Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage, and the Making of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

“[An] erudite study . . . Gefter persuasively
credits the film with setting the template for more bracing Hollywood depictions of love after romance's first blush. This will renew readers' admiration for the classic film and its source material.” ―Publishers Weekly

“A cinematic history of an explosive portrayal of marriage . . . [Gefter] takes a deep dive into the genesis, making, and reception of the movie, from its 1962 beginnings on Broadway (the first three-acter for playwright Edward Albee) to its transformation into the acclaimed movie starring Elizabeth Taylor and
Richard Burton . . . Gefter offers a close reading of the movie to support his assessment of it as 'era-defining' . . . A penetrating examination of a bold film.” ―Kirkus Reviews

“In this well researched and deliciously dishy new book, Philip Gefter explores the world that shaped Albee and how he used it to develop his great work, and follows the ups and downs involved in creating the film-Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were just the beginning!-to paint an incredible picture of the
creative process among some of the brightest minds of their time.” ―Town & Country

“Terrific! With a dynamically deft touch, Philip Gefter chronicles how a uniquely volatile mix of timing, talent, pressure, and passion turned a landscape-altering play into a cinematic detonation. Savor this juicy bit of
time travel, because we'll never see the likes of these people and these circumstances again.” ―Steven Soderbergh, Academy Award-winning filmmaker

“Wise and ebullient . . . Gefter takes the reader inside so many of Avedon's photo shoots, and so deftly explicates his work, that you're thirsty to sate
your eyes with Avedon's actual images . . . One of the achievements of Gefter's biography is to argue persuasively for Avedon's place, as a maker of portraits, as one of the 20th century's most consequential artists.” ―Dwight Garner, The New York Times, on WHAT BECOMES A LEGEND MOST




“Gefter weaves the particulars of Avedon's life story into a larger narrative about American culture in the decades after World War II . . . Read in the context of our own precarious political and ecological moment, this assessment alone argues eloquently for the abiding, even urgent relevance of Avedon's imperfect Art.” ―Caroline Weber, The New York Times Sunday Book Review, on WHAT BECOMES A
LEGEND MOST

“Imagine the offspring of Marcel Proust and the Energizer Bunny-that's who Richard Avedon was, a chronicler of fashion, an analyst of social types, the
author in pictures of his era. And Philip Gefter captures him. His biography is an Avedon of Avedon.” ―Louis Menand, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of THE
METAPHYSICAL CLUB, on WHAT BECOMES A LEGEND MOST

“An admiring and absorbing biography.” ―The New York Times Book Review on WAGSTAFF

“I just couldn't stop reading this book! . . . not only about the New York art scene of the 70s but also about an entire generation.” ―Edmund White on WAGSTAFF



“Philip Gefter's eloquent biography captures the challenges and the thrills of this dramatic life. It is a smart, sexy biography of a brilliant, charismatic
man; it is also a portrait of a time when our ideas of art and our attitudes toward sexuality were in extraordinary flux.” ―Andrew Solomon, National Book Award-winning author of FAR FROM THE TREE, on WAGSTAFF

Philip Gefter is the author ofWhat Becomes a Legend Most: The Biography of Richard Avedon; Wagstaff: Before and After Mapplethorpe, which received the 2014 Marfield Prize for arts writing; and an essay collection,Photography After Frank. He is a regular contributor to theNew Yorker's Photobooth, Aperture, and theNew York Times, where he was an editor and photography critic for over fifteen years. Gefter produced the award-winning documentary,Bill Cunningham: New York.He lives in New York City.