Hollywood: The Oral History

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This is a wonderful treasure trove of anecdotes about Hollywood, from its beginnings until today. Except, I actually found this book to be more reflective and accurately represent Hollywood from the 1920s until the 1970s (some anecdotes are in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s-22). Basinger and Wasson have painstakingly taken interviews from Hollywood luminaries, business and production insiders, directors, producers, actresses, actors and screenwriters who have created indelible, unforgettable art, captured forever on celluloid. MINOPRIO That first season was just relentless. I don’t think I had a day off for three months. Everyone involved was, in retrospect, really overworked. her "real" voice--totally different from the little girl coo she affected both on and off screen--in

He’s someone who people return to. Even if you're making movies in 2022, you think about Irving Thalberg. I haven't seen the movie Babylon , and I imagine you haven't either, but as far as I understand it, he's the only real person who's a character in that movie, which LIPSITZ A lot of the challenges that we did on Top Chef spun off to become actual series … elsewhere. In HOLLYWOOD, Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson have painstakingly put together a collection of interviews with these men and women, starting with the first adventurers who traveled across the country to set up shop in the wilds of California. It’s a fascinating look at the creative processes that went into bringing this medium to the public. COLICCHIO Once I realized this show wasn’t about me, I called a friend of mine at the time — [CAA co-chair] Bryan Lourd. I said, “Can you help me out with this?” So, after saying no a couple times, I finally agreed to do the show. In fact, when CAA moved into their Century City building [in 2007], Bryan introduced me to the developer. That’s how Craft [Colicchio’s celebrated New York restaurant] opened in Los Angeles. Then I decamped CAA for William Morris, and they stopped talking to me. ( Laughs.)As close to a comprehensive Who’s Who of American film as we’re likely to see, and as close to a definitive history of American cinema as we’ve seen so far. An absolute must-read for industry pros and fans alike." — Booklist (starred review) Prolific film historians Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson generally succeed in knitting together some key historical stories. The book is especially strong on the silent era, studio system (pro and con), movie moguls (ditto) and, strangely, the independent film movement of the late 60s. While the comments are generally in a chronological, historical narrative, it would have been great to have an index of major film credits for each of those interviewed. We only know their specific works if they tell us. These Hollywood scholars have assembled what is arguably the most comprehensive, gossipy and insightful oral history of Tinseltown ever made.” — Globe and Mail I love oral histories, but they are definitely a double edged sword. The good edge is that they record the experiences of a group of people in their own words. The bad edge is that with the passage of time the memories of the subject tend to get rose colored. COLICCHIO So let’s make it an international competition. Let’s bring in Top Chef winners or runners-up from different productions. And if it’s an international competition, let’s get out of the States.

Well I think Hollywood likes to talk about itself, the way we all like to talk about what we're our lives. We're all people. I mean, it's like saying how does Wall Street like to talk about itself? If you're good and proud, you speak about something that you love with pride. I think that would be a generalization to say Hollywood likes to talk about itself in a way that anyone else likes to talk about itself. Quibbles aside, it's fascinating to learn what legendary directors like Billy Wilder, Howard Hawks, and George Cukor have to say about their movies and the work of others. Their art comes to life through their stories and those of the many talented men and women who make the movies come to life. And while you don't get a lot of first-hand stories from actors, you do get a lot of detail about them, their talents and their foibles. Another flaw perhaps could be that the cinema reviewers are unrepresented here - only Andrew Sarris gets an entry, but nothing by the greatest of them all: Kael and Thomson, which could have graced considerably the book.SIMMONS I couldn’t tell if it was all going really well or really badly. The night before that finale aired, I was sleepless in a hotel. The next morning, they put a copy of The New York Times in front of my room. There, above the fold of the dining section, was a huge story about the show by Frank Bruni, the restaurant critic at the time. I thought, “This is it. This is the takedown. We’re going down in flames.” But it was amazing. He wrote that it was a show worth watching in that moment where food and pop culture were aligning, that food was becoming mainstream — which is what we were trying to do. A word about the methodology. The intention behind Basinger and Wasson’s cutting-and-pasting is to produce the impression that all these interviewees are in the same room at the same time, bouncing off one another. So that, for instance, Wilder and Blanke are chewing the fat about the Hays code over an after-dinner drink in Romanoff’s. Whereas, in fact, the two men were interviewed on different occasions and with no knowledge of what others might say. Some of the time this careful splicing and intercutting works in the way that the writers want it to, so that the effect is of a high-level symposium of Hollywood’s great and good. At other times the result is disjointed and resembles a scene in which acquaintances keep on mishearing each other in a noisy restaurant. JANE LIPSITZ (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, 2006-19) Remember… Project Greenlight [then at HBO] begot Project Runway. We’d flown to New York and met with a bunch of designers during development, so we took the same approach here. We just met with a bunch of chefs to find out what kind of show would be meaningful. SIMMONS We shot that second season in Los Angeles, and it was a very controversial one. There was a lot of reality drama that none of us had anticipated. By the end of it, I thought we were at a real crossroads.

LAKSHMI I wasn’t really, and still am not, a reality TV connoisseur. But they said, “Would you be interested in being a part of this show that we’re developing?” I said, “Sure.” CUTFORTH The whole thing was just insane. Erica Ross, one of our producers, had taken her shoes off. When she walked out into the aisle, she promptly fell flat on her face. Padma wasn’t a producer at the time, so she stole my statue to walk around with it. I did not read this book from start to finish like a novel, but browsed through it here and there until I finished it. I will not lie and say I digested every single portion the same way. The authors cover nearly every single aspect of the movie making business- producers, directors, writers, music, actors, and all points in between. Some of these areas were not as interesting as others, and I seldom recognized the names of the people working some of the behind the scenes jobs- so I confess to having skimmed some sections.CUTFORTH A lot had fallen apart. CCA [California College of the Arts] — which was going to be our space, our Parsons for Top Chef— pulled out at the last minute. COHEN It’s my opinion that Food Network should be paying Bravo residuals. The whole look of the Food Network completely changed after Top Chef. This book is a movie buff’s dream (especially if you love gossip). Even if you think you know a lot about Hollywood and its leading players, I guarantee you’ll gain new insight from this book. It’s a perfect one to keep in mind when you need gifts for the cinephiles in your life this holiday season." — BuzzFeed News