Out With the Stars: Hollywood Nightlife in the Golden Era

Customer Reviews:

A Real Treasure!.......2004-06-27

This is one of those books I can't recommend highly enough if you love old Hollywood or the flamboyant architecture and graphic design of Hollywood in the 20's - 50's. I picked it up on a cut-out table in New York about 10 years ago and have come to appreciate it as one of the best books in my library - in fact it's one of those books that is always getting borrowed from friends who are graphic designers or work at ad agencies looking for inspiration.

Jim Heimann deserves much praise for assembling what is obviously a huge labor of love with lots of great photos and illustrations that you will never see anywhere else - everything from cocktail napkins and matchbooks to beautiful interior photography and paparazzi pics of the stars at play.

Also I'd like to disagree with the review - I actually found the writing in the book to be pretty engaging. It's fairly straightforward and to the point., luckily since there is a lot of history to cover.

Amazon.com

In a previous incarnation, writer Dominick Dunne was the toast of Hollywood--entertaining movie stars and socialites and invited by moguls to clambakes and black-tie dances. Long before he started churning out his romans à clef set in the private recesses of Hollywood and penthouses of New York City and his dispatches from notorious murder trials, he spent his days on movie sets, producing films like Ash Wednesday and working as an executive at various studios. In the off-hours, he and his wife Lenny ate dinner with Vincente Minnelli, Jack Benny, Rock Hudson, and Elizabeth Montgomery. They went to beach parties hosted by Jane Fonda and Roddy McDowall--and threw not a few bashes of their own, attended by, well, everyone and often photographed for Vogue magazine. Dunne seemed to carry his camera with him everywhere and "was always sticking [it] into someone's face." Kirk Douglas biting into an oversized hotdog, a scantily clad Paul Newman perusing a picnic table, Princess Margaret smoking, Mia Farrow dancing, and Natalie Wood hamming. Each weekend he carefully arranged his snapshots along with the week's invitations, telegrams, and news-clippings into a set of scrapbooks.

The Way We Lived Then closely resembles those scrapbooks, filled as it is with images culled from them. Dunne sews the scraps together with a loose memoir that moves from the mundane (how the house was decorated for a certain party, how the subjects of a given photo were feeling about one another at the time) to the grand (meditations on his marriage and his children). All of these famous friends, glittery parties, and cozy evenings did add up to a picture-perfect life for a time. But by the mid '60s, Dunne was drinking hard, insulting acquaintances in public, and being a perfectly terrible husband to the lovely Lenny. He was soon arrested carrying drugs into the country from Mexico, divorced, nearly poverty-stricken, and living in a cabin in Oregon. But he lived to tell about it, and though his story is something of a cautionary tale about the dangers of success and excess, punctuated as it is by his dreamy photos, one can't help but wonder if he'd happily go back to the way he lived then. --Jordana Moskowitz

Book Description

Mesmerizing, revelatory text combines with more than two hundred photographs -- most of them taken by the author -- in a startling illustrated memoir that will both astonish and move you.

When Dominick Dunne lived and worked in Hollywood, he had it all: a beautiful family, a glamorous career, and the friendship of the talented and powerful. He also had a camera and loved to take pictures. These photographs, which Dunne carefully preserved in more than a dozen leatherbound scrapbooks -- along with invitations, telegrams, personal notes, and other memorabilia -- record the parties, the glittering receptions, the society weddings, and scenes from the everyday lives of the Dunnes and those they knew, including Jane Fonda, Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman, Roddy McDowall, Elizabeth Taylor, Natalie Wood, Brooke Hayward, Jennifer Jones, and David Selznick. You'll meet them all in this fascinating book -- captured in snapshots as these celebrities relax at poolside barbecues, gossip at cozy get-togethers and dance at the Dunnes' dazzling black-and-white ball. And you will meet Dominick Dunne's beautiful wife, Lenny, and his children, Griffin, Alex, and Dominique, as they celebrate Christmases, birthdays, and graduations. But, most of all, you will meet Dominick Dunne and learn about the peaks and valleys of his years in Hollywood, the disastrous turn his life took, and the long road back that led to his triumphant career as a writer. With its engaging photographs and candid text, The Way We Lived Then is a riveting and unvarnished account of a life among the stars and a life almost lost.

Customer Reviews:

--Interesting glimpse of old Hollywood--.......2005-08-18

THE WAY WE LIVED THEN is a look at the lives and personalities of some of the most famous entertainers in the world.

I've been aware of the author, Dominick Dunne for a long time, but until reading this book, I had no idea what kind of background he had or what made him so knowledgeable about so many celebrities. Dunne was a director and producer of various TV shows and apparently was good at his job. People enjoyed working with him and he and his wife gave wonderful parties and were invited everywhere.

The book is as much about Dunne and his family as it is about the people that he socialized with. His story is rather sad because he ended up losing his wife because he became addicted to drugs and the fast Hollywood lifestyle. There are more than a few moving stories in the book. One pitiful entry has Dunne and Peter Lawford sharing drugs at a party. Years before, they had been friends and neighbors, but at this low point in their lives, they were both broke and seemingly without friends.

You can also read about Elizabeth Montgomery, Gig Young, Natalie Wood, George Hamilton, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Fonda and dozens of other Hollywood "big" names. Dunne took a lot of photographs and I think that I enjoyed the snapshots as much as I did the text of the book.

Mr. Dunne, I adore you!.......2004-02-03

I think I was probably one of the very first people who purchased this book...and I loved every page and every minute of it! Some of the earlier reviewers I read below simply don't seem to "get" this book. It is not meant to be great literature. It is meant to be a great read with one-of-a-kind photos, and it delivers both in spades! Also, I believe it is meant to be somewhat of a love letter, both to the parts of Mr. Dunne's ealier life that were happy and held great promise, AND perhaps to the fans of his books...giving all of us glimpses into what was an incredibly fascinating "Hollywood existence" and giving us a peek at the REAL people that he has thinly veiled, completely disguised, or combined to create the fascinating characters that populate his terrific books. Mr. Dunne, if you read these reviews (I know that I probably would!!), please know that I eagerly await everything you publish, including your monthly "Diarist" articles in Vanity Fair. Your writings are so incredibly enjoyable, fascinating, and provide a much-needed escape for me. You must feel very blessed to have finally found your calling - so many never do.

Dominick Dunne is fascinating.......2002-11-05

It is easy to see why celebrities, criminals and perfect strangers have told Mr. Dunne their secrets. He is so interesting in a gossipy, name-dropping but sweet way. His Hollywood life makes an engrossing tale, much more entertaining than fiction.

Beautiful collection of photos.......2001-10-06

This book is filled with beautiful photographs of almost every star imaginable with personal anecdotes from Mr. Dunne to go with them. There are beautiful photos of Natalie Wood and a young (brunette) Elizabeth Montgomery. Mr. Dunne's life has certainly had its ups and downs, but this is NOT another celebrity pity party...he writes of the bad times he has faced, as well as the good, in a very matter of fact style, which is (thankfully) not at all whiny. But, again, the real treasure here are all the beautiful photographs of beautiful people in beautiful places. Thanks, Mr. Dunne, for sharing them with us.

THE WAY WE LIVED THEN.......2001-06-27

Mr. Dunne can work the room no matter where he is, no matter what social strata. I would have had an anxiety attack had I been face-to-face with Betsy Bloomingdale. Yet, this why I love Mr. Dunne. Reading about Betsy, she retained the warm, kind, classy image that I imagined her to have from various books and magazines. I loved being a fly-on-the-wall when Mr. Dunne was in Washington since I knew so little about politics. It was fun the way he scribed it in the pages. I feel safe reading Dominick's stories - although I feel like I am there, I don't have the real fear!

This Time, This Place: My Life in War, the White House, and Hollywood

Average customer rating:

Saint Jack
Good Read but Lacks Bite
A Truly American Story
Outstanding
Valenti's Life

This Time, This Place: My Life in War, the White House, and Hollywood
Jack Valenti
Manufacturer: Harmony
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0307346641
Release Date: 2007-05-15

Book Description

With the nation at war in the 1940s, twenty-two-year-old Jack Valenti flew fifty-one combat missions as the pilot of a B-25 attack bomber with the 12th Air Force based in Italy. In the 1960s, with the nation reeling from the assassination of a beloved president and becoming embroiled in a far different kind of war in Vietnam, he was in that fateful Dallas motorcade in 1963, flew back to Washington with the new president, and for three years worked in the inner circle of the White House as special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson. Then, for the next thirty-eight years, with American society and popular culture undergoing a revolutionary transformation, Valenti was the public face of Hollywood in his capacity as head of the Motion Picture Association of America.

Been there, done that, indeed. Texas-born and Harvard-educated, Valenti has led several lives, any one of which could have provided ample material for an unforgettable memoir. As it is, This Time, This Place is the gripping story of a man who saw the terrible face of war while fighting with skill and bravery for his country; who was in the room, listening, participating, and remembering, as political decisions were made that would benefit or devastate countless lives in this country and on the other side of the world; and who championed the interest of the vast and globally influential movie industry with tenacity and vision. The list of boldface names whom Valenti knew and with whom he worked is as varied as it is astonishing in number. Aside
from LBJ, there were Jack and Bobby Kennedy, Kirk Douglas, Frank Sinatra, Robert McNamara, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Julia Roberts, Cary Grant, Lew Wasserman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jack Nicholson, Michael Douglas, Warren Beatty, and Bill Clinton, to begin a very long list.

The life of a man who earned both the Distinguished Flying Cross and his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is inherently intriguing, but Valenti’s warm, sometimes rueful, always engaging account gives this memoir a depth of humanity and a taste of life’s unpredictability that will linger long after you turn the final page. From growing up poor but largely oblivious to that fact in a hardscrabble neighborhood of Greek and Italian immigrants in Houston to rising to the highest summits both of national government and Hollywood, This Time, This Place is a candid and clear-eyed reflection of the joys and sorrows, ambitions and disappointments, of a life fully recognizable in its extraordinary variety. It is also a sweeping and important historical record, written by a brilliantly successful man who helped to shape politics and entertainment in the second half of the twentieth century, and who always found himself in the center of the current storm.

Customer Reviews:

Saint Jack.......2007-09-21

One must be a very dedicated movie or Jack Valenti watcher to plough all the way through this tome. Apart from the timing which cannot be faulted - he died shortly after the book was published: the book is more a diary than a literary work. Except for the opening chapter on the assassination of JFK, which is good and compelling writing, the remainder stretched incredulity a little too far.
If we are to believe what Mr Valenti tells us about himself, we should not be surprised that at the books completion, the Almighty whisked him off to heaven to be at his right hand. A more Saintly man never lived beyond the Vatican.
We learn that he started life very poor - not even any shoes. We also learn that his close relatives were very rich. That confused me. I thought these old Sicilian families stuck together. Or is that only in the Mafia? One of these relatives who did not feel able to buy little Jack any shoes, did give him a job however. The salary was not sufficient for the future $1.3 million a year boss of MPAA, so he lied to take the time off to solicit work at Humble Oil which was successful. Little Jack clearly had a talent for ingratiating himself into the affections of those who could help him. First it was the HR lady who gave him his first job at Humble. Then it was the head of the advertising department who put him to work there. Work: I use the word loosely as he seems to have spent his time travelling around the country keeping his boss from being lonely. He must have been a very seductive little chap.
Then the war intervened. Now I thought, this is where it gets interesting. He reminds us frequently that he was a war hero, so I was very keen to learn more. Unfortunately modesty prevented him from sharing with us any daring-do that he was involved in. Other than telling us that the Luftwaffe fighters held no terrors for him - indeed, he actually says that they were no problem to him. Well that's a first. I must have more than 30 books on WWII aerial combat, and I never read that before. Could it be that all the others were spoofing? We do learn at great length his mile by mile journey back to America from Italy. The war was over by this time, but low cloud and rain was more formidable than the Luftwaffe it seems.
Once back to civilian life, he takes advantage of the GI Bill and goes to Harvard. If he goes on about his time at Harvard to his everyday listeners as he does in his book, there can be few American who don't know that Jack Valenti went to Harvard. Upon completion of his course he goes back to Humble Oil. This is the second time they have him back. He learns as much as he can from them, sets up a company with a partner and promptly leaves Humble Oil. Using what he learnt from Humble he solicits business from Humble competitors. This is a life long habit of Jack's. He ingratiates himself with people until they are of no more value; then he drops them. He did that with President Johnson after he learnt that Johnson was not going to seek re-election. He would have done it to MPAA and gone to Columbia Pictures, but his devoted wife of God knows how many years wouldn't go to Los Angeles with him. Washington was more important than Jack it seems. She did offer to let him commute once a week from DC to LA.
It is at this point in the book that one loses the will to live. It becomes a page after page catalogue of the rich and famous who Jack loved deeply, and they him. Pick at random any Name from the A List, and they - and of course their gorgeous spouses, were close personal friends of the Valenti's. There is not an enemy in sight - he even had a good word for the Luftwaffe! But then this is a work more interesting for what it doesn't say than for what it does. He never mentions that he lead a crusade to prevent VCRs being introduced into America. He takes full credit for the `original' introduction of a film rating system. He expects the readers not to notice that the British Board of Film Censors has been rating movies since 1912. It is also interesting that Jack never ever mentions the British film industry. He mentions, and praises British actors and directors, but never identifies them as such. He does every other country that has a film industry. Perhaps under the overcast skies of grey old London lurk a few skeletons that Jack would prefer to keep in the cupboard.
After one has waded through pages and pages of Hollywood's `Who's Who', the book is completed with the unsurprising information that all of his three children are `...movie star beautiful, and they are all outstandingly successful.' No kidding. He even tells us that his grandchildren are perfect.
Jack Valent's life story could have been an enthralling read had it been an `unauthorised version' by Kitty Kelly or similar. Instead, it is a very boring exercise in self aggrandisement. It is said that before one writes a book, one should identify your audience. The only audience for this book is the Hollywood Hoorays who will enjoy what is written about themselves, and think kindly about Jack - and of course his children.
Well done Jack. Not so much a book, more an advertising brochure for the Valenti dynasty.

Good Read but Lacks Bite .......2007-07-15

In a sense this is two books in one. Valenti (apart from his war years) had two very different careers - as a valued aide to President Lyndon Johnson and latterly as President Motion Picture Association of America. He did sterling work in both roles.

Almost anything written about Johnson is fascinating and Valenti keeps that legend going. The author never fails to see good in people and like other Johnson aides such as Joe Califano, seemed to have a genuine love for the towering Texan.

Valenti's opening chapter on the dreadful events of November 22nd 1963 is compelling reading. The author also writes well on the meetings and decision processes that encouraged LBJ to enlarge the war in Vietnam. For those with rose tinted glasses who believe JFK would have taken the US out of Vietnam before it became a quagmire, Valenti makes it quite clear that the bulk of LBJ's Vietnam advisors were Kennedy people. Overall the section on Johnson and the White House years is enjoyable reading. The same can not be said for his MPAA memoir.

Part of the problem is that Valenti is so gushing in his praise of everyone. The number of "radiantly beautiful" or "dazzling" wives he met with adorable offspring is mind-blowing. This man would have something good to say about the devil! He alludes very gingerly to the excesses of and infatuation with Hollywood, but never provides any depth.

Valenti - who wrote a book on communication - is a wonderful writer with a flowing style that is a joy to read. It is a pity that he did not bring greater depth and I think honesty to his MPAA career.

A Truly American Story.......2007-07-05

Jack Valenti's memoir "This Time, This Place: My Life in War, The White House, and Hollywood" tells an authentically American story. Valenti, the grandson of a Sicilian immigrant, rises from his working class roots to:
* win the Distinguished Flying Cross (WWII)
* attend Harvard Business School (Veterans Bill)
* start his own successful business
* become the aide de camp to a US President (Lyndon Johnson)
* and, become the chief lobbyist and defender of the motion picture industry for four decades.

Valenti's book opens with a flashback to Dallas, Texas on November 23, 1963 as he rode in the fateful Presidential motorcade that passed the Texas Book Depository with Lee Oswald's rifle pointed at President John Kennedy. Before the day was over, he was THE confident and consigliore to a new US President, Lyndon Johnson, overseeing the president's speeches, decided whom he would see and where he would go to speak. His chronicle of his White House years reads like a fast-paced novel and has plenty of detail to satisfy historians.

"This Time, This Place" provides important events in Valenti's early formation which were the underpinnings of a remarkable life. As a working class kid from Houston, he watched his grocer grandfather practice local politics and made his own first speech at the age of 10, advocating the reelection of the Sheriff. He worked as movie usher during high school, and got himself elected class president as a night student at the University of Houston.

In 1943, he joined the Army Air Corps, taking his first solo flight only after nine hours of instruction. He piloted 51 bombing missions over Europe in a B25 winning the Distinguished Flying Cross. His descriptions of these years are among the most vivid in this book. His prose throbs with memories of an experience that was simultaneously exhilarating, terrifying and "brutal."

The section on the Hollywood years is looser. Valenti's good-old-boy Texas story-telling comes out. He is more willing to tell tales, poking fun at some of the pompous behavior and trappings of the Motion Picture Industry's celebrities.

"This Time,This Place" is told straightforwardly, acknowledging debts, sketching people he knew and giving a not entirely flattering view of himself. His self-portrait is one of restlessness, and a strong commitment to advancement.

This is a man that senators, congressman and presidents readily took calls from. His formula was simple, "It is rooted in the ability to engage in courtship, to cosset talent, to understand the human condition and to make decisions fast." He exuded charm and was able to establish relationships by being everyone's pal but he never left empty-handed.

Jack Valenti died two years after his retirement from the Motion Picture Association of America in April, 2007.

Outstanding.......2007-07-04

Jack Valenti was both a witness to, and an instrument of, history and his autobiography presents the fascinating elements of his life and all those that he came across. Written in a very easy to read, yet eloquent, style (you can hear Valenti speaking these words)the book should be read by anyone interested in the Washington, the Great Society, and movie industry scenes.

Valenti's Life.......2007-06-27

A memoir of someone (now deceased) who -- after brave service in World War II -- spent time in two workplaces that most would find very interesting, The White House and Hollywood. While some stories within the book are interesting, especially the historical notes on the Johnson Administration, most are very shallow.

It is the life story of a bright, ambitious man from the hinterlands who happened to be in all the right places and took full advantage of his career opportunities. He is the type of person who always has his eye fixed on the main chance ... and toward the most important person in the room.

The prose drips with sincerity and soars with hyperbole. Mr. Valenti said about his friendship with Don Imus and Bernard McGuirk (whose own careers cratered after this book went to press), he had instant fame from being on Imus In the Morning "...however fleeting!" I think Mr. Valenti's fame indeed will be fleeting since it is primarily derived from the reflection of others.

Inventing the Dream: California through the Progressive Era

Average customer rating:

Read the 'Dream' and weep
Should Be Called a History of Southern California

Inventing the Dream: California through the Progressive Era
Kevin Starr
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0195042344

Amazon.com

California seems to have been the source of almost every cultural trend that defines modern America--often in contradictory ways. Consider the waves of conservative and progressive politics, self-love and selflessness, sushi and Big Macs, great literature, and banal films. Inventing the Dream traces this extraordinary state through the early years of the 20th century, when Americans began to flock westward and Los Angeles grew from a town of 50,000 to a large city of 320,000 in justa couple of decades. By 1926, Starr writes, Hollywood was the United States' fifth-largest industry, grossing $1.5 billion a year and accounting for 90 percent of the world's films--and, of course, changing the values of whole cultures. This is a fine work of historical reconstruction, joining Starr's other well-regarded works of Californiana.

Book Description

This second volume in Kevin Starr's passionate and ambitious cultural history of the Golden State focuses on the turn-of-the-century years and the emergence of Southern California as a regional culture in its own right. "How hauntingly beautiful, how replete with lost possibilities, seems that Southern California of two and three generations ago, now that a dramatically diferent society has emerged in its place," writes Starr. As he recreates the "lost California," Starr examines the rich variety of elements that figured in the growth of the Southern California way of life: the Spanish/Mexican roots, the fertile land, the Mediterranean-like climate, the special styles in architecture, the rise of Hollywood. He gives us a broad array of engaging (and often eccentric) characters: from Harrision Gray Otis to Helen Hunt Jackson to Cecil B. DeMille. Whether discussing the growth of winemaking or the burgeoning of reform movements, Starr keeps his central theme in sharp focus: how Californians defined their identity to themselves and to the nation.

Customer Reviews:

Read the 'Dream' and weep.......2006-07-24

I read this book 20 years ago. It has held up remarkably well. California is the victim of its own utopian dreams.

Should Be Called a History of Southern California.......2004-02-18

... Not that I have a problem with that. This is the second volume in Starr's definitive six volume history of California. Starr writes history that combines straight forward "who, what, when" facts with digressions into literary criticism and pyschologlogical speculation. This is a blend that is quite apt for California, and I have found volume one and two to be rewarding.

Starr (who is also the state librarian for California) also includes excellent essays on his sources for each chapter, which makes further reading a snap! For example, after reading his first volume "Americans and the Californian Dream", I read "The Octopus" by Frank Norris and "Two Years Before the Mast" by Dana.

This book covers roughly the same time period as the first volume, and there is some overlap. After all, there wasn't THAT much going on in California from 1850 to 1900. However, while the first volume focuses almost totally on Northern California, this volume focuses almost totally on Southern California.

And by Southern California, I mean Los Angeles, with a little bit of Riverside thrown in. As a native of San Francisco and a current resident of San Diego, I simply couldn't believe at how little San Diego county came in for mention. Again, I'm hesitant to label this as a criticism, since I did love the book, but I just wonder what San Diego did (or didn't do) to get left out.

Starr spends ample time covering pre-American Southern California history. He charts the development of California agriculture, talks about the "Craftsman" movement and, as his wont, spends entire chapters talking about the artists and boosters of the time. Personally, after reading this book I have resolved to read at least one book of Mary Austin.

Towards the end of this volume Starr dishes out a hefty dose of the history of the Progressive movement in California. His essay on sourcing for this chapter reveals a penchant for the works of more traditional political history writers, and I felt like this chapter was kind of "eh."

His final chapter is on the growth of Hollywood. I don't feel like he adds anything to the voluminous literature on this subject, but hey, this is a survey of California history, and I suppose he had to include it.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. If you are more interested in Southern then Northern California, you may want to skip the first volume and proceed directly to this one.

Average customer rating:

Read this book before heading to Hollywood

Hollywood History from the Bottom Up

Wild Amazing Real Stories of working for the Agents

I'd rate this one 15 stars if I could!

SO?????????

The Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up
David Rensin
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Reel Power: The Struggle for Influence and Success in the New Hollywood

When Hollywood Had a King: The Reign of Lew Wasserman, Who Leveraged Talent into Power and Influence

Hollywood Dealmaking : Negotiating Talent Agreements

The Agency: William Morris and the Hidden History of Show Business

The Hollywood Rules

ASIN: 0345442342
Release Date: 2003-02-04

Book Description

It’s like something out of a Hollywood potboiler: start out in the mailroom, end up a mogul. Only for dozens of Hollywood’s brightest, it happens to be true. Some of the biggest names in entertainment—including David Geffen, Barry Diller, and Mike Ovitz—began as trainees in musty talent agency mailrooms. Now, in this fascinating new book, veteran Hollywood writer David Rensin travels behind the scenes and through sixty-five years of show business history to tell the real stories of the marvelous careers that began—and in some cases ended––in the mailroom.

Based on more than two hundred interviews, Rensin unfolds the never-before-told history of an American institution––in the voices of the people who lived it. Through seven decades of glamour and humiliation, lousy pay and incredible perks, killer egos and a kill-or-be-killed ethos, you’ll go where the trainees go, do what they must do to get ahead, and hear the best insider stories from the Hollywood everyone knows about but no one really knows. The kids in The Mailroom have done it all: from hanging out with Elvis to delivering a senior agent’s urine sample to the doctor; from pouring drinks for Sinatra to sending ice to Johnny Carson on the Nile; from crashing the Academy Awards ceremony to hoping to deliver more than just the mail to sexy actresses’ homes.

The Mailroom reveals why Harvard MBAs fight to turn down secure six-digit corporate salaries to start work at a major agency for less than $400 a week; what it takes to appease impossible bosses, outsmart the competition, and “agent” the agents; and how a hungry, star-struck kid can become the next Geffen or Diller by sorting mail, eavesdropping on crucial conversations, and trying anything to get noticed.

Full of revealing stories and delicious dish, The Mailroom is not only a non-stop, engrossing read, but a crash course, taught by the experts, on how to succeed in Hollywood through hard work, shrewd manipulation, and a hell of a lot of nerve. The Mailroom is classic Hollywood—a vibrant and complex tapestry of dreams, desire, exploitation, power, and genuine talent. If you want to know who rules Hollywood and how they got their power, if you want to know how to start with nothing and get ahead in any business, this is the book you must read.

Customer Reviews:

Read this book before heading to Hollywood.......2006-04-30

I'm a former talent agency trainee. I worked at one of the majors. This book tells it like it is, and I wish this book was published before my talent agency stint. If you have ever seen the show "Survivor", you can get an idea of what it's like to climb the agency, or Hollywood ladder. There are very few spots, and there many people clambering for those spots. And those people who want it the most will do whatever it takes. It's very cutthroat. An agency with 100 agents, has 100 assistants, all of whom want to be agents. Maybe 10 of them will make it. Family members of Hollywood VIP's most probably WILL get promoted to agents (but after that it's still sink or swim..you'll read the story of Peter Guber's daughter in this book...she sunk). Same goes for Harvard grads...deep Harvard connections in Hollywood. Many trainees quit. The attrition rate is huge. It's a crazy business, and nearly impossible to have a balanced life as a trainee (or agent, or for anyone else in Hollywood). It's no walk in the park for new agents either. They start with a tiny salary (although more than a trainee)and must perform or they're out.

Before going to Hollywood, be real with yourself and determine if you're cut out for it. This book gives you a good glimpse into those who make it. Unless you are highly extroverted, and an extremely high energy person, than don't choose this career. If you are a person who needs downtime to collect their thoughts, than don't choose this career. If you are a person who needs their 8 hours of sleep a night, than don't choose this career (you may never sleep again!). If you aren't a highly social person, than don't choose this career (i.e. does your phone ring off the hook in your personal life?). Are you politically savvy, or do you put your foot in your mouth? Can you handle egomanic clients? (and agents). Can you handle being screamed at on a regular basis? Can you handle the pressure of doing more work in one day than most people accomplish in two weeks, including juggling several hundred phone calls? I'm convinced that those agents that make it to the top, are people who'd make a fortune in any business. They're natural salesmen, born with charisma; have endless energy, and can win people over with a glance.

Also, determine if your morals/values are congruent with Hollywood. You might have to do some nasty things to people on your way up the ladder to success. In Hollywood, nastiness is embraced, not frowned upon. In Hollywood, real world morals and values are turned upside down. Believe it or not, many people in Hollywood are so egomanical that they consider people who don't work in Hollywood to be, "losers", or "the little people" (unless you're an internet billionaire or the equivilent). They believe they are the chosen ones. Even if you made a couple mil a year manufacturing cardboard boxes, they'd turn their nose up at you. It's a very snobby club.

Does all this bring people happiness? For some I guess. It seemed to me that many agents were very unhappy and perpetually stressed out.

Although my experience was interesting, had I realistically assessed my personality, which I would have, had I read this book, I would never have set foot in Los Angeles. Other than that, this book is a very entertaining read on the ins and outs of a ruthless business.

Hollywood History from the Bottom Up.......2005-01-07

You don't get what you deserve in life, you get what you negotiate.

This is the first quote in the book and I cannot tell you how many times I have used this in the past month. This book looks at the entertainment industry from the earliest days of William Morris (1930') through the collapse of the studio system, to the "young turks" of CAA until today. The author speaks to a varied group of people who went through the system. Many survived and stayed in entertainment business and some moved on to other things. What I most enjoyed about this book was that it didn't just cover the famous (Geffen, Diller, Ovitz) who rose out of the mailroom, but it also covered those who helped create the system that these people who control what we watch today came out of. For the number of people interviewed and covered, this book was excellently edited for flow and did not double up too much on stories. Very readable and informative. After reading this I pulled out my copy of "Swimming with Sharks" and watched it again with the new feeling of an insider.

Wild Amazing Real Stories of working for the Agents.......2004-08-02

I listened to the book on tape of The Mailrooom. Different mailroom employees from different Hollywood & New York Agencies give their stories of what it was like to work in the Mailroom and learn to be an Agent. The book starts with some of the older Agents who began way back when Agencies were first formed. Interesting stories about the stars of the 1950s all the way up to present times.
I really liked the stories of the pranks some of the mailroom employees would play on eachother. And some of the horror stories when they made mistakes on the job are really amazing.
The Mailroom is an interesting and amusing book about the inner workings of the Entertainment Business. The stories of how the mailroom employees make it to the top to become Agents are a real lesson in how the industry works.

I'd rate this one 15 stars if I could!.......2003-11-10

If you have an interest in the entertainment industry, this is an absorbing must-read, absolutely fascinating from cover to cover, the kind you don't want to put down. Can't recommend it highly enough!

SO?????????.......2003-07-04

A Studs Terkel-like verbal history of the role of the talent agency in Hollywood; with a particular focus on the Mailroom where the movers and shakers get their start. The book is a never ending compilation of interviews with the men who made it after paying their dues in the servitude of the Mail Room. For those in the industry it is probably fascinating lore. For me, it was one big bore.

The Big Picture: Money and Power in Hollywood

Average customer rating:

An authoritative, mesmerising read
a good book about recent changes in the industry
The New Hollywood Chicken/Egg Theory Exposed
Interesting book, but a lot of redundant information
Hollywood in the spotlight

The Big Picture: Money and Power in Hollywood
Edward Jay Epstein
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0812973828
Release Date: 2006-01-10

Book Description

In this unprecedented, all-encompassing, and thoroughly entertaining account of the movie business, acclaimed writer Edward Jay Epstein reveals the real magic behind moviemaking: how the studios make their money.
Epstein shows that in Hollywood, the only art that matters is the art of the deal: Major films turn huge profits not from the movies themselves but through myriad other enterprises, from video-game spin-offs and soundtracks to fast-food tie-ins, and even theme-park rides. The studios may compete for stars and Oscars, but their corporate parents view wth one another in less glamorous markets such as cable, home video, and pay-TV.
Money, though, is only a small part of the Hollywood story; the social and political milieus–power, prestige, and status–tell the rest. Alongside its remarkable financial revelations and incisive profiles of the pioneers who helped build Hollywood, The Big Picture is filled with eye-opening insider stories. If you are interested in Hollywood today and the complex and fascinating way it has evolved in order to survive, you haven’t seen the big picture until you’ve read The Big Picture.

Customer Reviews:

An authoritative, mesmerising read.......2007-05-01

If you want to understand how Hollywood became what it is today then this book ticks all the boxes: it tracks Hollywood from its beginnings in the early-20th century and the early part of the book focusses on the development of the big six media corporations in the world and who runs them and why TV and DVD are now far more important to the bottom line than straight theatrical release.

Some of the real examples of Hollywood's incredible loss-making ability are startling: one studio's 'greatest success' actually lost over US$60m, and you learn that the drivers of money and power are not the strong but actually it all boils down to children: what they want and don't want fuels the whole industry.

Fascinating stuff and very easy to read...five stars, no questions asked.

a good book about recent changes in the industry.......2006-09-26

Edward Jay Epstein's book provides an excellent overview of how business has changed in Hollywood since the 1970s. The book will give the reader a chance to think about how the industry moderates its relentless pursuit of money occasionally in order to pursue loftier goals. The book is particular strong in identifying key industry leaders, such as Lew Wasserman, who were able to respond quickly to changing circumstances and to rebuild the studio system in a new form after the rise of television. For a more complete history of the studio system, see Douglas Gomery's recently published book. But this one is a good read and it does a good job of recounting the recent history of the industry.

The New Hollywood Chicken/Egg Theory Exposed.......2005-11-16

Hollywood quality controlled by the bottom line? Gee, what an original concept. The question is, does Tinseltown point its checkbook any which way new media outlet winds blow or does it take a moral philosophical stance in a chaotic evil-is-hip era defined by a fantasy video game role playing culture of death?

Do most films today suck because they're only made for kids? And should it not matter because they're an easy target audience? That's a cop out. In the days of old Hollywood, moguls created demand across a wide demographic spectrum. Only advances in home media in the past 30 years have disaffected the issue of quality.

Epstein's new age filmic disorder tome basically applies cold harsh statistical reality to a cultural traffic accident and doesn't make a reasonable value judgment on what's happening. He's too busy dotting his is and crossing his ts with stat data to care. His beef is to say that's the way it is. Tough cookies.

As such, stating the facts and stressing the obvious is not rocket science when the largest demographic of Americans in 40 somethings are left out in the cold in ageist exclusion. Mature adults would rather stay at home because suits have decided only kids are worth making movies for. So they fear good filmmaking.

Any entertainment consumer with a clue is staying away in droves because the current generation of talent have no brains, style, taste or creativity for anything except that which will appeal to the lowest common denominator. And when the dream machine's quality control chicken is its egg, apathy becomes its own vice.

So don't blame the the demise of Americana on the rise of home video. Instead, blame the missing vision and low IQ of modern media decision makers and end users. Generations X and Y rule the roost. At the end of the alphabet, only Z is left. Does this signal our end days? Take in the latest 50 Cent flick to decide.

If we live in a world where movies and music contain no more important civil messages and merely serve as escapist pastime and we experience societal downfall as a result, soon there will be no bottom line to speak of. A show business peddling dreck to kids while good will falls to ruin doesn't deserve to survive.

The only useful thing this book has to say is that corporate entities make most of their profits in direct home DVD sales. So if you're making a movie, bypass bohemian green lighters who set the substandards and go straight to digital video. Not only is quality old hat these days. Film itself is an endangered species.

Interesting book, but a lot of redundant information.......2005-11-15

This is a good book about the evolution and the workings of the modern Hollywood system. (For summaries, see the other reviews.) I enjoyed the first third of the book a lot, but then it became more and more repetitive. A lot of the information contained in Part 4 ("The Economic Logic of Hollywood"), Part 5 ("Social Logic"), and Part 6 ("Political Logic") had been already presented in the preceeding parts. For example, I don't know how many times Epstein mentions the 29 million USD Arnold Schwarzenegger received for "Terminator 3" - it sure seems like a million times. In the end, you get the impression that the author had access to more detailed information about a limited number of movies (T3, Gone in 60 seconds) and then used them as examples for each and every point he is trying to make. All in all, some serios editing would have turned this really good book into an excellent one.

Hollywood in the spotlight.......2005-11-09

There's no business like show business, goes the old adage. But we now need a clarifier; which show business? The old show business of the 1940s-1950s of the big-budget epics starring the big name stars, or the new show business of DVD's, toys, stand-alone soundtracks, digital piracy, multi-national crews and casts and computer animation...

This book examines the evolution of the Hollywood business throughout the 20th century and into the early 21st century. Unlike other books of the same topic, this one looks at the major players, both individuals and companies, and covers a lot of the technological changes such as the advent of talkies, color movies, VHS, DVD, and the Internet. The book also deals with a lot of the legal / political issues, such as free-agency of actors and actresses, unions and guilds within the industry, copyright laws and intellectual property, and interconnected web that links TV, video, toy sales, franchise names, and company logos together.

The author shows how changes in technology and laws have changed the Hollywood business by changing relations between movie companies and their employees, between directors and the actors and actresses, and between moviegoers and moviemakers. The role of advertising is examined to see how it has changed over the decades from posters and previews of previous decades, to the TV spots, toys in food boxes, pre-screenings, and guest-show appearances of today. The book also shows how changes in Hollywood have affected the movie industry in other countries, and vice versa.

Overall, a well balanced and comprehensive book on the movie-making history.

Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California (California Studies in Critical Human Geography, 11)

Average customer rating:

Original, Intellectually Engaging: It Rips Stale Myths Apart

Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California (California Studies in Critical Human Geography, 11)
Julie Guthman
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520240952

Book Description

In an era of escalating food politics, many believe organic farming to be the agrarian answer. In this first comprehensive study of organic farming in California, Julie Guthman casts doubt on the current wisdom about organic food and agriculture, at least as it has evolved in the Golden State. Refuting popular portrayals of organic agriculture as a small-scale family farm endeavor in opposition to "industrial" agriculture, Guthman explains how organic farming has replicated what it set out to oppose.

Customer Reviews:

Original, Intellectually Engaging: It Rips Stale Myths Apart.......2004-07-30

Well, everything you think you know about organic agriculture gets brilliantly demolished and reformulated in this innovative and ground breaking book. Think you know about small family farmers in California? Well, get ready to learn about the real corporate farming tradition, especially in the Central Valley. Think a new generation of organic farms makes for some sort of new utopia? Well, you're living in an "agrarian dream" if you think conditions for agricultural workers get transformed automatically in a more "organic" world.

I eat organic food all the time and myth after myth that I have accepted gets exposed in this book. Think the regulators are always on the side of the little guy? Think eating organic food automatically creates a more sustainable food system? Think you're "going back to nature" if you eat organic? Well, Guthman lays out how all of us have to think critically and take concerted action if we really want to change the power relations of today's industrial agriculture.

And yet I finished this book more exhilirated and inspired to
think about and work toward a new world of sustainable agriculture. And with my eyes now wide open that when I'm eating an organic apple that doesn't transform the world or ease the exploitation of those working the land. I see this as a seminal work in showing us clearly how to tear off our blinders and move from our agrarian "dreams' to a new agrarian reality.

After the Ruins, 1906 and 2006: Rephotographing the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire

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Photos from the 1906 Fire (Earthquake) of San Francisco
An important documentation of how urban disasters change urban landscapes

After the Ruins, 1906 and 2006: Rephotographing the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire
Philip L. Fradkin , and Rebecca Solnit
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520245563

Book Description

How exactly has San Francisco's urban landscape changed in the hundred years since the earthquake and cataclysmic firestorms that destroyed three-quarters of the city in 1906? For this provocative rephotography project, bringing past and present into dynamic juxtaposition, renowned photographer Mark Klett has gone to the same locations pictured in forty-five compelling historic photographs taken in the days following the 1906 earthquake and fires and precisely duplicated each photograph's vantage point. The result is an elegant and powerful comparison that challenges our preconceptions about time, history, and culture. "I think the pictures ask us to become aware of the extraordinary qualities of our own distinct moment in time. But it is a realization that a particular future is not guaranteed by the flow of time in any given direction." So says Mark Klett discussing this multilayered project in an illuminating interview included in this lavishly produced volume, which accompanies an exhibition at The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
After the Ruins, 1906 and 2006 features a vivid essay by noted environmental historian Philip Fradkin on the events surrounding and following the 1906 earthquake, which he describes as "the equivalent of an intensive, three-day bombing raid, complete with many tons of dynamite that acted as incendiary devices." A lyrical essay by acclaimed writer Rebecca Solnit considers the meaning of ruins, resurrection, and the evolving geography and history of San Francisco.
Copub: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Customer Reviews:

Photos from the 1906 Fire (Earthquake) of San Francisco.......2007-06-26

I received this book along with another one called: "Denial of Disaster: The Untold Story and Photographs of the San Francisco",by Gladys Hansen.

Both books are wonderful to read together because the book by Hansen describes what happened during and after the 1906 Fire (and/or 1906 Earthquake), and this book by Fradkin shows more photos from the tragic event. Thus, I recommend both books highly.

An important documentation of how urban disasters change urban landscapes.......2006-08-19

AFTER THE RUINS: 1906 AND 2006 - REPHOTOGRAPHING THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE has been a century in the making, and deserves a spot on any collection purported to be even halfway authoritative about San Francisco or California history. Its purpose seemed simple: to capture the meaning and impact of the 1906 quake through juxtaposing 'before' and 'after' photos, right down to the very angle of original landscapes. The idea was to also document how the city's landscape changed because of and since the quake: black and white and duotone photos by photographer Karin Breuer compliment essays by Philip L. Fradkin and Rebecca Solnit, longtime writers on California history, compliment an outstanding survey. College-level holdings on urban planning and design also should make this a special pick: it's an important documentation of how urban disasters change urban landscapes.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood

Average customer rating:

Hollywood Jews
A fascinating group biography of Hollywood's founding moguls
The 400 pages could have been 41
A Fascinating Portrait of Early Movie Moguls
Not necessarily so, but an interesting treatise

An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood
Neal Gabler
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0385265573
Release Date: 1989-08-08

Amazon.com

That subtitle may inspire in some readers waves of ethnic pride, and in others waves of ethnic revulsion, but the point of this book is that its claim of origin is quite literally true. And what makes it an interesting read for political types is the way it demonstrates that no matter how much the founding Hollywood moguls and their successors tried to peddle an idealized, escapist form of entertainment, bubbling up under and around their every project was ideology, racism, ethnic prejudice, class friction, domestic and international politics and all the other raw, seething stuff that distinguishes this country from all others. In Gabler's hands, the Industry draws a picture of American political history in spite of itself.

Book Description

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award for history, this "wonderful history of the golden age of the movie moguls" (Chicago Tribune ) is a provocative, original, and richly entertaining group biography of the Jewish immigrants who were the moving forces behind the creation of America's motion picture industry.

Customer Reviews:

Hollywood Jews.......2007-01-10

Not that it was bad but I was disappointed in this book. The subjects that interested me the most, the majority of movies made then portraying characters that represented how the Jews viewed themselves in American society, the schisms between the more established Jews who had immigrated from Germany and the ones from eastern European countries, the muscling in and manipulation of Hollywood by Jewish political groups like the ADL and AJC, and the gradual evolution of Hollywood into a tool of global social engineering, were barely touched on. If you are more interested in personality profiles of the early Hollywood movie moguls then this book is right up your alley though.

A fascinating group biography of Hollywood's founding moguls.......2006-10-15

Neal Gabler explores the fascinating question of how Hollywood was created primarily by a remarkable group of men who fit into a remarkably small demographic: European Jewish immigrants, most of them poor, most of them from Manhattan's lower east side, none of them practicing Jews, most of them from families with weak father figures. But together they moved to an almost completely protestant city and created the most successful form of popular entertainment in America, presenting an idealized version of American life for a nation in a constant for new national myths. The most fascinating thing about the book is the gap between the mythical world that they were presenting and their own backgrounds. For Louis B. Mayer, Andy Hardy's America was for him the real America, an America where there were strong nuclear families headed by strong fathers, doting neo-Victorian mothers, and obedient, respectful children. Economically most people were Middle Class, the tenor distinctively Middle American, and almost always Christian. Gabler argues that for most of these men, what they provided was not America as it existed, but the America that they wanted to be a part of.

Almost all of the major studios were founded by men who more or less fit Gabler's description. There are a number of major and minor characters in Gabler's story, the most prominent being Adolph Zukor, who was instrumental in creating Paramount; Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal; William Fox of Fox Pictures, which later merged with Twentieth Century; Louis B. Mayer, who built MGM into Hollywood's largest studio; Harry and Jack Warner of Warner Brothers; and the belligerent Harry Cohn of Columbia. There are in addition a number of crucial supporting characters, none more important than the legendary Irving Thalberg (I knew very slightly Thalberg's son, also Irving, an academic philosopher who spent his career in Chicago and who quietly funded liberal political causes--he paid for the Chicago Seven's legal bills at their trial--while quietly pursuing his university career), the inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald's last novel THE LAST TYCOON. We also meet the Schenck brothers, Nicholas and Joseph, the Rabbi of Hollywood Edgar F. Magnin, theater chain owner Marcus Loew, and an uncountable number of smaller figures.

One of the most striking aspects of the biography is how utterly these men suppressed their Jewish backgrounds in their films. Although THE JAZZ SINGER is the story of the son of a Jewish son rejecting the culture of his cantor father (Gabler points out that the son's story was also the story of the moguls), the vast majority of movies produced by Hollywood in the twenties, thirties, and forties contained no identifiably Jewish characters. Although an astonishing number of the people producing the movies were Jewish, it was as if they felt compelled to completely erase Jews from their idealization of American life. The was more than mere assimilationist aspirations; it was as if they were trying to expunge the weak fathers of their youths, the poverty they knew growing up, and become a part of a nation that largely rejected them. For two or three decades, at least, they could maintain this myth, but in the forties and the HUAC committee of the U.S. House of Representatives they found their fiefdom increasingly under attack for the industry's supposed inculcation of un-American (i.e., Communist) values. Many of their attackers persisted in the fascist depiction of Communism as an essentially Jewish cast of thought (in Hitler's writings there is no clear distinction between Jews and Communists, and at least one part of his motivation in attacking Russia was to attack what he weirdly considered a Jewish nation).

This is not a perfect book. For one thing, the scope is simply too large for any one book to undertake. And inevitably there are either serious omissions or details that don't quite tell the whole story. For instance, Gabler attempts to characterize the more plebian tendencies at Warner's by mentioning that one of their stars was Rin Tin Tin, which seems to hint at how far down the ladder they were in the Hollywood pecking order, but failing to note that for most of his life Rin Tin Tin was the number one box office star in Hollywood. Also, there is amazingly little discussion of the many Jewish performers in Hollywood. Some are mentioned in passing (such as Groucho Marx, noting his famous reply to the attempt by the Jewish country club Hillcrest to recruit new members following the stock market crash, that he wouldn't want to be a member of a club that would accept someone like him as a member), and Edward G. Robinson gets a few mentions, but for the most part actors are ignored. This is overwhelmingly a book about the top brass. And one can take issue with some minor depictions, such as the long discussion of the nature of Universal in the thirties, but no mention of the man who is most responsible for the visual look of those films and the director of all their major achievements, James Whale. The implication is that the distinctive look of Universal films was not determined by the former art director Whale. But this is all nitpicking.

I do have to take strong issue with one of the current featured reviews that criticizes the book because he believes that the American depicted in the movies was very much the America he knew in the forties and fifties. First, the book deals mainly with America in the twenties and thirties, a bit less with the forties, and the fifties almost not at all, so the time framework of his criticism is off. Second, how can anyone argue that the movies were not an idealization if one knows any American history at all? Certainly the poverty that my parents and grandparents knew growing up in Arkansas during those decades was almost completely ignored, THE GRAPES OF WRATH aside (and the subject of that film were very much my people). Any informed demographic study of the period will show that the depiction of women in the films was wildly out of kilter with the actual lives of women, many of whom had to take jobs even in the thirties, forties, and fifties to enable families to make it financially (the fifties is the only decade in American history of which the so-called traditional American family is even somewhat true). And Hollywood films of the period are notorious today for their depiction of race relations. Anyone stating that the Hollywood film in any conceivable sense depicted America as it really existed beggars credulity.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone either interested in the history of the movie industry or how immigrants sought to integrate themselves in their new nation. The book contains a wealth of information and I can't imagine anyone know coming away from it not merely entertained but better informed.

The 400 pages could have been 41.......2006-07-13

The 400 pages could have been 41, this longest prologue to a story does not start before it is well concluded...can take months of originally enjoyable casual reading to come to no real end...finished.

With it read myself I might suggest don't read it alone, don't waste it, take it as a box of chocolates (yep!) and do not leave yourself alone on stage. This is narrative, spiceful, and just a script. This is not standalone monologue. This is not a work that works by itself. Your bedmate should set down her or his own book to share this when you peep out intrigued. Ah, the best of you can bring Gabler's work to a useful point as you together add your pages.

Or get out of bed. This is weak as a book, fantastic as a subject, great as a discussion. This is, for the first part, brilliant writing - but nothing is worth buying if not on sale.

You must know Hollywood history before, above and beyond this incisive intake. Or, even more daunting, when you have read the book start right over and read it again.

That I did not do.

Who reviewing has read this whole, entire thing? Oh, come on! This is a classic skip the pageser. Yes I read all but the last two pages, finally crowning the author with the good ole good intentions star. I read it whole, crowwed in pride for fortisimilitude, I did, until the last I suppose 100 pages, maybe 200, but I can't tell you the beginning as I got to the end.

Plus, I smell a rat. A pitch with no production. Read the script; again, all 400 pages. Listen to the Firesign Theater: this book becomes the story of the little guy to finish the mural.

Like the history of a town, or a building, much less a man or a group of men, the construction of "Empire" is half the story, the lives in it not even the other half; the decay, decline, rot and remembrance are the full story, the lesson, the book. That's not here. Gabler gives, finally, a cruelly brief conclusion to the men and their properties he takes up hours of our lives founding. If he even does that well. And he don't: get the manuscript off to the printers. That hurts.

This book just gets started. That is no compliment. And by golly no insult. Like many great writers, this work is more an invite to sit with Gabler and talk than to read.

I seek a complimentary review, not to undo my admiration, nor my own perfidiification, but to add to it. Do undo my frustration in digesting this huge volume and my Philistine assumption on it's conclusion that it's intention was to make 400 pages printed.

Can we suspect this is just a touch of the brilliant Neal Gabler, and this book reveals how damned hard it is to write a complete story of an incomplete mission.

A Fascinating Portrait of Early Movie Moguls.......2006-05-31

Film scholar and critic Neal Gabler offers a surprisingly well-researched, academically sound, and insightful study of the scions of early Hollywood and their vision for America. Ironically, and somewhat paradoxically, he finds that the early movie industry was largely founded by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. As outsiders in WASPish America, they nonetheless excelled at creating a vision of the United States that incorporated some of its most cherished principles and desires. Such studio executives as Louis B. Mayer, Harry Cohn, and the Warner brothers ensconced a vision of America at its best that stood far removed from the reality of their lives.

As Gabler wrote of these industry leaders: "What united them in deep spiritual kinship was their utter and absolute rejection of their pasts and their equally absolute devotion to their new country....something drove the young Hollywood Jews to a ferocious, even pathological, embrace of America. Something drove them to deny whatever they had been before settling here" (p. 4). Gabler believes that these Jewish leaders "colonized the American imagination" (p. 7). Over time, their films embodied American values; the irony is that they were made by people alienated from that culture. As Gabler concludes, "the Jews reinvented the country in the image of their fiction" (p. 7).

This is a very interesting and useful study of the role of film in defining the American character in the early twentieth century.

Not necessarily so, but an interesting treatise.......2004-05-25

Here's an absorbing history of the movie industry. Neal Gabler claims that Adolph Zukor (Paramount), the Warner brothers, Harry Cohn (Columbia Pictures) and the moguls of Fox Studios, MGM and Universal had a dream of what America was which they incorporated into movies and sold to the American public and the world.

Gabler claims that what these movies showed was not the real country at all. "Only this way," he writes, "could these immigrants satidsfy their hunger of assimilation into a country that had rejected them." In the end, he says, the fictive America created by these businessmen portrays an artificial "reality" that later generations of moviegoers took as truth.

I have two problems with the premise of this book: First, I know for a fact that the America portrayed in the movies of the '40s and '50s did exist and second, those moguls created their own social world, partly out of geographic necessity and partly because the work of filmmaking isolated them from the everyday work world.

I know the kind of family, community and lifestyle often portrayed in those "romantic" and "sentimental" movies (i.e. where family members and members of the community worked and lived together in mutual respect and affection) existed because I experienced it. The movies I saw as a child and as a young adult in the 1940s and 1950s mirrored the life I knew.

I understand that contemporary life is so different from life in those days that young people view what they call "sentimental romanticism" with disbelief. I pity them. The lives they seem to be living look shabby and disgusting to me!

It's an interesting premise but it's built on a false presumption!

Book Description

Loved, hated, revered, scorned, real, imagined: this is Los Angeles. Looking at Los Angeles is a fascinating journey into the center of the city's heart and soul. Pictured within its pages is a Los Angeles of powerful dreams and startling realities. Editors Marla Hamburg Kennedy and Ben Stiller have gathered pictorial representations of Los Angeles from the last three-quarters of a century, resulting in this selection of more than 200 stunning, beautifully reproduced color and duotone depictions of the city from different eras and different points of view. Along with the carefully chosen images by approximately 100 photographers who have time again turned to Los Angeles for inspiration, a preface and foreword by the editors describe their great affection for the city, while David L. Ulin's essay offers a critical and loving look at Los Angeles. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to the Los Angeles Conservancy, and the organization provides an essay about the importance of saving this city's rich architectural heritage. Looking at Los Angeles is at once a lesson in history, architecture, style, and culture, and a remarkable visual and written tribute to one of America's greatest cities. Includes photographs by: Robert Adams, John Baldessari, William Claxton, Will Connell, Joe Deal, John Divola, William Eggleston, Sam Fentress, Anthony Friedkin, John Humble, Dennis Keeley, Florian Maier-Aichen, Grant Mudford, Karin A. Mueller, Catherine Opie, Ed Ruscha, Stephen Shore, Julius Schulman, Joel Sternfeld, Timothy Street-Porter, John Swope, Andy Warhol, Julian Wasser, Robert Weingarten, Garry Winogrand, Max Yavno, and others.

Customer Reviews:

Stretch city.......2006-12-25

How do you photographically sum a city like Los Angeles? The editors of this sumptuous coffee-table book give it a go and I think succeed, just look at the names in the Book Description above. Eighty-eight photographers in all and some I've never heard of but their 225 images do give a feel of this extraordinary endless place. Look through the pages and the only conclusion is that this must be Los Angeles.

The book is loosely divided into themes: freeways and autos, shops, buildings, suburbs, signs, vegetation, swimming pools, beach and the last section LA at night. Julius Shulman with fourteen photos rightly has the most. No other photographer captured the range and style of LA contemporary architecture over the decades. His well-known night photo of Pierre Koenig's Case Study home is included. Another famous photo is Stephen Shore's stunning 'Beverley Blvd and La Brea Avenue'. Other photos just stop you like Michael Light's aerial freeway shot on page forty-three or John Divola's '5800 South block of Hoover Street' which opens up to an image just over twenty-seven inches wide on pages seventy-seven and eight. However, as far as I can see there is nothing to represent NWA-land: Compton or Watts.

The photos (in 175dpi) are impressively large and mostly one to a page and more or less split equally between color and black and white. There is though an annoying fault with the production - so four stars - the captions are all at the back making the reader to constantly keep turning the pages to find out about a photographer and their work. Most pages have plenty of space for a caption. There is an extra wrinkle unfortunately because many pages have no numbers either: 56 to 61, 156 to 161, 172 to 189 and in the night section nothing between 200 and 225. It must have been amateur night at the publishers and it really is inexcusable for an expensive book!

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

Getting to Know LA: Los Angeles Time Capsule.......2006-11-05

Nice time captures of LA images.

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