Mick LaSalle is the film critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. In the late 1990s he was the on-air film critic for the ABC-TV affiliate in San Francisco, KGO. He is the author of three previous books: Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood, a history and critical study of the actresses who worked during the pre-censorship era of 1929–1934; Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man; and The Beauty of the Real: What Hollywood Can Learn from Contemporary French Actresses. He wrote and coproduced the Complicated Women documentary for Turner Classic Movies, which was narrated by Jane Fonda. He has written introductions to several books, including The Enduring Star, Peter Cowie’s biography of Joan Crawford.