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Rating: 
Summary: Very well done.
Review: I really enjoyed this biography by Sheridan Morley on James Mason. It is really good, and tells much about his life, but more about his career. It's a very good read though, and you will learn about him from it. It's well written and really is an interesting read for any fan of James Mason.
Rating:
Summary: Very well done.
Review: I really enjoyed this biography by Sheridan Morley on James Mason. It is really good, and tells much about his life, but more about his career. It's a very good read though, and you will learn about him from it. It's well written and really is an interesting read for any fan of James Mason.
Rating: 
Summary: More on his private life, please
Review: This is a reasonably good, though dry, effort at examining the life of the mellifluous-voiced British actor, James Mason. The book is paced well and there is a fair amount of information on most of his movies. However, there is a lack of information on Mason's personal life, especially regarding his unusual first marriage to the ascerbic Pamela Mason. Though Pamela Mason was a loud-mouthed and shrewish adulteress, she was also extremely witty and interesting in her own right. Anyone who recalls her appearences on L.A. TV shows from the 60's and 70's will still chuckle at her endless tirades, usually ending with the predictable sentence, "James was so dull." This book actually provides convincing evidence that James *was* boring. Mason comes off as depressed, rigid, indecisive and inrodinately unhappy. He makes many poor choices and instead of getting over them and getting on with his life, he broods about the negative consequences of his actions. For example, he moves to Hollywood and instantly detests California and American life, yet he inexplicably continues to live in the States for another 15 years. Hello, James... what was the problem? It is never explained why James stayed with Pamela for so many years, even when he was miserable in her presence and unhappy living in America. When he finally does divorce her, he ends up shilling out millions in alimony and making a succession of wretched movies in order to pay off Pamela. Ultimately, the real tragedy is that a man as intelligent, urbane and handsome as James Mason (not to mention his stupendous voice!) handled his career in such a haphazard way. He was a marvelous screen actor, but wasted his talent in many potboilers. This book doesn't really explain these poor choices and doesn't reveal enough about Mason's private life.
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