SUITE FOR BARBARA LODEN by NATHALIE LEGER is a MULTI GENRE MASTERPEICE

 The book was authored by French writer Nathalie Leger.

THE NEW YORKER : REVIEW FROM 2016 ON SUITE FOR BARBARA LODEN

This is an excellent review of the book, which was an accomplishment of Nathalie Leger.  The author had difficulty in researching Barbara Loden.  Sadly the Elia Kazan archives do not contain anything about his second wife.

EXCERPT :  Here, now, is a remarkable new book that does everything - biography, criticism, film history, memoir, and e3ven fiction, all at once, all out in front.  The book is "Suite for Barbara Loden," by French author Nathalie Leger, which was originally publishe4d in 2012 and is recently out in English translation from the small press Dorothy.  It's all the more remarkable for doing so much in a mere hundred and twenty-three pages (in translation by Natasha Lehrer and Cecile Menon). Barbara Loden direct3ed one feature film, "Wanda" from 1970, in which she also starred.  She was already an actress, including  in "Wild River" and "Splendor in the Grass," both directed by Elia Kazan, whom she married in 1968.  She won a Tony Award for her stage role in Arthur Miller's "After the Fall," from 1964.  But Loden's place in artistic history is assured y "Wanda," one of the best American independent films ever made.  She had other projects in minds (including an adaptation of Kate Chopin's novel "The Awakening" but was unable to find financing for them.  She died of cancer in 1980, at the age of forty-eight.