renoir's The Southerner, Scott never quite escaped
typecasting. In Zachary Scott: Hollywood's Sophisticated Cad, Ronald L.
Davis writes an appealing biography of the film star. Scott grew up in
privileged circumstances-his father was a distinguished physician; his
grandfather was a pioneer cattle baron-and was expected to follow his
father into medical practice. Instead, Scott began to pursue a career in
theater while studying at the University of Texas and subsequently
worked his way on a ship to England to pursue acting. Upon his return to
America, he began to look for work in New York. Excelling on stage and
screen throughout the 1940s, Scott seemed destined for stardom. By the
end of 1950, however, he had suffered through a turbulent divorce. A
rafting accident left him badly shaken and clinically depressed. His
frustration over his roles mounted, and he began to drink heavily. He
remarried and spent the rest of his career concentrating on stage and
television work. Although Scott continued to perform occasionally in
films, he never reclaimed the level of stardom that he had in the
mid-1940s. To reconstruct Scott's life, Davis uses interviews with Scott
and colleagues and reviews, articles, and archival correspondence from
the Scott papers at the University of Texas and from the Warner Brothers
Archives. The result is a portrait of a talented actor who was rarely
allowed to show his versatility on the screen.
