Bohemian Rogue: The Life of Hollywood Artist John Decker
...Decker, a painter noted in his day for comic caricatures in the style of the Old Masters (his portrait of [W.C.] Fields as Queen Victoria famously hung in the entry of Chasen's restaurant until its closing in 1995). His life described in depth for the first time in "Bohemian Rogue," a 2005 biography by Maine attorney Stephen Jordan, Decker emerges as one of the great mysterious figures in Hollywood history - a man-about-town who hid a secret past, including internment during World War I as a German spy, three simultaneous marriages and, recent evidence suggests, a lucrative sideline as an art forger. (La Times)Once in a blue moon, a rare nugget of literature is mined. Such isBohemian Rogue, a masterpiece by Portland, Me., attorney, Stephen Jordan. It is a book you can't put down and don't want to end. It is a biography of artist John Decker but it is also a history of other Hollywood rogues who traveled in his wake.They were the original Rat Pack - W.C. Fields, Tony Quinn, Ben Hecht, Gene Fowler, John Barrymore and Sadakichi Hartmann. (Ottawa Sun)Born in Germany in 1895, John Decker later immigrated to America, first to New York, and later to Hollywood. A talented artist, he painted portraits of such stars as the Marx Brothers, Greta Garbo, and Mickey Rooney, while befriending the likes of John Barrymore, Errol Flynn, and W.C. Fields. In this biography, Jordan, an attorney, writer, and freelance illustrator, unfolds Decker's story from his work as an orphan in London painting theater scenery, his apprenticeship with a criminal artist who forged the old masters, his time in New York drawing caricatures, and his break into the Hollywood scene. The book includes b&w photos and reproductions of Decker's work. An appendix lists the works shown posthumously at the first John Decker Studios exhibition inthe spring of 1948.. (Reference and Research Book News)Born in Germany in 1895, John Decker later immigrated to America, first to New York, and later to Hollywood. A talented artist, he painted portraits of such stars as the Marx Brothers, Greta Garbo, and Mickey Rooney, while befriending the likes of John Barrymore, Errol Flynn, and W.C. Fields. In this biography, Jordan, an attorney, writer, and freelance illustrator, unfolds Decker's story from his work as an orphan in London painting theater scenery, his apprenticeship with a criminal artist who forged the old masters, his time in New York drawing caricatures, and his break into the Hollywood scene. The book includes b&w; photos and reproductions of Decker's work. An appendix lists the works shown posthumously at the first John Decker Studios exhibition in the spring of 1948. (Reference and Research Book News)