Eleonora Duse: A Biography
*Starred Review* Born into a family of actors and blessed with an "empathetic imagination," Eleonora Duse--sensual and expressive--experienced her first moment of stage grace at 14 when she played Juliet in Verona. Universally acclaimed by the time she died in 1924 at 65, Duse has been more mythologized than studied, making Sheehy's utterly absorbing portrait the first to draw on a wealth of rediscovered letters and memoirs, as fresh and dramatic as it is detailed and groundbreaking. As Sheehy tells the entire remarkable story of the "first modern actor," she discloses how Duse not only advanced acting but also "expanded the very idea of woman" through her magnetic artistry; her revolutionary productions of plays by Zola, Ibsen, and Gabriele d'Annunzio (her most notorious and inspiring lover); and her work as director and manager of her own company. An avid reader and letter writer, a reluctant mother, and an extravagantly emotional lover and friend, Duse--as evoked so convincingly by Sheehy as intensely private yet adept at attracting and holding the attention her art demanded--overcame myriad obstacles and ultimately found in acting and communion with her audience true exaltation and transcendence.Donna SeamanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved