Dashing to the End
Dashing to the End
The Ray Milland Story
Born Alfred Reginald John Truscott-Jones, Welsh American actor Ray Milland (1907–1986) appeared in more than 135 theatrical releases between 1929 and 1985 and on radio, television, and the stage, while also becoming a film director; Milland’s extensive canon across such a period is remarkable, especially considering his lack of formal training, his belated start in show business in his late twenties, and the fact he only lived to age seventy-nine. Perhaps best remembered for his Oscar-winning performance as the tortured alcoholic in Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend (1945) or his outstanding collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock in Dial M for Murder (1954), there is much more to Milland’s life and career than the few films that elevated him from star to icon.
Despite his prolific and successful career, Dashing to the End: The Ray Milland Story is the first comprehensive biography of the star. Milland’s personal and professional trajectory epitomize quintessential Hollywood lore: the British army soldier-turned-actor who went from unknown, struggling bit player to Oscar-winning star to aging, scandal-haunted “has-been” to comeback character actor to present-day cult figure. Using interviews with Milland’s costars and colleagues, as well as research from several major archives, author Eric Monder brings into sharp relief both the positive and negative aspects of the Hollywood film and television industries and paints a well-rounded portrait of this complex man and artist.
Dashing to the End is the biography of Ray Milland we‘ve been waiting for. The Welsh actor was underserved by his studio and, at the end of his long career, underestimated by critics and the public. He had to wait this long for the full-scale treatment, but luckily he got the biographer he deserved and then some! With tremendous skill and insight, Eric Monder shows how Milland brought a dark shadow self to his matinee idol roles, a self-deprecating humor to his seemingly unflappable protagonists. His skill, charisma, complexity, and career choices (the dark roles he hesitatingly accepted, the juicy ones he turned down) are elucidated with style and easy scholarship in this entertaining work. The introduction alone is a masterpiece of succinct storytelling, drawing us irresistibly onward into what promises to be a classic of its genre.
During my childhood and early adult years in Iowa, Ray Milland occupied a steady place, my window into the larger world. Films like Beau Geste and Reap the Wild Wind, along with The Lost Weekend, were all indelible in my young imagination. And yet Milland, though ever present, remained somehow a secondary figure. Dashing to the End, Eric Monder’s aptly named and engrossing biography, takes us into the ambitious, serious, sometimes turbulent—Milland’s career was damaged by a love affair with Grace Kelly—and even rebellious psyche behind a perhaps too placid veneer.
Eric Monder’s incisive, insightful biography of Ray Milland has been a long time coming and well worth the wait. So much more than another story about the Golden Age of Hollywood, Dashing to the End follows the Oscar-winning actor through six decades, using comprehensive research and little-known backstory. Today, Milland’s work should resonate with younger audiences: the gifted Welshman had a modernism about him, he played characters that were flawed though fascinating—disaffected, snarky but witty, and, yes, narcissistic. A Milland retrospective is in order!
Eric Monder is one of our best film critics and historians. His latest book is a marvelous critical analysis of the career of Ray Milland, whose place in classical Hollywood cinema is given its due for the first time. Meticulously researched and admirably written, Dashing to the End is a valuable contribution to US cultural history.
Dashing to the End has been a years-long project in which the author has been deeply invested. Monder possesses a broad knowledge of the world of cinema scholarship, of its archives and institutions. He knows the field, and he most certainly has an extensive knowledge of the career of Ray Milland.
Eric Monder is a writer, lecturer, and historian. Heis the author of George Sidney: A Bio-Bibliography, and his work has appeared in such publications as Film Journal International, Variety,the Hollywood Reporter, Film Comment,andthe New York Times.
Introduction: “X-Ray: Milland”
Chapter 1. The Child Who Saw Too Much (1907–1929)
Chapter 2. False Starts, True Romance (1930–1936)
Chapter 3. In the Shadow of Cary Grant (1936–1940)
Chapter 4. A War Begins . . . A Star Is Born (1940–1943)
Chapter 5. At Paramount’s Peak (1944–1945)
Chapter 6. Downfall of a Homme Fatale (1946–1949)
Chapter 7. Shadows and Light (1950–1953)
Chapter 8. “For His Sin”: Grace and Television (1953–1955)
Chapter 9. The Cold War Auteur (1955–1963)
Chapter 10. Entr’acte (1964–1970)
Chapter 11. Babylon Revisited (1971–1977)
Chapter 12. The Long Voyage Home (1977–1986)
Notes
Appendix 1: Feature Film Appearances
Appendix 2: Major Television Appearances and Made-for-TV Movies
Appendix 3: Major Radio Appearances
Appendix 4: Major Stage Appearances
Appendix 5: Directed by Ray Milland
Bibliography
Index
