Books by James Curtis

Considering photographs by Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Tee, and Arthur Rothstein, as well as personal papers, memoirs, interviews, and the FSA file, this title reconstructs the methods the photographers used to create the images that defined the Depression in the public's imagination.

Back in the 1960''s, the private investigators were able to disprove fraudulente injury claims by gaining the confidence of claimants and having them perform activities that they had the doctors, attorneys, insurance adjusters and courts convinced could not be performed. The millions of dollars saved by the insurance companies using the ''Rope Job'' came to a sudden halt in 1970 due to claimants attorneys filing law suits against the insurance companies for invasion of privacy. The claimants attorneys stated their claimants could not be contacted by anyone representing the insurance industry once they became represented by an attorney. Since 1970, the insurance companies spend tens of thousands of dollars for surveillance on what they perceive to be bogus claims and often with no tangeble results.

To the American public, she will always be remembered as the woman who had a grapefruit ground into her face by James Cagney in the 1931 film classic Public Enemy. In fact, in an acting career that spanned nearly four decades, Mae Clarke appeared in nearly 100 feature films and logged in nearly as many television appearances. During the two years before she died at the age of 82, Mae Clarke spent many hours reliving those years. In a series of candid and often poignant interviews, she talks about her years in Hollywood, her failed marriage, and her health problems.

For twenty-five years, David Lewis (1903-1987) was an associate film producer at a time when a major studio produced an average of a film a week. In this remarkable book, David Lewis describes his development as a creative producer and his contributions to such classics as Camille, Dark Victory, and Raintree County.

Spencer Tracy was known as Hollywood's actor's actor. Critics wrote that what Olivier was to theatre, Tracy was to film. Over his career he was nominated for nine Academy Awards, and won two. This title tells his story.

The basis for the Academy Award winning film "Gods and Monsters" Starring Ian McKellan and Brendan Fraser. James Curtis is the author of a well-received biography on Preston Sturges and a new book, W.C. FIELDS, just published by Knopf and favorably reviewed in the NYTBR.