"Gorgeously written and meticulously researched, Starring Joan Crawford is a delicious melange of biographical details, cultural criticism, and fanboy fantasia that brings the most vivacious actress of the twentieth century screamingly to life. Freed by the author's sharp eye from the wire-hanger-wielding monstrosity she has become in the collective mind of popular American culture, Miss Crawford becomes flesh and blood once more. In Samuel Garza Bernstein's unputdownable book, her meaning and import are illuminated in the most up-to-date Britney-Xtina-Gaga terms. The superstar is young again, and so is Hollywood, and maybe even the reader, too."—Frank DeCaro, author of Drag: Combing Through the Big Wigs of Show Business.
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"Samuel Garza Bernstein brilliantly titles his new book Starring Joan Crawford, but in keeping with the religious thrust, it could just as aptly be called Joan: The Bible. Because it IS the Bible on Joan Crawford. Garza Bernstein brings the real Joan to vivid life, in a style that’s both dishy and intimate, but also as erudite and thoroughly researched as a PhD thesis. The men, the movies, the moxie, it’s all here."―Kim Powers, author of Rules for Being Dead and The History of Swimming
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"Samuel Garza Bernstein's book Starring Joan Crawford is a bold and complex amalgam of biography, critical analysis, Hollywood gossip, and fantasy. Garza Bernstein successfully balances the apocryphal with scholarly truth, camp with sober insight. It's a satisfying, hearty stew spiced with wit and a genuine love and respect for its eternally fascinating subject."—Charles Busch, American actor, playwright, screenwriter
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“Samuel Garza Bernstein writes about a woman we all wish we knew because she sounds like a f―king hoot! And he does a great job of telling you why we should all wish she was in our circle of friends if we got to dip back in time."―Karen McCullah, screenwriter, Legally Blonde and author, The Bachelorette Party
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"A spirited portrait of a Hollywood legend."
— Publisher's Weekly
Whether Joan Crawford mattered artistically is debatable; that she still matters culturally is Samuel Garza Bernstein's exuberantly argued thesis. In Starring Joan Crawford, Bernstein holds a loupe to Crawford's deathless high-camp persona—both on—and offscreen.... Starring Joan Crawford is a splendid pastiche. Bernstein supplies copious photos; film-by-film synopses with original credits; the odd reproduced-in-full article by or about Crawford; and recaps of his fantasy Crawford vehicles (e.g., 2023's Barbie). Bernstein implicitly makes the case that humor and serious criticism aren't unnatural bedfellows, as when he offers this measure of Crawford's still-thriving legacy.
— Shelf Awareness
In the new book Starring Joan Crawford: The Films, the Fantasy, and the Modern Relevance of a Silver Screen Icon, Hollywood historian Samuel Garza Bernstein draws on reams of press coverage and never-before-seen restored images from movie posters and stills, publicity shots, sheet music, and magazine covers. Starring Joan Crawford is both a celebration and a compelling exploration of how she informed ideas about wealth and class, femininity and gender roles, identity, and fulfillment.
— South Florida Sun Times
Playwright and biographer Bernstein illuminates actor Joan Crawford’s enduring popularity by spotlighting her long career. He provides details of her entire filmography, which began with silent films in the 1920s and lasted until the early 1970s. Where this biography shines is in Bernstein’s inclusion of quotes from Crawford’s interviews and from reviews of her films over the years…. [W]here so many other books on Crawford have made her into a caricature, this volume evaluates her work on its own merits. The long shadow cast by Mommie Dearest even today, nearly 50 years after Crawford’s 1977 death and the memoir’s publication (to say nothing of the subsequent film), is perhaps inescapable, but this book provides much-needed insight and perspective on popular culture’s continuing fascination with Joan Crawford. An enjoyable read that stands out among the numerous books written about Crawford over the years.
— Library Journal
In a new book by writer Samuel Garza Bernstein titled Starring Joan Crawford: The Films, the Fantasy, and the Modern Relevance of a Silver Screen Icon, a more complete and nuanced picture of the Hollywood icon is painted.
— Provincetown Magazine
Starring Joan Crawford looks at her career and her meaning, at why Crawford continues to resonate.
— Parade