BOOK REVIEWS: The First Showbiz Superstar

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Byline: RICHARD WILLIAMSON

DAVID Garrick was the first showbusiness superstar - an A-list celebrity 200 YEARS before the likes of Clark Gable, Marlon Brando and Tom Cruise turned up.

Great actors like Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and Alec Guinness are all 'Garrick's children'.

He was also an impresario on a par with Cameron Mackintosh and Andrew Lloyd Webber, and every actor, from soap stars to Hollywood heroes, owes him something.

So how did a lad from Lichfield come to be so important?

Jean Benedetti, author of David Garrick And The Birth of Modern Theatre (Methuen, pounds 20) puts it down to 'the Mozart factor' which is to say 'Garrick was a genius'.

It makes you wonder if London realised what was heading its …