Leading Lady

February 13, 2017
Galloway, executive features editor for the Hollywood Reporter, provides a fascinating look at Sherry Lansing, whose appointment as head of 20th Century Fox in 1980 made her the first female president of a major Hollywood studio. He follows Lansing from her Chicago childhood, explaining how her father’s death and mother’s resourcefulness influenced her strengths and insecurities. A gawky teenager, she gained from moviegoing a desire to “reinvent herself” and as a young woman moved to California to follow her acting dreams. Although this first career didn’t last long, she found a mentor in producer Ray Wagner, who hired her as a script reader, a move that transformed her life. Galloway captures the personal drive that allowed Lansing to forge a path through sexist Hollywood and shepherd films such as Kramer vs. Kramer, Forrest Gump, and Saving Private Ryan past creative obstacles to eventual success. He also shows how she personally left her mark on many films, such as by helping to craft Fatal Attraction’s revised, crowd-pleasing finale. As the book concludes, having worked her way up the corporate ladder, Lansing realized she wanted more out of life, and by 2005 left Hollywood behind to start a cancer research foundation. Galloway has created a colorful page-turner chronicling Lansing’s legacy as both a filmmaker and a philanthropist.

February 15, 2017
A biography about a powerful former studio head.By the time she was 35, at the helm of Fox Productions, Sherry Lansing was the highest-paid and highest-ranking woman in the American film industry. In his debut biography, entertainment journalist Galloway, executive features editor for the Hollywood Reporter, follows Lansing's career from her unsuccessful stab at acting to a more satisfying job as a script reader and finally to the positions at Columbia Pictures, Fox, and Paramount that put her in a glaring spotlight. The author acknowledges "hundreds of hours of interviews" with his subject, from which he quotes so liberally that at times he seems more of a ghostwriter than biographer. Nevertheless, he tells an energetic and entertaining story, filled with divas, tantrums, and abundant Hollywood gossip. Besides Lansing, Galloway interviewed scores of actors, directors, producers, and screenwriters, including Michael Douglas, who shared candid recollections about the trials involved in producing Fatal Attraction; Glenn Close, who nearly did not land a role in that film; the demanding Jane Fonda; Titanic director James Cameron; the irascible Sumner Redstone; Steven Spielberg; and Meryl Streep, relatively unknown when she won the part playing opposite Dustin Hoffman in Kramer v. Kramer. Hoffman created "a host of difficulties" on the set, including a horrible relationship with Streep: "at one point," Galloway divulges, "just before they shot a dramatic scene, out of the blue he hit her, perhaps believing her performance would be more authentic." The two never acted together after that. Among Lansing's memorable movies were Forrest Gump, Braveheart, a host of action films, and The Hours. In 2005, Lansing decided to leave movies and, as she put it, "recreate my life." She established the Sherry Lansing Foundation, a charitable organization focused on cancer research and education, to which she brought the same determination and hands-on management style that had defined her throughout her career. A brisk, breezy look at the turbulent world of moviemaking.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 1, 2017
When young newlywed Sherry Lansing left Chicago in 1966 bound for Hollywood to pursue an acting career, few would have predicted the heights she'd reach. Both her acting ambitions and her marriage fizzled, but she found a new calling as a script reader in the early 1970s. Before long, she was hired by a major movie studio, and her ascension up the executive ladder began. After stints at MGM, Columbia, and Fox, she partnered with Stanley Jaffe to form a production company, which produced the hits Fatal Attraction and The Accused. Paramount lured both Jaffe and Lansing away, with Lansing achieving the coveted position of studio chairman at a major movie studio, the first woman to do so. After Lansing bet big on and shepherded a string of soaring successes, including Forrest Gump, Braveheart, and Titanic, the movie industry's turn toward franchises and her own interest in charity work led Lansing to resign in 2005 to turn her attention to education and cancer research. Galloway has crafted a sharp-eyed, captivating look at a brilliant pioneer who broke through the glass ceiling.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)