I am supposed to call Peter Glenville a gay director who was also a conservative Republican and a tax dodger, but it’s more accurate to call him a prominent Cold War-era Hollywood and Broadway director—who also happened to be a closeted Catholic conservative tax dodger. 

Welcome to the modern biographer’s dilemma. Today we often define people by asking: Who slept with whom? We’ve decided that sexuality defines us all. But every historian is a diplomat representing yesterday’s lost world to readers today. Good historians speak the language of today without letting the language from yesteryear get lost in translation. 

Three movies dazzled the nominators for the 37th Academy Awards in 1965. Mary Poppins had 13 nominations. My Fair Lady and Becket each earned 12. On Oscar night, My Fair Lady won eight awards, Mary Poppins won five, and Becket only one, for best adapted screenplay. In a just world where artistry trumps shtick, Becket would have done better—and be remembered today...

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