By Christopher Cappiello

When Blanche Met Brando

By Sam Staggs
St. Martin's Press, hardcover, $24.95

Author Sam Staggs has carved out a niche for himself by creating exhaustive investigations of great films, most notably his popular All About All About Eve. With When Blanche Met Brando, Staggs aims his researching skills at Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, dishing up an in-depth look at play's original Broadway and London productions, its unforgettable film version, and an array of other adaptations. While the largest portion of Staggs' staggeringly detailed book is devoted to the film, he steers into some choppy waters when trying to apply his painstaking approach to long-gone theatrical productions that can be seen now only through the murky and easily distorted prism of memory.

First, let it be said that Staggs is indefatigable. More than half a century after the Broadway production and film, the author tracked down and interviewed most living participants in these monumental projects (Marlon Brando never responded to Stagg's letter). He provides fascinating details about Williams' early development of the script and his deconstruction of the film and its creation is detailed and entertaining. We learn how director Elia Kazan fought for Kim Hunter to join her Broadway co-stars Brando and Karl Malden in the film. How Vivien Leigh stunned the cast and crew when shooting Blanche's heartbreaking four-minute monologue about her husband's death. And Staggs provides a fascinating, blow-by-blow glimpse of footage censored from the original cut and discovered in the Valley decades later.

The accounts of the Broadway and London stage productions, however, suffer from the fact that the author saw neither. His analysis is based on reviews, other people's recollections, and his own built-in prejudices. In spite of a lack of evidence, for instance, Staggs really wants to believe that Jessica Tandy's formal English acting training made her Blanche stiffer and less real than Brando's vibrant Stanley. Evidence to the contrary includes the opinions of Tandy's co-stars, Malden and Hunter, who did see the show.

Staggs' formidable research is occasionally compromised by his penchant for out and out gossip. While most of his material is so carefully documented, it is jarring to read such vague claims as, "Rumors had already reached Hollywood that when [Peter] Finch, Alexander Korda, or another suitable colleague was not available, [Leigh] would settle for a cabbie." But for readers who like their richly researched stage and film history served with a healthy side order of dirt, When Blanche Met Brando provides an entertaining and exceedingly thorough look at one of America's greatest plays and films.

Center Square: The Paul Lynde Story

By Steve Wilson and Joe Florenski
Advocate Books, soft cover, $15.95

Paul Lynde may not have single-handedly invented the bitchy queen persona, but he certainly perfected his own unforgettably vicious version over a long career that is best remembered for his many years as Hollywood Squares' outrageous center square. Authors Steve Wilson and Joe Florenski document that career in painstaking detail in Center Square, an obsessively researched biography that reads like an E! True Hollywood Story without the video. It turns out the sashaying comedian whose withering wit brought a subversive gay humor into America's unsuspecting living rooms in the 1960s and '70s was really a tormented, mean-spirited man whose offstage personality was far more caustic than any of his center square double entendres. He preferred to pay for sex rather than develop serious relationships, and he got nasty when he drank. And he drank a lot.

Lynde was a funny fat kid, assuming the role of class clown to divert attention from his lifelong battle with his waistline. Many will be surprised to learn that the comedian left his hometown of Mount Vernon, Ohio, for the prestigious drama program at Northwestern University. Who knew that TV's most wicked wag was actually a trained actor and classmate to such award-winning stars as Patricia Neal and Cloris Leachman?

Lynde made a splash in Broadway's Bye, Bye, Birdie, but we learn he was jealous of the awards that went to his co-stars, and openly criticized their work. From there his television work included memorable appearances on Bewitched as the wisecracking warlock Uncle Arthur, appearances on a number of variety shows, and even his own short-lived sitcom in the early '70s. Throughout each project, the pattern is the same: Lynde's performances are praised, the audiences love him, and he is an insufferably nasty drunk offstage, alienating friends and potential employers.

Some details are surprising. In the 1970s Lynde commanded 50 grand a week on the summer stock circuit in Ohio, touring in mostly fluffy comedies for adoring audiences of Midwestern women. And the authors claim to have uncovered the true story behind Lynde's mysterious 1982 death from a heart attack. In general, though, Center Square offers little insight into the comedian, but is instead an oddly entertaining documentation of a sad life, and a reminder that before Ellen or the Fab Five, television's unspoken "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy resulted in some twisted souls.

Alec Guinness: The Authorized Biography

By Piers Paul Read
Simon & Schuster, hardcover, $35

In Alec Guinness: the Authorized Biography, British novelist Piers Paul Read presents a warm, richly detailed and highly literate portrait of one of England's finest actors of the 20th century. In his work and his life, Sir Alec (he was knighted in 1958) was a subtle master, capable, as John le Carre warned, of stealing a scene with his back, and always remaining slightly distant, as if he harbored a great secret. Read, who befriended Guinness late in life and was asked by the actor's widow to write an authorized biography, claims that among those secrets was a lifelong attraction to pretty young men, particularly those in positions of service.

Guinness' son Matthew gave Read the actor's private diaries, and their contents offer the book's most fascinating revelations. These diaries indicate that Sir Alec would periodically fixate on a certain chauffeur or dresser, taking him to dinner in fine restaurants, and even inviting him to stay at the family's country home. In all of his careful research, however, Read never finds any concrete evidence that Guinness acted on these attractions.

Instead, there is evidence of shame, as when he burned a copy of a sexually frank novel by acclaimed writer Alan Hollinghurst, deeming it "well written but unhealthy and not a book to leave around." He felt Ian McKellen had "become as aggressive and militant as Vanessa Redgrave ... Very tiresome and it is bound to create a horrid backlash." Then there are the recurring entries about Catholic confession. Sir Alec's midlife embrace of Catholicism in the 1950s is one of the more curious chapters in a life generally lacking in sensationalism. Fellow actor (and Catholic convert) Edward Herrmann claims, "Alec converted to Catholicism out of a need to contain and manage his emotional life: confession was a crucial safety valve."

We learn Obi-Wan Kenobi hated Star Wars, in spite of its life-altering riches, and the acclaimed performer harbored secret doubts about the ultimate value of an actor's life: "It's a foolish profession." But after hundreds of pages and countless quotations and interviews, the actor who disappeared into dozens of memorable roles -- including an Oscar-winning turn as Col. Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai -- remains an enigma. With its primary source validity and eloquent telling, however, Read's thorough and thoughtful work will likely stand as the ultimate account of this quiet giant's elusive life.