Disciple and His Devil

319 pp. A biography of the first film producer to bring George Bernard Shaw's plays to the screen (he won an Academy Award for Pygmalion. "Genius Pascal undoubtedly was. Shaw called him the Diaghileff of films, and in his conception of the possibilities of the film medium he was far ahead of his time. But he was also a singular human being who combined in one kaleidoscopic personality charm and arrogance, tenderness and cruelty, the appetites of a sensualist and the ascetic aspirations of a monk. This book is Valerie Pascal's biography of her husband - a candid memoir of a men whose career spanned continents, who knew and worked with virtually every important film and theatre personality of his day, who savoured brilliant triumphs yet fought with stubborn courage the misfortunes that circumstances and his own willful nature brought upon him."