Pier Angeli

“In Pier Angeli, a nineteen-year-old Italian girl, Hollywood has found an actress who eludes the town’s traditional classifications and whose unvarnished beauty and instinctive talent have already caused her to be called ‘Little Garbo’”—Theodore Strauss in Collier’s, April 1952. This work is the first full-length biography of actress Anna Maria Pierangeli, from her early life in Italy to her death at the age of 39. She was discovered by Vittorio De Sica and soon after starred in her first film, Domani è troppo tardi (Tomorrow Is Too Late), which began her meteoric rise to fame in Italy. She arrived in Hollywood in 1950 at the age of 18, and the first thing MGM did was change her name to Pier Angeli and predict great things for its newest actress. The book covers her seven year career with MGM, her two unhappy marriages to Vic Damone and Armando Trovajoli, her love for her children Perry and Andrew, her brief and stormy relationship with James Dean, her dependent relationships with her mother and such stars as Kirk Douglas, Richard Attenborough and Debbie Reynolds, and the mystery surrounding her death.

Writer and psychologist Jane Allen lives in Bowral, New South Wales, Australia.

Jane Allen
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 240
Bibliographic Info: 57 photos, appendix, filmography, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2002
pISBN: 978-0-7864-1392-8
eISBN: 978-1-4766-0357-5
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments     vii

Prologue: Los Angeles (Tuesday, September 14, 1971)     1
1 Italy: The Beginning     5
2 Domani è troppo tardi     16
3 Teresa     23
4 Hollywood (1951–1952)     38
5 Kirk     64
6 James Dean     78
7 The Wedding     102
8 Perry     114
9 The Bubble Bursts     130
10 The Watershed     145
11 Return to Rome     157
12 Breakdown     174
13 Return to Hollywood     188
Epilogue Requiescat in Pace     201

Appendix     203
Filmography     207
Notes     213
Bibliography     223
Index     225

“a biography of unparalleled class…captured Pier’s personality vividly and completely…research is superb…Allen is a good writer…I absolutely loved this thoughtful, sensitive, photo-filled, extremely fascinating, bio…it really delivered the goods…a definite winner”—Classic Images; “Written with compassion…this is one of the best biographies I’ve read in a while and establishes the quality that McFarland is know for…a well-written, biting biography”—journeysinclassicfilm.com.