Samuel Goldwyn was the premier dream-maker of his era - a fierce independent force i a time when studios ruled, a producer of silver screen sagas who was, in all probability, the last Hollywood tycoon. In this riveting book, Pulitzer Prize winning biographer A. Scott Berg tells the life story of this remarkable man - a tale as rich with drama as any feature length epic and as compelling as the history of Hollywood itself.
Walt Disney, David O. Selznick, Mary Pickford, Orson Welles, and an elite group of movie producers secretly formed their own society in an effort to break up the old studio monopolies. The Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers initiated profound changes in Hollywood but today has been forgotten Using original SlMPP documents, this book reveals the story that has waited over 40 years to be told.
Hal Wallis (1898-1986) might not be as well known as David O. Selznick or Samuel Goldwyn, but the films he produced—Casablanca, Jezebel, Now, Voyager, The Life of Emile Zola, Becket, True Grit, and many other classics (as well as scores of Elvis movies)—have certainly endured. As producer of numerous films, Wallis made an indelible mark on the course of America's film industry, but his contributions are often overlooked. Bernard Dick offers the first comprehensive assessment of the producer's incredible career. A former office boy and salesman, Wallis first engaged with the film business as the manager of a Los Angeles movie theater in 1922. He attracted the notice of the Warner brothers, who hired him as a publicity assistant. Within three months he was director of the department, and appointments to studio manager and production executive quickly followed. Wallis went on to oversee dozens of productions and formed his own production company in 1944. Dick draws on numerous sources such as Wallis's personal production files and exclusive interviews with many of his contemporaries to finally tell the full story of his illustrious career. Dick combines his knowledge of behind-the-scenes Hollywood with fascinating anecdotes to create a portrait of one of Hollywood's early power players.
Revered by his cinematic peers, William Wyler (1902-1981) was one of the most honored and successful directors of Hollywood's Golden Age, with such classics as Dead End, Wuthering Heights, The Little Foxes, Roman Holiday and Ben-Hur. He won three directing Oscars and elicited over a dozen Oscar-winning performances from his actors. Such exacting performers as Bette Davis, Laurence Olivier and Charlton Heston counted him the best director they had worked with. Yet during the era of the "auteur" theory his films fell out of fashion, lacking, it was said, a distinctive stylistic and thematic signature. This new critical study of Wyler's work, the first in more than thirty years, challenges the notion of Wyler's impersonality and offers a comprehensive reappraisal of his work, particularly of the underrated postwar films. It also provides a rebuttal of the auteurist criticism whose rigid categorization of directors cannot adequately encompass the range of someone like Wyler, who put substance above style and had a breadth of human understanding that was not reducible to a cluster of characteristic themes. Supported by archival research in Los Angeles, the book traces the important milestones in Wyler's career, the context of his films, the importance of legendary producer Sam Goldwyn, his distinguished war record and his principled opposition to blacklisting during the McCarthy era.
This biography is the story of how a bankrupt refugee without a studio managed to produce several of the greatest films of all time: "The African Queen, On the Waterfront, The Bridge on the River Kwai, " and "Lawrence of Arabia." Film credits aside, Sam Spiegel led a flamboyant and uncompromising life, and the full story has never been told--until now. of photos.
Sam Goldwyn’s career spanned almost the entire history of Hollywood. He made his first film, The Squaw Man, in 1913, and he died in 1974 at the age of ninety-one. In the many years between, he produced an enormous number of films—including such classics as Wuthering Heights, Street Scene, Arrowsmith, Dodsworth, The Little Foxes, and The Best Years of Our Lives—and worked with many luminaries—Gary Cooper, Ronald Colman, Laurence Olivier, George Balanchine, Lillian Hellman, Howard Hawks, John Ford, Eddie Cantor, Busby Berkeley, Danny Kaye, Merle Oberon, and Bob Hope among them. When Samuel Goldfisch was born in the Warsaw ghetto, he was penniless; when Sam Goldwyn died in Los Angeles, he was worth an estimated $19 million. The Search for Sam Goldwyn locates the real Sam Goldwyn and shatters the “hostile conspiracy of silence” that protected his legend. In writing Goldwyn's story, Carol Easton has given us a fine examination of “the civilization known as Hollywood” and how Goldwyn himself shaped that culture.
The New Historical Dictionary of the American Film Industry is a completely revised and updated edition of Anthony Slide's The American Film Industry, originally published in 1986 and recipient of the American Library Association's Outstanding Reference Book award for that year. More than 200 new entries have been added, and all original entries have been updated; each entry is followed by a short bibliography. As its predecessor, the new dictionary is unique in that it is not a who's who of the industry, but rather a what's what: a dictionary of producing and releasing companies, technical innovations, industry terms, studios, genres, color systems, institutions and organizations, etc. More than 800 entries include everything from Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences to Zoom Lens, from Astoria Studios to Zoetrope. Outstanding Reference Source - American Library Association
Synonymous with the golden age of Broadway, the dazzling lights of Hollywood, and the rise of television arts, Farley Granger's charm and talent captivated the acting community and audiences alike. Working with creative visionaries like Alfred Hitchcock, Luchino Visconti, and Nick Ray, Granger was a celebrated figure in films like Strangers on a Train, Rope, Senso, and They Live by Night, bringing to the big screen a stunningly memorable presence. But behind his characters, he was an intensely complex man. In his richly told memoir, Granger details his life with disarming candor. Rich in personal insight, he describes his relationships with both men and women and reminisces about screen legends he knew with private familiarity—from Shelley Winters to Joan Crawford to Leonard Bernstein. Recreating not only his personal struggles but his legendary struggle to free himself of his contract with Sam Goldwyn, Granger reveals none so elegantly as he does himself. Include Me Out is as much a story of classic Hollywood glamour as it is a collection of iconic theatrical portraits, all from the man who knew them all.
Rare correspondence from Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, Jane Fonda, and other Hollywood luminaries from the silent film era to the 1970s. Letters from Hollywood reproduces in full color scores of entertaining and insightful pieces of correspondence from some of the most notable and talented film industry names of all time—from the silent era to the golden age, and up through the pre-email days of the 1970s. Culled from libraries, archives, and personal collections, the 135 letters, memos, and telegrams are organized chronologically and are annotated by the authors to provide backstories and further context. While each piece reveals a specific moment in time, taken together, the letters convey a bigger picture of Hollywood history. Contributors include celebrities like Greta Garbo, Alfred Hitchcock, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Katharine Hepburn, Marlon Brando, Elia Kazan, Cary Grant, Francis Ford Coppola, Tom Hanks, and Jane Fonda. This is the gift book of the season for fans of classic Hollywood. With a foreword by Peter Bogdanovitch. “This is, quite simply, one of the finest books I’ve ever read about Hollywood.” —Leonard Maltin
