Raconteur, bon vivant, actor, and diplomat, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., is an American Prince of Wales. Born into a distinguished circle of movie greats, he became a prince of the silver screen, a legend of Hollywood's golden age. His glittering lifestyle has taken him into the world of privilege and power, and his many leading ladies - both on and off the screen - have included Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, Vera Zorina, Gertrude Lawrence, Rita Hayworth, and Katharine Hepburn. In The Salad Days Fairbanks paints a self-portrait that shines with the same kind of wit, warmth, candor, and charm found in David Niven's bestselling The Moon's a Balloon. The Salad Days re-creates a time and place that will never be seen again. Here is father Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., and other screen legends such as Charlie Chaplin and stepmother Mary Pickford...mythic moviemaking that included The Dawn Patrol, Little Caesar, The Prisoner of Zenda, and Gunga Din...marriage to Joan Crawford at age 19...friendships and liaisons with glamorous women...stories of lifelong cronies Laurence Olivier, Noël Coward, and David Niven, and mentors John Barrymore and Lord Mountbatten. The Salad Days, the first volume of his autobiography, spans the twenties and thirties and ends in 1941, when FDR sent him and his new wife Mary Lee on a fact-finding tour of South America just before the United States entered World War II. -- from back cover.