Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 86

On Monday, I made first contact with the Marketing Department over at the University Press of Kentucky. They sent for approval the text they wrote for their Fall Catalog  along with the summary for the book jacket, which included a great pull quote from a Hollywood biographer who I greatly admire.

Receiving the text gave me a jolt and really brought it home that this book I have labored over for more years than I care to think about, is now out of my hands will be out in the world very soon.  It’s exciting, and also bizarre, to see my manuscript being described and interpreted by someone else, but is also proof positive that there is no turning back. What I have written will be the permanent record of Ann Dvorak, (unless it actually sells enough to warrant a revised edition down the line, but I don’t think I’ll count on that).

Fingers crossed that next Biography Progress Report will be a book cover!

Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 79

There’s not too much to report from the University Press of Kentucky, other than everything is going along smoothly and they’ve assured me that the book is going to be wonderful. I have started filling out their marketing questionnaire which asks for appropriate publications, websites, blogs, or other media outlets who might be called upon to promote the book.

First and foremost, I have contacts at Turner Classic Movies, so that angle is covered. I also know people at the LA Times, New Yorker, and Los Angeles Magazine who I hope will be interested. I figure there are a few die-hard Ann fans who are aware the book is coming out along with pre-Code fanatics who will catch wind pretty quick and be interested. The way I see it, there are two target audiences I have to market to; the classic film fan who is interested in cinema history, but maybe not obsessed like yours truly and probably many of you who regularly visit this site, and the person who is interested in film and celebrities in a very general way and will read a biography that sounds interesting, even if they are not familiar with the subject.

My goal with the Ann Dvorak book was to present the life and career of an actress working within the confines of the studio system, but to also include an overall view of Hollywood at the time so as not to alienate readers who may not be well-versed in the history of the industry. At the same time, I wanted to give this overview without detracting from Ann’s story or boring people who already have that knowledge going in. I hope I have accomplished this task of presenting Ann’s story in a way that is accessible to the casual film fan. This is where the clever marketing comes in.

This may be pie in the sky, but I am hoping to get some of the more mainstream publications interested in her story. Vanity Fair seems to love stories on old-timey Hollywood. I don’t have any ins there, but hopefully the publisher will. Maybe a title like Better Homes & Gardens would be interested in the story of her San Fernando Valley ranch house which is still around and where I got married? This is a little less mainstream, but perhaps World War II would want to do something about her service in England, which turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the book. Hopefully, the Honolulu Star Bulletin will want to run something on their adopted daughter who spent the last 20 years of her life on the islands.

What about the blogs? I have a couple in mind, but have been so caught up in writing the book that I have not kept up with what the popular film blogs are.

So, dear Ann devotees, I now call upon you to help me figure out how to get her story out there! If you can think of any magazines, newspapers, blog, websites who might be interested in the story of Ann Dvorak, please let me know, and thanks in advance!

Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 65

I don’t have a whole lot of news to report on the Ann Dvorak book, but there are a couple of items. First, the book is definitely on the roster for Fall 2013, so we will be seeing it this year! The Fall catalog should be coming out sometime in the Spring, so we should have a book cover soon. I sent in a few portraits for Kentucky Press’ designers to choose from, so I am excited to see how it turns out.

Secondly, the title is indeed going to be Ann Dvorak: Hollywood’s Forgotten Rebel. For some reason, I wasn’t sure they were going to keep it, but they thought it a good enough hook, plus it sums up Ann perfectly, and I agree! Since Hollywood’s Forgotten Rebel  has been the title of this website since 2007, I guess it makes sense to go with it and now that I know it’s the book’s title, I like it even more.

That’s it for now. Hopefully, I will have a firm release date soon. I will also be calling on all of you loyal Dvorak devotees for marketing suggestions. Ann-D may be better know now than she was when I first discovered her in 1995, but it’s still going to take a lot of work to convince people they want to read an entire book about her!

Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 40

With great pleasure, I am happy to report that the final manuscript of the Ann Dvorak biography has been completed and sent off to the University Press of Kentucky for publication!

I have to admit, I am proud of how it turned out, especially considering that Ann did not leave much of herself behind, besides her film performances. If I can brag for just a moment, the second “Reader” who was employed by Kentucky to asses the manuscript stated, “I must say upfront that this is one of the best-written show-business biographies I have ever read.” Well, that was a huge relief and I hope many others will agree.

Unfortunately, this final submission did not go off without a horrid hitch. Two weeks ago, the niece of Ann’s third husband, Nick Wade, sent some snapshots of Ann & Nick in Hawaii in the 1970s. The photos were traveling via USPS from Long Beach to North Hollywood, but have yet to arrive. I’m pretty sure Kentucky will let me add them after the fact, IF they show up,  but I really think they’re gone. Just heartbreaking, especially considering I have never seen a photo of Nick. In all the years I have been purchasing photos online, there were two other times that packages got lost and both contained candid Ann photos. I’m cursed!

But, back to the more cheerful news. I have been working on Ann’s story 15 years, and now it’s done. Kind of. There’s still the proofing of copy-edits & galleys, along with indexing (yes, I get to create the index) and a few other steps, so we’re still a ways off, but we’re getting there!

Thanks again to everyone who has stuck with me these many long years. A book on Ann Dvorak is really just around the corner!

At long last, the first draft of the Ann Dvorak biography is complete! I finished it up over the weekend and submitted it to my publisher, the University Press of Kentucky on Monday.

Despite meeting this major milestone, we still have a ways to go. The manuscript will now go to a “Reader,” who will give input from a content standpoint and hopefully will not recommend too many changes.  In the meantime, I am getting all the photos in order and writing captions for them, along with properly formatting all the citations, compiling a bibliography, and drafting my list of acknowledgements, which after fifteen years of working on this project, includes a hell of a lot of people. In other words, I feel no sense of relief at this point! Plus, I keep finding out new information about her. Just last week, I made one last trip to the LA County Recorder’s office and discovered a bit of info that caused me to go back and alter one of the later chapters. The research really never ends.

The Reader should get their notes back to me by mid-November, and the final draft will go out by the end of the year. From there, it’s roughly nine months until actual publication, so we’re tentatively looking at a fall 2013 release.

It’s hard to believe that this will all be winding down soon, and that Ann’s story is finally on paper. I am tremendously proud I was able to write 100,000 words on Ann Dvorak without resorting to lengthy descriptions of film plots, and am pleased with how it turned out. I sure hope you all will agree!

More to come soon.

I am thrilled to announce  my Ann Dvorak biography is going to be published by the University Press of Kentucky. My contract arrived in the mail yesterday and is now signed, sealed, and on its way to being delivered. Ever since I read “The Bennetts: An Acting Family” by Brian Kellow, I knew the University Press of Kentucky was the perfect publisher for my book, and was fortunate in that they initially contacted me back in 2008. I have been actively working with them since September on the proposal, and was relieved to hear the editorial board thought a book on Ann was a “no-brainer” for the Press.

As exciting (and surreal) as this latest development is, we still have a ways to go. My deadline is October 1st to submit a completed manuscript, and then it’s roughly nine months before actual publication. So, the book still will not see the light of day for another year or so. However, the fifteen years I have been working on this project have flown by, so what’s another year?

I have been frantically trying to complete all the research I have been putting off for years. Last week, I made the dreaded trip to the Superior Court archives which was just as awful as I anticipated (two hour wait for a microfilm reader among other things). I did dig up some valuable info and subsequently tracked down a lawyer who is still alive and has some vague recollections of Ann and her third husband. I also made a second trip to the Registrar Recorder/County Clerk’s Office in Norwalk, but have still not completed the property research and will have to squeeze another trip sometime in the near future. I made my fourth trip to the Warner Bros Archives at USC to make sure I had not missed anything over the years, and I finally visited USC’s Special Collections department to look at their images of Ann from the Los Angeles Examiner. Both archivists at USC were amazingly generous and allowed me to bring my two-year-old daughter with me. I also discovered some additional mysterious information about Ann which may remain unresolved because the research has to stop at some point!

Additionally, a woman whose maiden name is Romona Wade posted a comment on the 2008 interview I did on the Alternative Film Guide. Ramona is the granddaughter of Ann’s third husband Nicholas Wade, and is someone I am desperate to speak with. However, she did not leave any contact information. So, this is my official plea for Ramona to please contact me! (christina@anndvorak.com)

Since I am now officially under the gun to finish the manuscript, my postings here will continue to be limited. Thanks again to everyone who has been supportive and patient though this process. The end is in sight!

In the meantime, I have begun writing articles for the Huffington Post. Don’t worry, it’s part of my full time job and is not taking away from my Ann-D writing time. The first post I submitted is “The Los Angeles of Herman Schultheis.”

More news soon!

In our last thrilling installment of “Ann Dvorak Biography Progress Report,” I had submitted the first seven chapters of the book to a prospective publisher for their review. They sent the manuscript to two anonymous readers who quickly sent back their assessments which I received in mid-January. Overall, their comments were very positive and both agreed that a full length book on Ann Dvorak has merit.  They both said my research was excellent, and much to my relief, thought my writing was strong. They did have some suggestions and a few criticisms which were totally fair and have helped strengthen the manuscript considerably.

This week, I completed the revisions based on the reader’s comments and have re-submitted it to the publisher. They will now send it back to at least one of the readers for a reassessment. If the response is positive, then it will go before an editorial board who will determine if they want to commit and give me a contract. I have also imposed on myself a September deadline for completing the book. This is the year the damn thing is going to be done!

One of the reader comments, which really stood out for me,  stated that there were not enough quotes from Ann herself and it was had to see things from her perspective. I kind of had my suspicions about this, and the reader confirmed it. I went through my sources and realized that I had been incredibly conservative in using quotes from the old movie magazines. I know there are people out there who have a big problem when biographers use these magazines as a source, which is why I was so gun shy. However, while I have some great primary sources for Ann’s later life, these magazine interviews are what exist for the early part of her career.

Author Patrick MacGilligan has been a huge help in guiding me through the writing process. When I posed the question about the legitimacy of the fan magazines, his response was, “Some of the people who wrote for fan magazines were journalists and some of those pieces are honest and factual enough.  (Some magazines are better than others, just as some of the journalists are better than others.)  I think if they “seem” accurate and journalistic to you that is good enough; you are the Ann Dvorak expert.” After re-evaluating these articles, I have to agree with him and I really think many of them are legit and the quotes ring true with Ann’s voice.

One of the pieces I really grappled with written by a journalist who claimed they had Ann’s journal from her chorus girl days. At first, I completely dismissed it because I could not imagine anyone handing over their diary to a magazine, plus I figured some of the naysayers would crucify me for using it as a source. I did include a small quote from it in the original manuscript, and this was something one of the readers targeted as a great example of Ann’s insight. I went back to the article, which I had only previously skimmed over, and realized that the entries were incredibly detailed and matched up to concrete sources I have. For example, one entry had Ann listing her weekly pay at MGM at $37.50, which her contract confirms. The scheduling of certain productions and gaps in employment coincide with MGM’s  records. I supposed the journalist  could have taken the time to do this kind of in depth research and create a long list of journal entries, but I really doubt it. The other thing that occurred to me is that while Ann may have not forked over the journal to a reporter, her mother would have in a heartbeat.  Ultimately, I decided the source was legitimate and the quotes were too good not to be included.

There have been other articles that do seem generic and fabricated, and those I have not used. Therefore, I will not be sharing Ann Dvorak’s fudge recipe or her personal beauty regimen, but there are many other quotes that are being included after careful evaluation. For those of you who loathe the use of movie magazines as a source,  you now have fair warning and may not want to read the book when it comes out.

Since I am now on a deadline and am using most of my spare moments for working on the book, the posts on this website will be minimal for the time being. Thanks to everyone for your continued support. Hopefully, the next progress report will include a confirmation on a publisher.