Description

One of the most original and unsettling filmmakers of all time the
creator of the horror classicsDraculaandFreaks among others Tod Browning is also one of the most enigmatic directors who ever worked in HollywoodA complicated troubled and fiercely private man he confounded wouldbe biographers hoping to penetrate his secret obsessive world both during his lifetime and afterward

Now film historians David J Skal and Elias Savada using newly discoveredfamily documents and revealing published interviews with friends and colleagues join forces for the first fulllength biography of the man who earned a reputation as the Edgar Allan Poe of the cinemaThe authors
chronicle Brownings turnofthecentury flight from an eccentric Louisville family into the world of carnival sideshows where he began his career literally buried alive and vaudeville his disastrous first marriage his rapid climb to riches in the burgeoning silent film industry and the alcoholism that would plague him throughout his lifeBrownings legendary collaborations with Lon Chaney Sr and Bela Dracula Lugosi are explored in depth along with the studio politics that ended his career after the bizarre circus dramaFreaks a cult classic today proved to be one of the biggest boxoffice disasters of the early thirties