Product Description
Sal Mineo is probably most well-known for his unforgettable, Academy Award–nominated turn opposite James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause and his tragic murder at the age of thirty-seven. Finally, in this riveting new biography filled with exclusive, candid interviews with both Mineo’s closest female and male lovers and never-before-published photographs, Michael Gregg Michaud tells the full story of this remarkable young actor’s life, charting his meteoric rise to fame and turbulent career and private life.

One of the hottest stars of the 1950s, Mineo grew up as the son of Sicilian immigrants in a humble Bronx flat. But by age eleven, he appeared on Broadway in Tennessee Williams’s The Rose Tattoo, and then as Prince Chulalongkorn in the original Broadway production of The King and I starring Yul Brynner and Gertrude Lawrence. This sultry-eyed, dark-haired male ingénue of sorts appeared on the cover of every major magazine, thousands of star-struck fans attended his premieres, and millions bought his records, which included several top-ten hits.

His life offstage was just as exhilarating: full of sports cars, motor boats, famous friends, and some of the most beautiful young actresses in Hollywood. But it was fourteen-year-old Jill Haworth, his costar in Exodus—the film that delivered one of the greatest acting roles of his life and earned him another Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe win—with whom he fell in love and moved to the West Coast. But by the 1960s, a series of professional missteps and an increasingly tumultuous private life reversed his fortunes. 

By the late sixties and early seventies, grappling with the repercussions of publicly admitting his homosexuality and struggling to reinvent himself from an aging teen idol, Mineo turned toward increasingly self-destructive behavior. Yet his creative impulses never foundered. He began directing and producing controversial off-Broadway plays that explored social and sexual taboos. He also found personal happiness in a relationship with male actor Courtney Burr. Tragically, on the cusp of turning a new page in his life, Mineo’s life was cut short in a botched robbery.
           
Revealing a charming, mischievous, creative, and often scandalous side of Mineo few have known before now, Sal Mineo is an intimate, moving biography of a distinctive Hollywood star. ... Read more

Product Description
This long-overdue biography chronicles the dramatic ups and troubled downs of a career that won 1950s teen screen idol Sal Mineo two Oscar nominations—for Rebel Without a Cause (with James Dean) and Exodus—before he was twenty-one and ended with a movie has-been’s shocking death, at thirty-seven, by a stab wound in the chest. As this carefully and caringly researched biography shows, Sal Mineo’s talents far exceeded the limits typecasting imposed upon a career that saddled him with the nickname, The Switchblade Kid. It also demonstrates that Mineo’s decline had less to do with the loss of the baby-face good looks that quickened the heartbeat of teenage girls than it did with his unwillingness to deny his homosexuality. Investigating the mystery that continues to surround Sal Mineo’s tragic death and sifting the facts from the fictions that shroud his private life, this serious study of the man and the star sympathetically chronicles the thirty-seven years that made an “erotic politician” and gay icon of a street kid and teen idol. 24 pages of black-and-white photographs are included. “Literate, anecdote-rich biography.”—Boston Globe “An excellent biography.... A thoroughly readable book.”—Associated Press “With an easy style and sound reporting, Jeffers has recreated the performer’s life with verve and insight.” — Publishers Weekly ... Read more

Customer Reviews (27)

Lazy and lifeless cereal box biography
The author claims to have slept with Sal Mineo and yet offers nothing about what made him tick. This is probably the emptiest biography I've ever read, lacking in any research or interviews with Mineo's family, friends and professional associates. The most atrocious aspect of the book, however, is Jeffer's spoilers of the Mineo film endings. One by one, he sets about revealing the ending of each of Mineo's films and then - at the end of the book - has the audacity to suggest that his readers seek out Sal Mineo's film work. Fortunately, I was wise to Jeffer's game and just skimmed over the film descriptions for those I haven't seen yet. It's sad that this is the only biography available for such a great actor, 'cos it's a terrible book.

Good biography, but left me wanting more
My interest in Sal Mineo is merely tangent to my interest in Elia Kazan, Giant and James Dean. However, Mineo has always interested me because he has always remained "Plato" for me.

First of all, is the biography well written? Yes and no. It is well written, but I believe that had the author not had something of a "thing" for Mineo he might have been able to provide us with a bit more insight into the life of Sal Mineo than he really does. Apparently he and Mineo had an ongoing tryst, one that was sporadic at best, but lasted for many years.

I got the distinct impression that Jeffries knew more than he was telling us. I suspect that he spoke less of Mineo's dark side than he might have because he had promised Mineo's family he would do so - or merely out of respect for Mineo's memory. Yet, it seems a bit misplaced as Mineo seems to have come to terms with his life - at least so the biographer states.

For me, Mineo will forever be an innocent young boy: Plato.I'm not the only one who feels this way. So what of it? Jeffries refers only in passing to this and doesn't delve deeper into Mineo's psyche. This affected Mineo, but there's no real meat in what about it affected him. Why didn't Jeffries ask Mineo's friends about how Mineo dealt with his inability to shake his youthful image - what about the studio personnel? Were they all deceased or unwilling to speak?

Jeffries repeatedly references the way in which Mineo banked on James Dean's name and his short association with James Dean, but he doesn't really dig deep enough in that area. Had I been this close to Mineo and had the ability to speak to him about J.D. I sure would have spent a great deal of time learning all I could about their time together and what it meant to Mineo, how he felt about Dean's death, and how Mineo felt when he learned that Dean's sex life might have offered them a chance to be more than friendly. Mineo claims not to have known about Dean when they shot Rebel Without A Cause, but he knew later - and surely put two and two together. He even says, "I could have had him," but it seems flippant and more akin to someone who knows otherwise, yet wishes it could have been. Where is the interview with psychologists or psychiatrists who could shed some light on who Mineo was and why he did the things he did?

Jeffries missed a great opportunity to let us all know what Sal Mineo was really like - deep down, rather than as superficially as he has done. We don't really know what drove Mineo, though I can read between the lines and see that Mineo was driven by the need for acceptance and love, which manifested itself in his need for fame. But we don't get enough information in the book to really learn about all that. I'm certain that Mr. Jeffries knew Sal Mineo and that he spoke with him and interviewed him in order to write this book, but its publication was years after Mineo's death. Jeffries would have done well to interview friends and acquaintances with an ear for more detail about who Mineo was.

I don't want "dirt" on Mineo or Dean. Rather, what I'm hoping for when I read a biography is information not only about the person's walk a day life, but what drove him/her. I'm afraid that just isn't sufficiently there in this biography.

A caveat: Since there are no other Sal Mineo biographies out there, I might as well be raging against the wind, because Mr. Jeffries has given us the one and only complete Sal Mineo biography to date.

Sal Mineo:his life, murder and mystery
This is a rare account of a gifted and talented actor whose life was taken from us much to soon at 37 years old in 1976. H.Paul Jeffers tells the story of the highs and lows of a child actors rise to stardom and pursuit to be unique while breaking the mold of the "Hollywood system".
Jeffers tells the story in a clear and very readable style. With this work
the author keeps the success and trajedy of this artist's brief life from
being lost to oblivion. A highly recommended read!

Not Happy
I bought this book because I am a Sal Mineo fan. I read other negative reviews about this book but I bought it anyway because I wanted to read about him and hoped I might enjoy it anyway. Hopefully a well written book will be published about Sal Mineo but this is not it. There was no insight at all on Sal Mineo and the type of person he was. The author just seemed to have read some old magazine interviews and watched Sal's films and wrote his book based on that.

A Noble Effort
As a big movie buff, especially of classic films from Hollywood's Golden Age, I have always had an interest in Sal Mineo's life career and untimely death. And I found it sad that he seemed to be slipping into oblivion in the past decade or so.He had a very complex and fascinating screen presence--particularly in his earlier films--and he carved out his place in immortality with his excellent work in Rebel Without a Cause.So I was delighted to come across this book by Paul Jeffers. I commend him for writing about someone who is not a current A-List celebrity...and exploring the many mysteries about Mineo's life and death.However, I must admit I found this book somewhat disappointing.It's not at all scholarly, exhaustively researched or even very detailed and you do get the feeling that it's a "cut and paste" job with a lot of the material coming from previously published sources and the internet.It would have certainly benefited from more leg work--interviews with Mineo's surviving contemporaries and colleagues.I found the chapters concerning his death especially weak.Still, I feel that this book is worth reading for any Hollywood film buff.And if you have no knowledge of Mineo's life at all--you will certainly walk away from it with a somewhat better understanding. In that regard I recommend it and I salute Mr. Jeffers for a very noble and well intentioned effort. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Braudy Misled Like Many Others
Not too many years ago the killer of Sal Mineo was caught.He had been pulled in for another crime, his girlfried had also been interviewed by police and told the police the story her boyfriend, the killer, told her.He corrorborated it in a written confession shortly therafter.Mr. Mineo was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was killed by a small time thug.The murder had NOTHING to do with his lifestyle.

I am aghast at the slander of the murder victim I have heard over the years, and if you are one of the defilers, I hope you ask your God for forgiveness.It seems his gayness nudged people into a viciousness of conjecture that might not have been if Mr. Mineo were straight.At any rate, it would be nice to see Ms. Baudy publish or at least verbalize an apology, instead of standing behind this repulsive scenario she entirely cooked up in her head.

legend untarnished
I BECAME A SAL MINEO FANWHILE WATCHING EXODUS,DINO ANDTHE GENE KRUPA STORY.FOUR YEARS LATER I BOUGHT AN US MAGAZINE THAT INCLUDED AN EXCERPT FROM THIS BOOK WHICH WASRATHERVULGAR AND EVEN DIABOLICAL.I HAD A NIGHTMARE.ITWAS HARD TO THINK OF A MAN I'D IDOLIZED IN SUCH A GRUESOME AND SEXUAL NATURE.I PURCHASED THIS BOOKHOPING TO FINDA MORE COMPREHENSIVE PORTRAIT THAT FOCUSED ON OTHER ASPECTS OF SAL MINEO'SLIFE BEYOND HIS SEXUALITY AND ALLEGED DRUG ISSUES.I FOUND ONLY THE TYPES OF GARBAGE ONE WOULD FIND IN ONLY THE TRASHIEST TABLOIDS.THIS WAS SAD FORMINEO FANS,ACHARACTERASSASINATIONOF MR MINEO AND ANINSULT TO HIS GRIEVING FAMILY.I WAS FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO SPEAK TO SAL'S NOW DECEASED OLDER BROTHER,MICHAEL MINEO,AND HE THOUGHT THE BOOK WAS TRASH AND SAID IT HURT HIS MOTHER DEEPLY.EVERYONE THAT I'VE EVERY SPOKEN TO;BE IT THE OWNER OF MEMORBILIA I'VE PURCHASED OF MR MINEO TO A WAITRESS IN A RESTAURANT WHO'D WAITED ON MR MINEO EACH REMEMBERED HIM ASA KIND,FRIENDLY WARM TYPE PERSON WHO WAS INTELLIGENT,INTELLECTUAL ANDCOMFORTABLE AROUND ALL KINDS OF PEOPLE.IF YOU ARE A SAL MINEO FAN THIS BOOK WILL ONLY IMPAIR YOUR IMAGE OF THE MAN,THEACTOR,THE DIRECTOR,THE FRIEND,THE SON,THE BROTHER AND THE HUMAN BEING CAPABLE OF THE SAME FAULTS WE ALL SHARE,EVERYTHING ELSE IS SPECULATION,OUTRIGHT LIES AND FUEL FOR FURTHER SCANDAL.ONLY SAL MINEO KNOWS AND THAT'S HISOWN PERSONAL BUSINESS....

Who Killed Sal Mineo?Rollin Rubbish!
This bloody book was murder! I know my niece could have written a better book when she was 5! Not only that but this book really hurt Josephine Mineo, Sal's mother. And rubbish like this hurts those who are left behind. The only thing this book would be good for is toilet paper, or better yet rip it up unread and flush it down the loo! Trevina

Gay Bashing Does Not A Review Make
I hesitate to suggest that anyone's parents, even Marmoset's, restrict their child's access to a bookselling site.But a barely coherent rant against gays in general and Sal Mineo in particular(see below)hardly qualifies as an informed critique.While master Marmoset may be as literate as others in his seventh grade English class, he displays a gross misunderstanding of the use of the topic sentence, the building blocks of a readable paragraph, Mineo's career or the novel inspired by his brutal death.

What is sad is not Mineo's life--he was a millionare twice over by the age of 18 and was twice nominated for the Oscar and once for the Emmy by the age of 21--but that both master Marmoset and author Susan Braudy chose to discard the facts in favor of their own, far less interesting inventions.

Plodding and unclever,the book holds no surprises and works neither as a mystery nor as a romance.Strangely Braudy, a journalist who wrote about the murder herself, has discounted some of the fascinating details that still surround the Mineo tragedy in order to focus on more mundane ones of her own invention.

She has, for instance, given him pedophillic tendancies.At a party crowded with twenty-somethings, she shows him preoccupied with the beautiful "puppy bodies" surrounding him.(In fact, Mineo's most famous partner was Rock Hudson, a couple of decades his senior.) And while the real Mineo was, among other things, a bodybuilder and artists' model, Braudy has two of her characters looking askance of photos of him in the nude while one pronounces him "no bathing beauty." But far worse from a mystery reader's standpoint is that Braudy's reporter-heroine shows no great insight or resourcefulness when it comes to solving the crime, instead choosing to spend her time being romanced by one of Mineo's bisexual friends.

Although I can't recommend Braudy's work, those who are knowledgeable about Mineo's life and death may get a chuckle from the sequence in which director Nick Ray laments how James Dean "turned" Mineo gay while the two were making "Rebel Without A Cause."This in spite of Gore Vidal's observation that it was Ray himself--the real Ray, not Braudy's version--who was "openly having an affair" with the adolescent Sal.

Berkeley Hunt

Get Over It!
I believe that Sal Mineo was a good actor. But all the homosexuality drivel is over the top. Why does his sexuality concern so many people. They should be outraged he played at a being a man, that was probably his best role. Women should be outraged by all these so called men that have absolutely no interest in women at all. They fall over themselves as fans living to get a glimpse of someone that has no interest in them at all. Sad man, sad life. ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: Babe Ruth, Jimmy Walker, James Cagney, Sal Mineo, Malachi Martin, Fred Allen, Billy Martin, Dutch Schultz, Dorothy Kilgallen, Mike Quill, Westbrook Pegler, Wellington Mara, Anna Held, Ernesto Lecuona, Bess Houdini, Condé Montrose Nast, Heywood Broun, Julie Haydon, John P. O'brien, Joseph V. Mckee, George Jean Nathan, Gate of Heaven Cemetery, George Murray Hulbert. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 210. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: James Francis Cagney, Jr. (July 17, 1899 March 30, 1986) was an American film actor. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of roles, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time. In his first performing role, he danced dressed as a woman in the chorus line of the 1919 revue Every Sailor. He spent several years in vaudeville as a hoofer and comedian until his first major acting role in 1925. He secured several other roles, receiving good reviews before landing the lead in the 1929 play Penny Arcade. After rave reviews for his acting, Warners signed him for an initial $500 a week, three-week contract to reprise his role; this was quickly extended to a seven year contract. Cagney's seventh film, The Public Enemy, became one of the most influential gangster movies of the period. Notable for its famous grapefruit scene, the film thrust Cagney into the spotlight, making him one of Warners' and Hollywood's biggest stars. In 1938, he received his first Academy Award for Best Actor nomination for Angels with Dirty Faces, before winning in 1942 for his portrayal of George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy. He was nominated a third time in 1955 for Love Me or Leave Me. Cagney retired for 20 years in 1961, spending time on his farm befor...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=16046 ... Read more

Product Description
APRIL 1982 ISSUE OF PENTHOUSE MAGAZINE. ARTICLES FEATURE AN INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN KING, HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN HOMEMADE PORN, WHO KILLED SAL MINEO, AND MORE. ... Read more