Edmund Goulding, a mysterious, dapper, and captivatingly witty Englishman, was one of the most intriguing characters of Golden Age Hollywood. He is rightly remembered as an excellent film director, but he was also one of themost versatile and ultitalented personalities of his time. Certainly he directed some of the most well-crafted American film dramas of the 1930s and 1940s, including Grand Hotel, The Dawn Patrol, Dark Victory, the Old Maid, We Are Not Alone, the Constant Nymph, Claudia, The Razor's Edge, and Nightmare Alley. But a recitation of his directing credits is not enough. It is possible that no one who made movies has ever been so diversely talented. Eddie, as his friends called him, did everything: acted, wrote screenplays, composed music, edited, and produced. He was even an uncredited hairstylist, background-score composer, casting director, wardrobe supervisor, and make up artist. He wrote plays and novels, including the bestseller Fury, which he adapted into a movie. Though he was tied to Hollywood, he maintained an unduying love for Broadway, where he wrote, produced, and directed. He wrote poems, played tennis, sailed, and boxed, and still found time to be at all the right parties and to have a scandalous, bisexual private life. he once remarked that "studio people think I'm a little crazy" due to his desire to be all things while resisting long-term contracts.