Chasing the Panther

Reviews

'The young southern girl who stepped through the looking glass at the right time may be the one to explain the magic hold of movies. Immensely pleasurable, vivid, and precise, Carolyn Pfeiffer's beautifully written and acutely felt memoir brings you into her life and puts you in her skin as she discovers the seductions of Europe and the glamour of show business. And she writes so well about what love affairs are made of and how they go'.

'Chasing the Panther is the feminist serial you always longed for, dropping you right into the middle of the explosive European film world of the fifties and sixties, where Carolyn Pfeiffer not only is in the right place at the right time but is the right person: she makes her own way, meets everyone, falls in love a lot, works hard on and off the set with directors and actors, and by the seventies, winds up being the only female producer in Hollywood able to green-light a film. And she has wisdom. This book is such a beautiful read.'

'A terrific read. The education of a pioneering indie studio executive as a young woman whose film school was European art cinema at its heyday, and also an intimate memoir of a life in the fast lane during the Swinging Sixties, careening from Rome to Paris to London, working and partying with the likes of Visconti, Truffaut, and the Beatles.'

'Carolyn has experienced firsthand what it's like to be part of the glamour and guts of greatness while still feeling her cheeks blush and heart soar. Those same sensations become ours. This book should be required reading for anyone with a dream.'

'Carolyn Pfeiffer fearlessly joined an international cultural revolution where she gracefully embraced opportunities in fashion, the film industry, and single motherhood. Achievement, glorious highs, and tragic lows . . . her life reads like a novel.'

'Carolyn Pfeiffer's adventures in her most unusual and adventurous life have included associations with rogues and royalty, creative changers of culture and wayward souls looking for redemption. She has, in the process, built companies, created media moguls, built schools, produced Academy-recognized films, and crashed through more glass ceilings than imaginable, all with grace and wit and charm. If there was cutting-edge of action of the cultural front, Carolyn was there: brave, confronting, and unbowed. And on top of all of that, her men have generally been famous, good looking, literate rascals, and she always gave them the run of their lives.'

'Carolyn was there at virtually every defining juncture of modern entertainment culture--from the French New Wave to the London music scene through the rise of the American independent film movement.'

'This book is a gem. Carolyn's dazzlingly bold and marvelous souvenirs knock one out from page one. Her prose is powerful and graceful, her life fascinating: she worked for the likes of Visconti, Claudia Cardinale, and Alain Delon (to drop a few names) and is always gracious and generous about them. I love her and love her book. So will you.'