Ernest Lehman: The Sweet Smell of Success

by Jon Krampner

Overview

A Hollywood screenwriting and movie-making icon, Ernest Lehman penned some of the most memorable scenes to ever grace the silver screen. Hailed by Vanity Fair as "perhaps the greatest screenwriter in history," Lehman's work on films such as North by Northwest, The King and I, Sabrina, West Side Story, and The Sound of Music helped define a generation of movie making.
 
But while his talent took center stage, the public knew little of Lehman himself, a native of Manhattan's Upper West Side and the Five Towns of Long Island devoted to his wife of 50 years. His relentless perfectionism, hypochondria and all-night writing sessions fueled by tequila and grilled cheese sandwiches were some of the quirks that made Lehman a legend in the Hollywood community.
 
In Ernest Lehman: The Sweet Smell of Success, author Jon Krampner lays bare the life of this lauded yet elusive character. Moving seamlessly from post-production meetings to sound stages and onto the locations of Lehman's greatest films, Krampner's extensive biography brings to life the genius and singularity of the revered screenwriter's personality and the contributions he made to the world of cinema.

Find out more at ernestlehmanbio.com

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813195957
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	09/27/2022
Series:	Screen Classics
Pages:	396
Sales rank:	426,261
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.28(d)

About the Author

Jon Krampner is the author of The Man in the Shadows: Fred Coe and the Golden Age of Television, Female Brando: The Legend of Kim Stanley, and Creamy and Crunchy: An Informal History of Peanut Butter, the All-American Food. 

Table of Contents

1. Go To the Head of the Class (1915-1937)
2. On Broadway (1938-1952)
3. "Get This City College Writer Out of Here!" (1952-1954)
4. Tahiti Therapy (1954-1957)
5. In A Northwesterly Direction (1957-1959)
6. The Crowd at Sardi's (1959-1961)
7. Not Too Sweet, Not Too Sour (1961-1965)
8. Fun and Games With Mike and Ernie (1964-1966)
9. In Which the Bottom Falls Out (1966-1972)
10. Farewell Performance (1972-1977)
11. The Pot of Gold (1977-1982)
12. An Uncertain Trumpet (1983-1985)
13. Indian Summer (1985-1994)
14. See You Again, But Don't Hurry (1994-2005)
Appendix: Ernest Lehman's Awards
Notes

Editorial Reviews

One of the best biographies of a screenwriter yet written.

Tom Stempel

Meticulously researched and elegantly composed, Jon Krampner's book is a splendid, irresistible page-turner; it's also a significant work of Hollywood history that fills a woeful lack in the history of entertainment lore—a volume devoted exclusively to the life and work of the master screenwriter Ernest Lehman. I knew Ernie very well for over thirty years, and Krampner brings him to vivid life. I am deeply impressed by and immensely grateful for this fine book.

Donald Spoto

This highly readable biography of one of Hollywood's most successful screenwriters is as welcome as it is overdue...(T)his book makes for good reading.

Leonard Maltin

A page turner but with wonderful insights into Ernest Lehman as a writer. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in moviemaking and screenwriting as well as Hollywood intrigue. A fantastic biography!

Lisa Seidman

This is one of the best-written and most enjoyable biographies I have read in ages. Real can't-put-it-down material.

Eve Golden

Who would have expected the juiciest Hollywood biography of the year to be about a screenwriter? The meticulously researched Ernest Lehman, written by Jon Krampner (Female Brando: The Legend of Kim Stanley), is so delectable that it's impossible to put down.

Shelf Awareness - Kevin Howell

09/01/2022

Historian and biographer Krampner (The Female Brando: The Legend of Kim Stanley) focuses on the professional relationships in the 1950s and 1960s of screenwriter Lehman (1915–2005). His appetite for writing first found expression in magazine short stories and early TV dramas, culminating in his best-selling 1977 novel The French Atlantic Affair. An elusive, perfectionist New Yorker, Lehman proved his varied compositional skills in North by Northwest (considered his only original screenplay) and the screen adaptations of Sweet Smell of Success (cowritten with Clifford Odets but based on Lehman's own novella), The King and I, West Side Story, The Sound of Music, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Hello Dolly!, and Portnoy's Complaint (which he also directed). Nominated for an Academy Award six times, he finally won the first Honorary Academy Award for screenwriting in 2001. Movie mavens and amateurs will appreciate this crisp, often jocular, book based on interviews and archival research. VERDICT With the marginalization of screenwriters in stories about the entertainment industry, which both Lehman and Krampner resent, this life-history fills a chasm in the literature.—Frederick J. Augustyn Jr.

Library Journal