A Hollywood film correspondent in the 1960s and '70s, Mr. Madsen wrote more than a dozen biograp... Axel Madsen: 1930 - 2007...

A Hollywood film correspondent in the 1960s and '70s, Mr. Madsen wrote more than a dozen biographies, starting with a short work on director Billy Wilder in 1968. He continued with directors William Wyler and John Huston, then French fashion designers Yves St. Laurent and Chanel.

In addition to profiling the leading lights of Hollywood, he wrote serious studies of French thinkers Andre Malraux, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir as well as captains of industry William Durant and Astor.

But his most popular volumes focused on Hollywood's salacious back stories in "Gloria and Joe: The Star-Crossed Love Affair of Gloria Swanson and Joe Kennedy" (1988) and "The Sewing Circle: Female Stars Who Loved Other Women" (1995).

Michael Hargraves, a writer and researcher at the J. Paul Getty Museum who often helped Mr. Madsen with his background investigations, marveled at his friend's chosen field.

Some subjects cooperated with Mr. Madsen, whereas others avoided his probing. Mr. Madsen was handpicked to tell Wyler's story, and as a film journalist he had interviewed actresses Stanwyck and Swanson years before. But his peek behind the scenes of "60 Minutes" was unauthorized, and St. Laurent backed out of a planned interview.

Mr. Madsen's books gained attention from reviewers for high-profile publications who sometimes offered positive responses and at other times less so.

In The New York Times in 1987, Laurence Wylie called the biography of marine explorer Jacques Cousteau "journalism at its best and at its worst. At its best because it is lively, simply organized, clearly written and holds the reader's interest in what might have been a lengthy enumeration of adventures, maneuvers and achievements. At its worst because it is careless. ... More important, the book is superficial."

Mr. Madsen's varied interests were reflected in his choice of subjects. His wife said he decided to write about truckers after the two of them drove back and forth from Los Angeles to their other home, in Bucks County, Pa. He became fascinated with the characters they encountered at highway truck stops, resulting in "Open Road: Truckin' on the Biting Edge" (1982).

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