Author: Max Wilk
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 9781557835086
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
(Applause Books). "Where were you when the page was blank?!" a beleaguered screenwriter once asked a demanding director back in the golden age of movies. Max Wilk, an esteemed writer himself, admits "dignity for screenwriters is long overdue." That's why he has assembled this insightful homage to the men and women whose words created the foundation for our best and most-loved films. Here are face-to-face interviews with some of the historic giants of the industry, spanning the silent era to the 1960s, including Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch, Sidney Buchman ( Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ), Donald Ogden Stewart ( The Philadelphia Story ), R.C. Sherriff ( Goodbye Mr. Chips ), Albert and Frances Hackett ( It's a Wonderful Life ), Evan Hunter ( The Birds ), John Collier, Edmund Hartmann, Ben Hecht, Nunnally Johnson and many more. In addition, Schmucks with Underwoods (a derogatory label for screenwriters coined by none other than the irascible Jack Warner) includes quotes and commentary about many other towering figures of the day, including Raymond Chandler, Edward Chodorov, Preston Sturges, Howard Koch, Dorothy Parker, Herman Mankiewicz and Paddy Chayefsky. Always entertaining, this book offers invaluable insight into the craft of writing, a fascinating portrait of a lost era of Hollywood, with enough hilarious anecdotes and behind-the-scenes trivia to please even the most casual movie buff.
Schmucks with Underwoods
Author: Max Wilk
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 9781557835086
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
(Applause Books). "Where were you when the page was blank?!" a beleaguered screenwriter once asked a demanding director back in the golden age of movies. Max Wilk, an esteemed writer himself, admits "dignity for screenwriters is long overdue." That's why he has assembled this insightful homage to the men and women whose words created the foundation for our best and most-loved films. Here are face-to-face interviews with some of the historic giants of the industry, spanning the silent era to the 1960s, including Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch, Sidney Buchman ( Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ), Donald Ogden Stewart ( The Philadelphia Story ), R.C. Sherriff ( Goodbye Mr. Chips ), Albert and Frances Hackett ( It's a Wonderful Life ), Evan Hunter ( The Birds ), John Collier, Edmund Hartmann, Ben Hecht, Nunnally Johnson and many more. In addition, Schmucks with Underwoods (a derogatory label for screenwriters coined by none other than the irascible Jack Warner) includes quotes and commentary about many other towering figures of the day, including Raymond Chandler, Edward Chodorov, Preston Sturges, Howard Koch, Dorothy Parker, Herman Mankiewicz and Paddy Chayefsky. Always entertaining, this book offers invaluable insight into the craft of writing, a fascinating portrait of a lost era of Hollywood, with enough hilarious anecdotes and behind-the-scenes trivia to please even the most casual movie buff.
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 9781557835086
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
(Applause Books). "Where were you when the page was blank?!" a beleaguered screenwriter once asked a demanding director back in the golden age of movies. Max Wilk, an esteemed writer himself, admits "dignity for screenwriters is long overdue." That's why he has assembled this insightful homage to the men and women whose words created the foundation for our best and most-loved films. Here are face-to-face interviews with some of the historic giants of the industry, spanning the silent era to the 1960s, including Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch, Sidney Buchman ( Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ), Donald Ogden Stewart ( The Philadelphia Story ), R.C. Sherriff ( Goodbye Mr. Chips ), Albert and Frances Hackett ( It's a Wonderful Life ), Evan Hunter ( The Birds ), John Collier, Edmund Hartmann, Ben Hecht, Nunnally Johnson and many more. In addition, Schmucks with Underwoods (a derogatory label for screenwriters coined by none other than the irascible Jack Warner) includes quotes and commentary about many other towering figures of the day, including Raymond Chandler, Edward Chodorov, Preston Sturges, Howard Koch, Dorothy Parker, Herman Mankiewicz and Paddy Chayefsky. Always entertaining, this book offers invaluable insight into the craft of writing, a fascinating portrait of a lost era of Hollywood, with enough hilarious anecdotes and behind-the-scenes trivia to please even the most casual movie buff.
Lonelyhearts
Author: Marion Meade
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 054748867X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 435
Book Description
A “breezily entertaining” look at the comic couple who hobnobbed with Dorothy Parker, S. J. Perelman, Bennett Cerf, and other luminaries of their day (The New York Times Book Review). Nathanael West—author, screenwriter, playwright—was famous for two masterpieces: Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust, which remains one the most penetrating novels ever written about Hollywood. He was also one of the most gifted and original writers of his generation, a scathing satirist whose insight into the brutalities of modern life proved prophetic. Eileen McKenney—accidental muse, literary heroine—grew up corn-fed in the Midwest and moved to Manhattan’s Greenwich Village when she was twenty-one. The inspiration for her sister Ruth’s stories in the New Yorker under the banner of “My Sister Eileen,” she became an overnight celebrity, and her star eventually crossed with that of the man she would impulsively marry. Together, Nathanael and Eileen had entrée into a social circle that included F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dashiell Hammett, Katharine White, and many of the literary, theatrical, and film luminaries of the era. But their carefree, offbeat Broadway-to-Hollywood love story would flame out almost as soon as it began. Now, with “a great marriage of scholarship and gossip” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune), this biography restores West and McKenney to their rightful place in the popular imagination, offering “a shrewd portrait of two people who in their different ways were noteworthy participants in American culture during one of its liveliest periods” (Los Angeles Times). “Opens a window onto the lives of writers in 1930s America as they struggled with anxieties, pretensions, temptations and myths that confound our culture to this day.” —Salon.com “The first to fully chronicle and entwine these careening lives, Meade forges an engrossing, madcap, and tragic American story of ambition, reinvention, and risk.” —Booklist, starred review
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 054748867X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 435
Book Description
A “breezily entertaining” look at the comic couple who hobnobbed with Dorothy Parker, S. J. Perelman, Bennett Cerf, and other luminaries of their day (The New York Times Book Review). Nathanael West—author, screenwriter, playwright—was famous for two masterpieces: Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust, which remains one the most penetrating novels ever written about Hollywood. He was also one of the most gifted and original writers of his generation, a scathing satirist whose insight into the brutalities of modern life proved prophetic. Eileen McKenney—accidental muse, literary heroine—grew up corn-fed in the Midwest and moved to Manhattan’s Greenwich Village when she was twenty-one. The inspiration for her sister Ruth’s stories in the New Yorker under the banner of “My Sister Eileen,” she became an overnight celebrity, and her star eventually crossed with that of the man she would impulsively marry. Together, Nathanael and Eileen had entrée into a social circle that included F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dashiell Hammett, Katharine White, and many of the literary, theatrical, and film luminaries of the era. But their carefree, offbeat Broadway-to-Hollywood love story would flame out almost as soon as it began. Now, with “a great marriage of scholarship and gossip” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune), this biography restores West and McKenney to their rightful place in the popular imagination, offering “a shrewd portrait of two people who in their different ways were noteworthy participants in American culture during one of its liveliest periods” (Los Angeles Times). “Opens a window onto the lives of writers in 1930s America as they struggled with anxieties, pretensions, temptations and myths that confound our culture to this day.” —Salon.com “The first to fully chronicle and entwine these careening lives, Meade forges an engrossing, madcap, and tragic American story of ambition, reinvention, and risk.” —Booklist, starred review
She Made Me Laugh
Author: Richard M. Cohen
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476796130
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
The writer and filmmaker Nora Ephron is captured by her long-time and dear friend Richard Cohen in a recollection of their decades-long friendship.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476796130
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
The writer and filmmaker Nora Ephron is captured by her long-time and dear friend Richard Cohen in a recollection of their decades-long friendship.
The Spirit of Creativity
Author: Gottlieb Guntern
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761850538
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 505
Book Description
The Spirit of Creativity is a systemic study of human creativity. It offers a fascinating visual model of the creative process consisting of four major stages: stage I, the interplay of chaos and order; stage II, creative production; stage III, cultural selection; stage IV, morpho-evolution and morpho-elimination of created products and forms. The author analyzes the seven phases (germination, inspiration, preparation, incubation, illumination, elaboration and evaluation) of stage II, leading from a vague hunch to a product meeting the criteria of creativity. A vast number of examples, taken from all continents and various cultures as well as from art, technology and science and other fields of human endeavor, illustrate how cultural recognition and rejection influence the creative processes of individuals and teams. The author demonstrates the tremendous impact of the Mongol Empire, the Silk Road, and the medieval Muslim golden age on the origin of the European Renaissance.
Publisher: University Press of America
ISBN: 0761850538
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 505
Book Description
The Spirit of Creativity is a systemic study of human creativity. It offers a fascinating visual model of the creative process consisting of four major stages: stage I, the interplay of chaos and order; stage II, creative production; stage III, cultural selection; stage IV, morpho-evolution and morpho-elimination of created products and forms. The author analyzes the seven phases (germination, inspiration, preparation, incubation, illumination, elaboration and evaluation) of stage II, leading from a vague hunch to a product meeting the criteria of creativity. A vast number of examples, taken from all continents and various cultures as well as from art, technology and science and other fields of human endeavor, illustrate how cultural recognition and rejection influence the creative processes of individuals and teams. The author demonstrates the tremendous impact of the Mongol Empire, the Silk Road, and the medieval Muslim golden age on the origin of the European Renaissance.
Show Trial
Author: Thomas Doherty
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231547463
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 637
Book Description
In 1947, the Cold War came to Hollywood. Over nine tumultuous days in October, the House Un-American Activities Committee held a notorious round of hearings into alleged Communist subversion in the movie industry. The blowback was profound: the major studios pledged to never again employ a known Communist or unrepentant fellow traveler. The declaration marked the onset of the blacklist era, a time when political allegiances, real or suspected, determined employment opportunities in the entertainment industry. Hundreds of artists were shown the door—or had it shut in their faces. In Show Trial, Thomas Doherty takes us behind the scenes at the first full-on media-political spectacle of the postwar era. He details the theatrical elements of a proceeding that bridged the realms of entertainment and politics, a courtroom drama starring glamorous actors, colorful moguls, on-the-make congressmen, high-priced lawyers, single-minded investigators, and recalcitrant screenwriters, all recorded by newsreel cameras and broadcast over radio. Doherty tells the story of the Hollywood Ten and the other witnesses, friendly and unfriendly, who testified, and chronicles the implementation of the postwar blacklist. Show Trial is a rich, character-driven inquiry into how the HUAC hearings ignited the anti-Communist crackdown in Hollywood, providing a gripping cultural history of one of the most transformative events of the postwar era.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231547463
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 637
Book Description
In 1947, the Cold War came to Hollywood. Over nine tumultuous days in October, the House Un-American Activities Committee held a notorious round of hearings into alleged Communist subversion in the movie industry. The blowback was profound: the major studios pledged to never again employ a known Communist or unrepentant fellow traveler. The declaration marked the onset of the blacklist era, a time when political allegiances, real or suspected, determined employment opportunities in the entertainment industry. Hundreds of artists were shown the door—or had it shut in their faces. In Show Trial, Thomas Doherty takes us behind the scenes at the first full-on media-political spectacle of the postwar era. He details the theatrical elements of a proceeding that bridged the realms of entertainment and politics, a courtroom drama starring glamorous actors, colorful moguls, on-the-make congressmen, high-priced lawyers, single-minded investigators, and recalcitrant screenwriters, all recorded by newsreel cameras and broadcast over radio. Doherty tells the story of the Hollywood Ten and the other witnesses, friendly and unfriendly, who testified, and chronicles the implementation of the postwar blacklist. Show Trial is a rich, character-driven inquiry into how the HUAC hearings ignited the anti-Communist crackdown in Hollywood, providing a gripping cultural history of one of the most transformative events of the postwar era.
Movie Speak
Author: Tony Bill
Publisher: Workman Publishing Company
ISBN: 0761156305
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
“Movie Speak won’t guarantee you a job, but having a knowledge of the industry terms will fool everyone into thinking you own the place.” — Steven Spielberg “Finally a book that celebrates the process—the dynamic web of people, technique, and artistry—underneath every foot of celluloid.” —Jodie Foster Uncover the secret language of movie-making in a handbook for film buffs and language-lovers, as well as anyone who aspires to break into the business, with hundreds of essential terms, explained. Opening a window into the fascinatingly technical, odd, colorful, and mysterious working language of movies, Oscar-winning producer, actor, and director Tony Bill sheds light on the hugely complex process of making a film, as well as on the hierarchies between the cast and crew and the on-set etiquette of any movie production. From why the Assistant Director calls “wrap” to the real reason Hollywood stars began wearing sunglasses, Movie Speak offers tricks of the trade learned over decades in Hollywood—to help you crack the code of the movie business.
Publisher: Workman Publishing Company
ISBN: 0761156305
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
“Movie Speak won’t guarantee you a job, but having a knowledge of the industry terms will fool everyone into thinking you own the place.” — Steven Spielberg “Finally a book that celebrates the process—the dynamic web of people, technique, and artistry—underneath every foot of celluloid.” —Jodie Foster Uncover the secret language of movie-making in a handbook for film buffs and language-lovers, as well as anyone who aspires to break into the business, with hundreds of essential terms, explained. Opening a window into the fascinatingly technical, odd, colorful, and mysterious working language of movies, Oscar-winning producer, actor, and director Tony Bill sheds light on the hugely complex process of making a film, as well as on the hierarchies between the cast and crew and the on-set etiquette of any movie production. From why the Assistant Director calls “wrap” to the real reason Hollywood stars began wearing sunglasses, Movie Speak offers tricks of the trade learned over decades in Hollywood—to help you crack the code of the movie business.
The Monet Murders
Author: Terry Mort
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493064983
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
Hollywood, 1934. Prohibition is finally over, but there is still plenty of crime for an ambitious young private eye to investigate. Though he has a slightly checkered past, Riley Fitzhugh is well connected in the film industry and is hired by a major producer—whose lovely girlfriend has disappeared. He also is hired to recover a stolen Monet, a crime that results in two murders initially, with more to come. Along the way, Riley investigates the gambling ships anchored off LA, gets involved with the girlfriend of the gangster running one of the ships, and disposes of the body of a would-be actor who assaults Riley’s girlfriend. He also meets an elegant English art history professor from UCLA who helps Riley authenticate several paintings and determine which ones are forgeries. Riley lives at the Garden of Allah Hotel, the favorite watering place of screenwriters, and he meets and unknowingly assists many of them with their plots. Incidentally, one of these gents, whose nom de plume is “Hobey Baker,” might actually be F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493064983
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
Hollywood, 1934. Prohibition is finally over, but there is still plenty of crime for an ambitious young private eye to investigate. Though he has a slightly checkered past, Riley Fitzhugh is well connected in the film industry and is hired by a major producer—whose lovely girlfriend has disappeared. He also is hired to recover a stolen Monet, a crime that results in two murders initially, with more to come. Along the way, Riley investigates the gambling ships anchored off LA, gets involved with the girlfriend of the gangster running one of the ships, and disposes of the body of a would-be actor who assaults Riley’s girlfriend. He also meets an elegant English art history professor from UCLA who helps Riley authenticate several paintings and determine which ones are forgeries. Riley lives at the Garden of Allah Hotel, the favorite watering place of screenwriters, and he meets and unknowingly assists many of them with their plots. Incidentally, one of these gents, whose nom de plume is “Hobey Baker,” might actually be F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Screenwriting
Author: Bridget Conor
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136169482
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 279
Book Description
Screenwriting: Creative Labor and Professional Practice analyzes the histories, practices, identities and subjects which form and shape the daily working lives of screenwriters. Author Bridget Conor considers the ways in which contemporary screenwriters navigate and make sense of the labor markets in which they are immersed. Chapters explore areas including: Screenwriting histories and myths of the profession Screenwriting as creative labor Screenwriters’ working lives Screenwriting work and the how-to genre Screenwriting work and inequalities Drawing on historical and critical perspectives of mainstream screenwriting in the USA and UK, as well as valuable interviews with working screenwriters, this book presents a highly original and multi-faceted study of screenwriting as creative labor and professional practice. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorandfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780203080771
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136169482
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 279
Book Description
Screenwriting: Creative Labor and Professional Practice analyzes the histories, practices, identities and subjects which form and shape the daily working lives of screenwriters. Author Bridget Conor considers the ways in which contemporary screenwriters navigate and make sense of the labor markets in which they are immersed. Chapters explore areas including: Screenwriting histories and myths of the profession Screenwriting as creative labor Screenwriters’ working lives Screenwriting work and the how-to genre Screenwriting work and inequalities Drawing on historical and critical perspectives of mainstream screenwriting in the USA and UK, as well as valuable interviews with working screenwriters, this book presents a highly original and multi-faceted study of screenwriting as creative labor and professional practice. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorandfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780203080771
William Faulkner in Hollywood
Author: Stefan Solomon
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820351148
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
A scholarly examination of the scripts and fiction Faulkner created during his foray as a Hollywood screenwriter. During more than two decades (1932-1954), William Faulkner worked on approximately fifty screenplays for major Hollywood studios and was credited on such classics as The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not. Faulkner’s film scripts—and later television scripts—constitute an extensive and, until now, thoroughly underexplored archival source. Stefan Solomon analyzes the majority of these scripts and also compares them to the fiction Faulkner was writing concurrently. His aim: to reconcile two aspects of a career that were not as distinct as they first might seem: Faulkner the screenwriter and Faulkner the modernist, Nobel Prize–winning author. As Solomon shows Faulkner adjusting to the idiosyncrasies of the screenwriting process (a craft he never favored or admired), he offers insights into Faulkner’s compositional practice, thematic preoccupations, and understanding of both cinema and television. In the midst of this complex exchange of media and genres, much of Faulkner’s fiction of the 1930s and 1940s was directly influenced by his protracted engagement with the film industry. Solomon helps us to see a corpus integrating two vastly different modes of writing and a restless author. Faulkner was never only the southern novelist or the West Coast “hack writer” but always both at once. Solomon’s study shows that Faulkner’s screenplays are crucial in any consideration of his far more esteemed fiction—and that the two forms of writing are more porous and intertwined than the author himself would have us believe. Here is a major American writer seen in a remarkably new way.
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820351148
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
A scholarly examination of the scripts and fiction Faulkner created during his foray as a Hollywood screenwriter. During more than two decades (1932-1954), William Faulkner worked on approximately fifty screenplays for major Hollywood studios and was credited on such classics as The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not. Faulkner’s film scripts—and later television scripts—constitute an extensive and, until now, thoroughly underexplored archival source. Stefan Solomon analyzes the majority of these scripts and also compares them to the fiction Faulkner was writing concurrently. His aim: to reconcile two aspects of a career that were not as distinct as they first might seem: Faulkner the screenwriter and Faulkner the modernist, Nobel Prize–winning author. As Solomon shows Faulkner adjusting to the idiosyncrasies of the screenwriting process (a craft he never favored or admired), he offers insights into Faulkner’s compositional practice, thematic preoccupations, and understanding of both cinema and television. In the midst of this complex exchange of media and genres, much of Faulkner’s fiction of the 1930s and 1940s was directly influenced by his protracted engagement with the film industry. Solomon helps us to see a corpus integrating two vastly different modes of writing and a restless author. Faulkner was never only the southern novelist or the West Coast “hack writer” but always both at once. Solomon’s study shows that Faulkner’s screenplays are crucial in any consideration of his far more esteemed fiction—and that the two forms of writing are more porous and intertwined than the author himself would have us believe. Here is a major American writer seen in a remarkably new way.
John Huston: Courage and Art
Author: Jeffrey Meyers
Publisher: Crown Archetype
ISBN: 0307590690
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 498
Book Description
From the acclaimed biographer of Ernest Hemingway, Humphrey Bogart, and Errol Flynn comes the first complete biography of the legendary John Huston, the extraordinary director, writer, actor, and bon vivant who made iconic films such as The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Asphalt Jungle, and The African Queen—and lived one of the most vibrant, eventful lives in Hollywood history. An actor in the 1920s and scriptwriter in the 1930s, John Huston made his dazzling directorial debut in 1941 with The Maltese Falcon. His career as a filmmaker spanned some fifty-seven years and yielded thirty-seven feature films. He made most of his movies abroad, spent much of his life in Ireland and Mexico, and remains one of the most intelligent and influential filmmakers in history. With equal attention given to Huston’s impressive artistic output and tempestuous personal relationships, biographer Jeffrey Meyers presents a vivid narrative of Huston’s remarkably rich creative life. The son of the famous stage and screen actor Walter Huston, John Huston was born in Nevada City, Missouri, and suffered from a weak heart that forced him to live as an invalid for much of his childhood. One day, however, he impulsively left his sickbed, dove over a waterfall, swam into a raging river and began to lead a strenuous life. He became an expert sportsman as well as a boxer, bullfighter, hunter, soldier, gambler and adventurer. Though he didn’t finish high school, he was a man of true genius: a serious painter and amusing raconteur, playwright and story writer, stage and screen actor, director of plays on Broadway and operas at La Scala, autobiographer and political activist who crusaded against Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anticommunist witch hunts in Hollywood. He was a discerning collector of art and connoisseur of literature, food and wine. Passionate about horses and women, he had five successively younger wives. Meyers chronicles Huston’s extraordinarily peripatetic life and examines his rise as a great masculine artist in the formidable tradition of Melville, Conrad and Hemingway, whose persona, ethos, prose style and virile code had a powerful influence on his life and work. Thirty-four of Huston’s thirty-seven films adapted important novels, stories and plays, and Meyers perceptively describes how Huston brilliantly transformed the written word into the cinematic image. Huston’s dominant theme is the almost impossible quest, tempered by detachment and irony. His heroes sacrifice honor in pursuit of wealth but fail in that venture, are mocked by cruel fate and remain defiant in the face of defeat. Based on research in Huston’s personal and professional archives, and interviews with his children, friends and colleagues, this is the dramatic story of a courageous artist who, Meyers persuasively argues, is “one of the most fascinating men who ever lived.” From the Hardcover edition.
Publisher: Crown Archetype
ISBN: 0307590690
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 498
Book Description
From the acclaimed biographer of Ernest Hemingway, Humphrey Bogart, and Errol Flynn comes the first complete biography of the legendary John Huston, the extraordinary director, writer, actor, and bon vivant who made iconic films such as The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Asphalt Jungle, and The African Queen—and lived one of the most vibrant, eventful lives in Hollywood history. An actor in the 1920s and scriptwriter in the 1930s, John Huston made his dazzling directorial debut in 1941 with The Maltese Falcon. His career as a filmmaker spanned some fifty-seven years and yielded thirty-seven feature films. He made most of his movies abroad, spent much of his life in Ireland and Mexico, and remains one of the most intelligent and influential filmmakers in history. With equal attention given to Huston’s impressive artistic output and tempestuous personal relationships, biographer Jeffrey Meyers presents a vivid narrative of Huston’s remarkably rich creative life. The son of the famous stage and screen actor Walter Huston, John Huston was born in Nevada City, Missouri, and suffered from a weak heart that forced him to live as an invalid for much of his childhood. One day, however, he impulsively left his sickbed, dove over a waterfall, swam into a raging river and began to lead a strenuous life. He became an expert sportsman as well as a boxer, bullfighter, hunter, soldier, gambler and adventurer. Though he didn’t finish high school, he was a man of true genius: a serious painter and amusing raconteur, playwright and story writer, stage and screen actor, director of plays on Broadway and operas at La Scala, autobiographer and political activist who crusaded against Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anticommunist witch hunts in Hollywood. He was a discerning collector of art and connoisseur of literature, food and wine. Passionate about horses and women, he had five successively younger wives. Meyers chronicles Huston’s extraordinarily peripatetic life and examines his rise as a great masculine artist in the formidable tradition of Melville, Conrad and Hemingway, whose persona, ethos, prose style and virile code had a powerful influence on his life and work. Thirty-four of Huston’s thirty-seven films adapted important novels, stories and plays, and Meyers perceptively describes how Huston brilliantly transformed the written word into the cinematic image. Huston’s dominant theme is the almost impossible quest, tempered by detachment and irony. His heroes sacrifice honor in pursuit of wealth but fail in that venture, are mocked by cruel fate and remain defiant in the face of defeat. Based on research in Huston’s personal and professional archives, and interviews with his children, friends and colleagues, this is the dramatic story of a courageous artist who, Meyers persuasively argues, is “one of the most fascinating men who ever lived.” From the Hardcover edition.