Cocktails with George and Martha

"Smart and entertaining . . . Gefter shows why Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? hit the ‘60s like a torpedo." — NPR, Fresh Air

"Delicious." — New York Times Book Review

The behind-the-scenes story of a provocative play, the groundbreaking film it became, and how two iconic stars changed the image of marriage forever.

From its debut in 1962, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was a wild success and a cultural lightning rod. It scandalised critics but magnetised audiences. Across 644 sold-out Broadway performances, the drama demolished the wall between what could and couldn’t be said on the American stage and marked a definitive end to the I Love Lucy 1950s.

Then, Hollywood took a colossal gamble on Albee’s sophisticated play—and won. Co-starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the sensational 1966 film minted first-time director Mike Nichols as industry royalty and won five Oscars. How this scorching play became a movie classic—surviving censorship attempts, its director’s inexperience, and its stars’ own tumultuous marriage—is one of the most riveting stories in all of cinema.

Marfield Prizewinner Philip Gefter tells that deliciously entertaining story in full for the first time, tracing Woolf from its hushed origins in Greenwich Village’s bohemian enclave, through its tormented production process, to its explosion onto screens and its permanent place in the canon of American cinema. This deliciously entertaining book explores how two couples—one fictional, one all too real—forced a nation to confront its most deeply held myths about relationships, sex, family, and, against all odds, love.