Barry Paris originally attended Columbia University for film studies
and Slavic languages, only becoming a writer later on. He has worked as
both a movie and music reviewer for newspapers. He became a
highly-acclaimed biographer, focusing first on the older film stars,
then turning to stars of the '50s and '60s. His books are "Louise
Brooks", "Garbo", "Audrey Hepburn", "Tony Curtis: The Autobiography",
"Song of Haiti" about Dr. Larry Mellon, who started a hospital there
and "Stella Adler on Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov", which is an
edited series of the acting teacher's lectures. He has also written New
Yorker profiles on silent film star
Lina Basquette and author
Marcia Davenport, and an
interview with
Robert De Niro for American Film.
Today, Paris lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he writes movie
reviews for the Post-Gazette, works on a book about President Franklin
Pierce and prepares another series of
Stella Adler's lectures, this time
with emphasis on the American Playwrights.