“Sam Wasson’s brilliant book is about the founding of the film industry as well as the story of how America discovered itself through the movies. But at its core, it is the seminal – and the best – book about Frank Capra I’ve ever read.” – Steven SpielbergFrom the author of the beloved Fifth Avenue, Five A.M. and The Big Goodbye comes the definitive account of one of the quintessential American artists, Frank Capra, visionary behind the ic...

From "a smart and savvy reporter," a biography of the award-winning performer and director that "abounds with colorful firsthand tales" (Janet Maslin, New York Times).Now the FX limited series Fosse/Verdon starring Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams with Lin-Manuel Miranda executive producing.The only person ever to win Oscar, Emmy, and Tony awards in the same year, Bob Fosse revolutionized nearly every facet of American entertainment. His signature ...

"Like the best of his subjects, which include Stephen Colbert, Bill Murray and Tina Fey, Wasson has perfect timing."— Minneapolis Star-TribuneFinalist for the 2017 George Freedley Memorial AwardIn this richly reported, scene-driven narrative, Sam Wasson charts the meteoric rise of improv from its unlikely beginnings in McCarthy-era Chicago. We witness the chance meeting between Mike Nichols and Elaine May, hang out at the after-hours bar w...

"Sam Wasson’s supremely entertaining book tracks the ups and downs, ins and outs, of a remarkable career. . . . A marvel of unshowy reportage."—New York TimesThe New York Times bestselling author of Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. and The Big Goodbye returns with the definitive director biography—an account of Academy Award–winning director Francis Ford Coppola’s decades-long dream to reinvent American moviemaking, if not the entire...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Fifth Avenue, Five A.M. and Fosse comes the revelatory account of the making of a modern American masterpieceChinatown is the Holy Grail of 1970s cinema. Its twist ending is the most notorious in American film and its closing line of dialogue the most haunting. Here for the first time is the incredible true story of its making.In Sam Wasson's telling, it becomes the defining s...

Paul Mazursky's nearly twenty films as writer/director represent Hollywood's most sustained comic expression of the 1970s and 1980s. But they have not been given their due, perhaps because Mazursky's films—both sincere and ridiculous, realistic and romantic—are pure emotion. This makes films like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, An Unmarried Woman, and Enemies, A Love Story difficult to classify, but that's what makes a human comedy human. In the first ever book-length examination of one of Amer...

With one of the longest and most controversial careers in Hollywood history, Blake Edwards is a phoenix of movie directors, full of hubris, ambition, and raving comic chutzpah. His rambunctious filmography remains an artistic force on par with Hollywood's greatest comic directors: Lubitsch, Sturges, Wilder. Like Wilder, Edwards's propensity for hilarity is double-helixed with pain, and in films like Breakfast at Tiffany's, Days of Wine and Roses, and even The Pink Panther, we can hear him ...

The real story of Hollywood as told by such luminaries as Steven Spielberg, Frank Capra, Katharine Hepburn, Meryl Streep, Harold Lloyd, and nearly four hundred others, assembled from the American Film Institute’s treasure trove of interviews, reveals a fresh oral history of the American movie industry from its beginnings to today.From the archives of the American Film Institute comes a unique, behind-the-scenes picture of what it was like to work in Hollywood, from the sil...

Now in paperback in time for the 60th anniversary of the film version Breakfast at Tiffany’s— the New York Times bestseller and first-ever complete account of Audrey Hepburn and the making of the film that Janet Maslin called “a bonbon of a book filled with delightful anecdotes”With a cast of characters that includes Audrey Hepburn, Truman Capote, and Gerald Clarke, this book offers a slice of social history seen through the lens of one of America’s most iconic filmsThe ima...

Before Breakfast at Tiffany’s Audrey Hepburn was still a little-known actress with few film roles to speak of; after it – indeed, because of it - she was one of the world’s most famous fashion, style and screen icons. It was this film that matched her with Hubert de Givenchy’s “little black dress”. Meanwhile, Truman Capote’s original novel is itself a modern classic selling huge numbers every year, and its high-living author of perennial interest.Now, this little book tells...

A finalist for the 2017 George Freedley Memorial Award“A compelling, absolutely unputdownable story . . . And, in case you’re wondering, yes, the book is funny. In places, very funny. A remarkable story, magnificently told.” — BooklistIn this richly reported, scene-driven narrative, Sam Wasson charts the meteoric rise of improv from its unlikely beginnings in McCarthy-era Chicago. We witness the chance meeting between Mike Nichols and Elaine May, h...

A finalist for the 2017 George Freedley Memorial Award“A compelling, absolutely unputdownable story . . . And, in case you’re wondering, yes, the book is funny. In places, very funny. A remarkable story, magnificently told.” — BooklistIn this richly reported, scene-driven narrative, Sam Wasson charts the meteoric rise of improv from its unlikely beginnings in McCarthy-era Chicago. We witness the chance meeting between Mike Nichols and Elaine May, h...