Part of the Encore Film Book Classics series, this is a reprint of the original text to Hollywood Players: The Forties by James Robert Parish and Lennard DeCarl. For Hollywood, World War II meant a greater demand for both escapist films and realistic war movies. So the film capital assembled a cast of hundreds to populate these movies. Hollywood Players: The Forties focuses on 83 of the busiest actors-the screen talent who helped America pass the hours in darkened theaters on the home front, on the sea, and in the rear lines just behind the battlefields. This volume probes the lives and films of these players, uncovering gossipy details about moviemaking and starmaking, and revealing glimpses into the personalities and lives of these 83 stars. How they grappled with the Hollywood studio system provides a rare look at how Tinseltown functioned behind the cameras at that time. The roster of Hollywood Players: The Forties includes individual career/biography chapters on: Robert Alda, Louise Allbritton, the Andrews Sisters, Evelyn Ankers, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Diana Barrymore, William Bendix, Turhan Bey, Vivian Blaine, Janet Blair, Ann Blyth, Eddie Bracken, Scott Brady, Barbara Britton, Geraldine Brooks, Rod Cameron, Macdonald Carey, Jack Carson, Marguerite Chapman, Dane Clark, Steve Cochran, Richard Conte, Tom Conway, Wendell Corey, Laird Cregar, Cass Daley, Billy De Wolfe, Bobby Driscoll, Dan Duryea, Wild Bill Elliott, Faye Emerson, Dale Evans, William Eythe, Betty Field, Barry Fitzgerald, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Nina Foch, Susanna Foster, Mona Freeman, Peggy Ann Garner, Virginia Gilmore, Farley Granger, Sydney Greenstreet, Signe Hasso, June Havoc, Sterling Hayden, Dick Haymes, Wanda Hendrix, John Hodiak, Celeste Holm, Tim Holt, Robert Hutton, Harry James, Arthur Kennedy, Evelyn Keyes, Joan Leslie, Oscar Levant, John Lund, Lon McCallister, Dorothy Malone, George Montgomery, Patricia Morison, Tom Neal, Donald O'Connor, Dennis O'Keefe, Janis Paige, Robert Paige, Larry Parks, Robert Preston Ella Raines, Gail Russell, Peggy Ryan, Sabu, Martha Scott, Zachary Scott, Kent Smith, Craig Stevens, Gale Storm, Sonny Tufts, Martha Vickers, Dooley Wilson, Teresa Wright, and Gig Young. With anecdotes, film listings, production notes, contemporary reviews, and commentary about films, filmmaking, and filmmakers, Hollywood Players: The Forties throws new intriguing light on the cinema decade that saw Hollywood's star burn brightest.