All That Glittered: The Golden Age of Drama on Broadway, 1919-1959

by Ethan Mordden

From the late 1920s to late 1950s, the Broadway theatre was America's cultural epicenter. Television didn't exist and movies were novelties. Entertainment took the form of literature, music, and theatre. During this golden age of Broadway, actors and actresses became legends and starred in now classic plays. Laurence Olivier, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne were names to remember, etching plays into memory as they brought the words of Tennessee Williams or Eugene O'Neill to life. Joseph Cotton romanced Katharine Hepburn in Philip Barry's The Philadelphia Story while Laurette Taylor became The Glass Menagerie's Amanda Wingfield.  Fredric March, Florence Eldridge, Jason Robards Jr. and Bradford Dillman showed us life among the ruins in Long Day's Journey Into Night. In All That Glittered, Ethan Mordden, long one of Broadway's best chroniclers, recreates the fascinating lost world of its golden age.

Genres: Theatre, Nonfiction, History

352 pages, Hardcover

First published April 3, 2007

Reviews

[Michael Ritchie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another one of Mordden's delightfully idiosyncratic surveys of Broadway history. His style is fun and engaging, like a loony but likable chatting off-the-cuff about the theatre, until suddenly at some point near the middle, it gets tiresome, but then he (or the reader) recovers and by the end, you want more.

[Melissa Mendez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in early summer after I found my Norton Anthology of American Drama and started feeling nostalgic for days when I was an English Lit major reading "The Glass Menagerie" during summer session at WVU. This was a very interesting chronicle of the non-musical Broadway scene during the golden age, the Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams era. Looks closely at the links between Broadway’s connection to the rise of Hollywood and we get some great details about Marlon Brando and Katherine Hepburn's early days on the stage and their transitions into stardom. I got lost down so many rabbit holes on Wikipedia looking up all the characters and theaters mentioned in this book and it will be fun to go check out some of the theaters noted in the book when we can do such things again (COVID). The thing I enjoyed most about this book is that it had a lot to say about Broadway drama in the larger context of American history and culture, integrating the Great Depression and WWII. Felt like reading a Ken Burns documentary to large extent. I feel like the title is not fitting for this book though. The subject matter is much more grit than glitter.

[Ron Law · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ethan Mordden tackles a vaster subject in this book than his others in this series on various eras of Broadway, and he tackles it with easy, wit, and a winning attention to detail. Fascinating and informative.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great book from Ethan Mordden. And more observations of the Lunts! What could be better?