The end of another unproductive year for me. After getting my hopes up for publishing the book myself, I found that it is a photo book and will cost too much money to produce, money I do not have. So back to the drawing board for me to see if maybe next year I can find a sponsor or publisher for my book.

In the meantime, I would like to wish all you loyal fans the best of everything for 2008!

Since I get so many inquiries about where to find Boyd's precious movies, I am creating a page with links to sites where you can buy them as I go. I will be updating that site regularly, and hopefully add web sites for those "hard to find" movies.

Click here to go to that page.

It has been a while since I last updated the site. Lots of things have happened but most importantly I am sure some of you are wondering what happened to the book?
I reached the final stages of the book and realized that no one wanted to publish it, mainly due to the fact that I am an unknown in the publishing world and first time writers, well, it's not easy.

Today I finally cleaned up my desk and thought to myself what I should do next with this book. I almost decided not to do anything and just give up. Then I opened my email and I got an offer from a self-publishing company out of the blue. For some reason, I did not use this service last year but it seems the company has updated its services and it is becoming affordable for me to possibly self-publish the book.

With that said, I am diligently working on the book again and will try to keep you all posted this year on my progress again. Many more photographs were obtained by me in the meantime and I will try to scan some of them to publish soon.

My apologies for my long absence, but I have not yet given up this project and will more than likely offer the book on my web site for sale after I self-publish it. I have no idea how to do this but I am sure I can work it in here.

Thank you fans for keeping in touch in the meantime!

PS: I would like to see how many people would actually buy the book, so if you read this, send me an email with subject: "Book Yes" if you are interested in purchasing this book when it comes out. No promises on date, but I would like to get an idea on how many people would actually buy it.

Thanks.

Currently working through the chronological events of the actor's life. This is a section covering the Big Gamble movie and events that occurred in his life around 1960/1961after Ben Hur.

This particular section features photos during and right after David Wayne rescued the actor from drowning.

The biography section draft was finished all the way up to his arrival in the USA late 1956. This chapter was a very challenging one to write, as it involved reading through endless articles to figure out the correct time line in which events in the actor's life occurred.

Chapter 1, Excerpt:

"He held the job for 10 weeks, living in a tiny apartment where the rest of the inhabitants of the building had to pass through in order to get to the back yard. The room was 1,20 m by 2,70 m long, no privacy and no windows. The only way to fit a bed in there was to put it in such a position that he had to go to another room to get under the covers to get in. He was able to save about 1 pound per week by living off meals of water and ketchup stolen from the restaurant. Once he had 10 pounds saved up, he quit and didn’t work for 2 weeks trying to find a job in the theatre. Then he became extremely ill with pneumonia and was unable to work and had no money. He could not even get up out of bed. He tried to explain his dire situation to the landlord but she told him to get out by the next Saturday since she too was very poor. She told him she could not give me food because she didn’t have any. When he was able to get up he grabbed his guitar and sat himself in front of the Empire Theatre in Leicester Square singing songs for the lines of people going into the theatres. He recalled: “I was embarrassed but I needed to survive. I made some money singing folk songs and was able to tell my landlord I had some money and she let me stay one more week.” He then went to the head of personnel at the Odeon Theatre and landed a job as a doorman within two weeks. Later he said about this grim episode in his life: “If I did something else, other than acting, it was just a job to keep me alive.” "

1/7/2006

The Caper of the Golden Bulls chapter was completed with layout but not yet with text.

I am happy to report that I have resumed the book development. All pictures have now been organized electronically by movie to get an inventory going to get copyrights to publish with the various companies as much as possible. Next step is now to scan all photos that are not yet archived and complete the listings of the pictures to get a library disk set up to send to the studios to get permission to use the pictures.

02/26/2005

The filmography sections are completed for the cast and crew. On to the story lines, see the news section if you would like to contribute to the book, here is your chance, I need story lines for the filmography next and it will be a lot of writing....but hey, so far so good!

02/23/2005

Two more movies to go to set up, just Shalako and Slaves. What does this mean? This means the framework for the filmography has been set up. Titles, and all cast and credits have been added to the filmography in the correct format and the only sections left to fill out are the story lines and the comment sections which will feature short anecdotes and other relevant information to each movie such as goofs, awards and nominations and things specific to the actor for that movie. Photographs are then to be selected for all movies to complete the documentation for each movie.

As I mentioned before, I am still expecting some pictures from Europe pertaining to the missing links and I have gained some missing link information on the actor's life as well. After the filmography is done, it is on to the sections as follows:

- Theatre work

- Movies never made

The final "chapter" will of course be the biography section which I am planning will be 1/3 of the book itself.

02/21/2005

Finished setting up the framework for the following films:

Fourteen more films to go in the sixties, I am still amazed at how much material there is on this actor and his work. So much for the unknown actor really, I cannot imaging doing a biography on a more famous persons since the work here is already very extensive and overwhelming but worth it!

Like the picture on the left, I am taking some time out in between scenes, this one is from the Fall of the Roman Empire and features a great behind the scenes look at the making of the movie and the interaction between the actors.

02/19/2005

Finished the Television section of the filmography after I decide to split this out separately from the actual big screen filmography for no particular reason other than to highlight this part of his career as some of his best work was actually in television. 

I started on Ben Hur which is a book by itself I think to document all the things that I want to document on this most important movie. I now have all of the sixties left, which is about 18 movies total. A lot of work is still to be done but I feel I am making progress. I am receiving some additional photographs from some of the movies I did not have anything on from overseas and will keep you posted. Also will be receiving some fantastic behind the scenes Fall of the Roman Empire pictures and will post a few shortly.

12/23/2004

I must say that what I thought was going to be fast turns out to be more time consuming for the seventies movies. But you can see we will keep on moving forward with it.

12/20/2004

It took a little longer than expected to document a film that Stephen made before his death, that was only released 3 years after his death. But I set up the chapter, just have to fill  in some blanks.

12/15/2004

Finished Night Heaven Fell and Bravados filmography section set up. I will finish the seventies movies before embarking on documenting the sixties and Ben Hur since this decade was the most extensive and crucial part of Boyd's career.

12/04/2004

It has been a while since I updated you on my progress but it is still going forward. I am hoping that I can find a publisher or else I will have to self-publish and that could be a great challenge! In the meantime, I have another example of yet another one of my favorite movies by this actor. Seven Thunders chapter has been completed. There is not much information regarding this film unfortunately, so it is a two-pager. Of course films like Ben Hur and The Fall of the Roman Empire will more than make up for this deficiency due to the immense amount of information on these films. Cheers.

09/03/2004

Finished the third full binder of news articles, biographies and miscellanous chronological background information and interviews. I have a total of four full binders so this is an achievement!!! One more to go!!!

The story is coming together. It amazes me to see how the actor evolved over time and it is almost surreal to look inside the actor's mind as if looking into a series of windows, as you pass  each one by.

08/09/2004

Put together the filmography information for the following movies and re-formatted for the book:

Added information and details to the biography chapter covering years 

1963

1964

1965

1966

07/10/2004:

Put together the filmography information for the following movies and re-formatted fonts for the book:

Casa Manchada 

Lady Dracula 

Squeeze, 

Evil in the Deep 

Frauenstation 

Potato Fritz 

Left Hand of the Law, The (1975) 

One Man Against the Organization (1975)

07/05/2004 The Book Layout