"The Hollywood film industry has always been overstocked with bubble-headed starlets whose acting talents are, at best, dubious. There hasn't been much evolutionary progress from Toby Wing in the 1930s to Megan Fox today. However, there have also been many impressive but unjustly neglected performers both then and now, and one such overlooked actress was Aline MacMahon (1899-1991), whose film career (in addition to her stage work) encompassed 43 movies from 1931 to 1963, including an Academy Award Best Supporting Actress nomination for
Dragon Seed (1944). Aline MacMahon was a unique and memorable talent, a restrained and subdued actress in an era of tinny voices and bulging eyes, and author John Stangeland has given MacMahon her due in this concise, very entertaining and well-researched biography."—Roy Kinnard, author of
The Films of Fay Wray"John Stangeland's Aline MacMahon: The Golden Age of Hollywood, Red Channels and the Birth of Method Acting in America succeeds in showcasing the career and legacy of MacMahon through engaging prose and exceptional research, thoroughly celebrating and chronicling her story. Stangeland draws from periodicals, personal correspondence, archives, interviews, and more, to effectively portray MacMahon's life and persona, both on and off the screen."—Annette Bochenek, PhD, Hometowns to Hollywood
"Stangeland shines a much needed spotlight on one of the great actresses of stage and screen whose talent and versatility was admired by many. Aline MacMahon is given her due in this well-researched and thoughtful biography which offers an intimate look at her devotion to her craft, her enduring marriage, and her political beliefs. Absorbing and highly readable, this biography will rescue MacMahon from obscurity and give her the recognition she so greatly deserves."—Raquel Stecher, film historian and critic