Shooting Eve is Sam Staggs’s dazzling, witty, and deeply researched re-creation of one of the greatest productions in Hollywood history: the making of All About Eve. Written as a screenplay and populated by an unforgettable cast of real-life characters—Bette Davis, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Marilyn Monroe, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Darryl F. Zanuck, and many more—the book plunges readers into the rivalries, romances, insecurities, ambitions, and battles that unfolded behind the cameras. Beginning on Oscar night and moving through casting crises, studio politics, on-set feuds, and unexpected love affairs, it reveals how a film about backstage intrigue emerged from a production every bit as dramatic as the masterpiece it created.
By turns hilarious, poignant, scandalous, and affectionate, Shooting Eve captures the last great moment of Hollywood’s golden age with extraordinary verve. Staggs combines the meticulous eye of a historian with the storytelling instincts of a born dramatist, transforming archival research into a living, breathing spectacle. The result is far more than a book about a movie: it is a richly entertaining portrait of an industry at its glamorous peak, where careers were made and broken overnight, egos collided like locomotives, and immortality seemed only one great performance away. For lovers of classic cinema, Shooting Eve is irresistible—a front-row seat to the creation of a legend.
Sam Staggs is the author of eight books, including four biographies of classic films: All About “All About Eve”; Close-up on “Sunset Boulevard”; When Blanche Met Brando: The Scandalous Story of “A Streetcar Named Desire”; and Born to Be Hurt: The Untold Story of “Imitation of Life.” He has written for many publications, including Vanity Fair, Architectural Digest, New York, and Opera News. He lives in Dallas, Texas.
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