From Silent Film Idol to Superman

“Jonathan Croall [John Stuart ‘s son] is an outstanding biographer of actors… He has a way of bringing the protagonists of these books to life, clarifying their talents, their progress over the decades, and the changes that those decades can bring. He has a remarkable gift for establishing, or recreating, the media context in which these stars operate, and how this context operates in the world at large. … His wonderfully readable and extensively illustrated book grows from an amazing amount of research, involving masses of documents and letters left by his father, all of which have enabled him to create a moving study of the man as well as of the actor. A major bonus is the insight it offers into the wider British film culture, that bred the ‘silent film idol’ who stayed around for nearly six productive decades.”—Brian McFarlane, editor of The Encyclopedia of British Film