Conversations With Brando


Lawrence Grobel - 1987
    Brando discusses many topics including acting, women, Native Americans and corporate America.

George Cukor: A Double Life


Patrick McGilligan - 1991
    Relates the life of the secretly gay Hollywood director who guided to stardom such legendary actresses as Garbo, Bergman, Garland, and Hepburn.

JFK: The Book of the Film


Oliver Stone - 1992
    The book is complete with historical annotation, with 340 research notes and 97 reactions and commentaries by Norman Mailer, Tom Wicker, Gerald R. Ford, and many others.

The Complete History of the Return of the Living Dead


Christian Sellers - 2010
    For the first time in 25 years, the cast and crew of all five films in this franchise reveal the stories behind the movies, offering their own opinions and details about life on the sets of some of the most fraught productions in cinema history. Supported by dozens of cast and crew members, The Complete History of the Return of the Living Dead features hundreds of previously unreleased behind-the-scenes photographs and exclusive artwork. This eye-catching, comprehensive book is the ultimate celebration of The Return of the Living Dead franchise and all those who contributed to its creation.

The Man with the Golden Touch: How The Bond Films Conquered the World


Sinclair McKay - 2008
    This is the story of how, with the odd misstep along the way, the owners of the Bond franchise, Eon Productions, have contrived to keep James Bond abreast of the zeitgeist and at the top of the charts for 45 years, through 21 films featuring six Bonds, three M’s, two Q’s and three Moneypennies. Thanks to the films, Fleming’s original creation has been transformed from a black sheep of the post-war English upper classes into a figure with universal appeal, constantly evolving to keep pace with changing social and political circumstances. Having interviewed people concerned with all aspects of the films, Sinclair McKay is ideally placed to describe how the Bond ‘brand’ has been managed over the years as well as to give us the inside stories of the supporting cast of Bond girls, Bond villains, Bond cars and Bond gadgetry. Sinclair McKay, formerly assistant features editor of the Daily Telegraph, works as a freelance writer and journalist. He is also the author of A Thing of Unspeakable Horror: The History of Hammer Films, which the Guardian called ‘A splendid history’ and the Independent on Sunday described as ‘Brisk, cheerful and enthusiastic.’

As I Am


Patricia Neal - 1988
    Her long-awaited autobiography casts Neal in her greatest role--as the indomitable heroine of her own incredible real-life story.

Mad as Hell: The Making of Network and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies


Dave Itzkoff - 2014
    With a superb cast (including Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, and Robert Duvall) directed by Sidney Lumet, the film won four Academy Awards and indelibly shaped how we think about corporate and media power.In Mad As Hell, Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times recounts the surprising and dramatic story of how Network made it to the screen. Such a movie rarely gets made any more—one man’s vision of the world, independent of studio testing or market research. And that man was Paddy Chayefsky, the tough, driven, Oscar-winning screenwriter whose vision—outlandish for its time—is all too real today. Itzkoff uses interviews with the cast and crew, as well as Chayefsky’s notes, letters, and drafts to re-create the action in front of and behind the camera at a time of swirling cultural turmoil. The result is a riveting account that enriches our appreciation of this prophetic and still-startling film.Itzkoff also speaks with today’s leading broadcasters and filmmakers to assess Network’s lasting impact on television and popular culture. They testify to the enduring genius of Paddy Chayefsky, who foresaw the future and whose life offers an unforgettable lesson about the true cost of self-expression.

Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel


Peter L. Winkler - 2011
    Always intent on proving his genius and leaving a legacy, the Emmy and Oscar-nominated Hopper acted in more than 115 movies and four TV series, directed seven films, and passionately pursued an artist's life as a photographer and creator and collector of modern art, embracing the work of artists like Warhol and Lichtenstein before the label "pop art" was even coined. Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel explores Hopper's life from his lonely childhood in Kansas, where he became determined to win the affection of others by becoming a great artist, to his often drug-fueled days and nights in Hollywood and his spiritual home in Taos, New Mexico. From Hopper's early days in Hollywood, where he had an affair with 16-year-old Natalie Wood and took acting lessons from James Dean while making Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, his '60s head trips and the making of Easy Rider, the crushing failure of The Last Movie and his lost years in Taos, to his recovery and political right turn in the '80s, Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel unsparingly documents his journey from a self-destructive bad boy to a reformed member of the Hollywood establishment and iconic survivor of the counterculture. The book also delves into Hopper's tumultuous personal life, including his dramatic attempt to divorce his last wife while he battled terminal cancer. This is the first book to cover the entire life and career of the man who hung out with James Dean, Elvis Presley, and Jack Nicholson, costarred in and directed Easy Rider, and came back big in Blue Velvet, overcoming years of alcoholism and drug addiction. Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel is a must-have for Hopper's fans, film buffs, and readers hooked on celebrity scandals.

The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Expanded and Updated


David Thomson - 1975
    In addition to the new “musts,” Thomson has added key figures from film history–lively anatomies of Graham Greene, Eddie Cantor, Pauline Kael, Abbott and Costello, Noël Coward, Hoagy Carmichael, Dorothy Gish, Rin Tin Tin, and more. Here is a great, rare book, one that encompasses the chaos of art, entertainment, money, vulgarity, and nonsense that we call the movies. Personal, opinionated, funny, daring, provocative, and passionate, it is the one book that every filmmaker and film buff must own. Time Out named it one of the ten best books of the 1990s. Gavin Lambert recognized it as “a work of imagination in its own right.” Now better than ever–a masterwork by the man playwright David Hare called “the most stimulating and thoughtful film critic now writing.”

Tom Hanks: Nice to Meet You (Biographies of Famous People)


James J. Diamond - 2016
    It's the hard that makes it great.” – Tom Hanks Tom Hanks is a much-beloved American film actor whose cheerful everyman persona made him a natural for starring roles in many popular films. He is one of the most critically acclaimed actors in Hollywood today and with good reason. Throughout the span of his successful and impressive career, Hanks has excelled in nearly every genre, heading the casts of some of the most well-received films in history. Widely regarded as one of Hollywood’s nicest actors, Hanks is known for his amiable, approachable personality and his ability to portray characters audiences can relate to and love. His characters are often immensely likeable ordinary guys. Despite the fact that he originally wanted to be an astronaut, Hanks has enjoyed great success and fulfillment as an actor. He may even have predicted his future career in film when he was just a teenager. In 1974, Hanks wrote a letter to industry big shot George Roy Hill, the Oscar-winning director of the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), with the hope that he might one day be “discovered.” Hanks was eighteen years old at the time and most likely wrote the letter before studying theatre at a junior college in Hayward, California. Hanks was grateful for his community college experience, describing himself as an underachieving high school student with lousy SAT scores and the junior college as one that was humble, but offered salvation and opportunity for many young men and women just like him, all with simple, hometown America roots, and a desire to do something great. In the letter, Hanks introduces himself to Hill as “a nobody.” he continues, saying that no one has ever heard of him, that his looks are not stunning, and that he can’t even grow a mustache. He outlines the details of his future discovery for Hill so that he might recognize the opportunity in the future. Toward the end, Hanks reminds Hill, “I do not want to be some big time, Hollywood superstar with girls crawling all over me, just a hometown American boy who has hit the big time, owns a Porsche, and calls Robert Redford 'Bob'." Hanks was indeed discovered, albeit not by Hill, and has enjoyed enormous success. But the part of Hanks’ prediction that has held remarkably true is that he never has strayed far from his beginnings. Hanks has indeed remained that likeable hometown boy who rubs elbows with – and, in fact, has become friends with – some of the greatest names in movie making history... Buy Now and Discover the Entertaining Story of Tom Hanks

The Definitive Guide To Screenwriting


Syd Field - 2003
    He provides easily understood guidelines for writing a screenplay, from concept to finished product. The art of film-writing is made accessible to novices and helps practiced writers improve their scripts, as the author pinpoints stylistic and structural elements such as characterisation and plot. Tips and techniques on what to do after your screenplay has been completed and much more are all here. There are also practical examples from films which Syd Field has collaborated on such as Lord of the Rings, American Beauty and The Pianist. Written for all levels of screenwriters, this is an indispensable reference book for anyone who wants to make money as a great screenwriter.

Pictures in My Head


Gabriel Byrne - 1994
    His career in film started in John Boorman's atmospheric Excalibur and to date has included such highlights as Miller's Crossing (The Coen Brothers), Gothic (Ken Russell), In the Name of the Father (Jim Sheridan) which he also produced, The Usual Suspects (Brian Singer) and most recently Smila's Feeling for Snow and the Man in the Iron Mask. The range of roles is varied but always played with a brooding intensity.

A Short History of Cahiers du Cinema


Emilie Bickerton - 2009
    Founded in 1951, it was responsible for establishing film as the ‘seventh art,’ equal to literature, painting or music, and it revolutionized film-making and writing. Its contributors would put their words into action: the likes of Godard, Truffaut, Rivette, Rohmer were to become some of the greatest directors of the age, their films part of the internationally celebrated nouvelle vague.In this authoritative new history, Emilie Bickerton explores the evolution and impact of Cahiers du Cinéma, from its early years, to its late-sixties radicalization, its internationalization, and its response to the television age of the seventies and eighties. Showing how the story of Cahiers continues to resonate with critics, practitioners and the film-going public, A Short History of Cahiers du Cinéma is a testimony to the extraordinary legacy and archive these ‘collected pages of a notebook’ have provided for the world of cinema.

Nobody's Perfect: A Personal Biography of Billy Wilder


Charlotte Chandler - 2002
    When he died recently, he left behind an incredible celluloid legacy. Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot, Double Indemnity, The Apartment, The Lost Weekend, Sabrina and other Wilder films have become a part of our shared experience and collective memory. In Nobody's Perfect, Billy Wilder speaks for himself, in what is as close to an autobiography as there ever will be. Charlotte Chandler, author of authorized bios on Groucho Marx and Federico Fellini, met Wilder in the mid-1970s and began a friendship that continued until his death. Over the course of more than 20 years, she interviewed not only Wilder, but many of the actors and other creative people who worked with him. The result is this remarkable book, a very personal look at one of filmdom's true creative geniuses. In a life as dramatic as his films, Wilder survived World War I and escaped the Holocaust. His great gift as a screenwriter soon became apparent, as did his easy rapport with actors. As a writer-director, he worked with such stars as Greta Garbo, William Holden, Tony Curtis, Barbara Stanwyck, Marlene Dietrich, Ginger Rogers, Gloria Swanson, Audrey Hepburn, Gary Cooper, James Cagney, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau and Marilyn Monroe - most of whom were interviewed for this book. This revealing and vastly entertaining book is a wonderful, timely tribute to this great writer-director, a legacy of Wilder's wit, insight and remarkable wisdom.

Born to Be Hurt: The Untold Story of Imitation of Life


Sam Staggs - 2009
    In a passionate and witty behind-the-scenes expose, the author of 'All About All About Eve' takes on the classic 1959 Douglas Sirk film, Born To Be Hurt, starring Lana Turner.