Non-fiction film books I recommend: ADVENTURES IN THE SCREEN TRADE by Goldman. He gives an accurate picture of the business and its foibles without bile or an axe to grind.
WARNER BROS. PRESENTS...historian (and pal) Rudy Behlmer does the same thing he did with his other great film book MEMO. He ransacks the files of Warner Brothers from about 1934 to about 1949 and selects a series of memoes and letters about some of the most famous Warner's films.
Theatre books I recommend:
THE SEASON by William Goldman
LETTERS FROM AN ACTOR by William Redfield; one of the best books about theatre and the genesis of a production around.
NOT SINCE CARRIE by Ken Mandlebaum
BROADWAY BABIES SAY GOODNIGHT by Mark Steyn
THEN CAME EACH ACTOR by Bernard Grebanier, wonderful book about Shakespearian acting. The author is often very opinionated about certain actors and performances and I often disagree with him, but it's still a swell book (and if I went back and re-read it, I might even agree with him more today)
GOODNIGHT, SWEET PRINCE by Gene Fowler; bio of John Barrymore.
JOHN GIELGUD: A LIFE IN LETTERS...You get a broad swath of 20th century theatre through Gielgud's letters.
GREAT ACTING, edited by Hal Burton..detailed interviews with some of the greatest actors of our day...Olivier, Gielgud, Richardson, Redgrave, Coward, Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft, Sybil Thorndike.
SHOPTALK, by Dennis Brown...conversations about theatre and film with various writers and one producer, Merrick.
PETER HALL'S DIARIES...about the beginnings of the National Theatre.
PETER HALL DIRECTS ANTONY & CLEOPATRA...a behind-the-scenes look at a National production starring Anthony Hopkins and Judi Dench in the lead roles.
TRUE & FALSE by David Mamet...Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor. I usually don't care for acting books. But I like Mamet's no-nonsense style and his quaint notion that the actor might just be the servant to the text of the playwright.
FAT CHANCE by Simon Gray...account of Gray's play CELL MATES and the now-famous episode of Stephen Fry going AWOL after it opened.
One of my long-time mentors and friends died last week in Mexico where he was living...Dick Vath. Dick kept me working in dinner theatre through much of the seventies. He also worked with a passel of stars and celebrities (it was through Dick, I met June Wilkinson; and Rudy Behlmer and Bob Osborne and Charlie Pierce, all classmates of his at the Pasadena Playhouse). From the fifties up through the seventies, Dick pretty much knew everybody and everyone in show biz. He was also one of the last great raconteurs. He recently self-published a book, entitled: WHAT? AND QUIT SHOW BIZ?, full of stories from his career as an actor and director and his encounters with the great, near-great, and the awful. In fact, I was present at many of the stories he recounts with some of these folks. So I'm plugging Dick's book. Look for it at We-Publish.com.
