I’ve been tossing about as much stardust as I can muster right now. That’s it, this novel is done. I think the podcast of the book runs a bit over 10 hours in its entirety. Let me know if you’d like to hear another Hollywood novel podcast — remember it…
Category: Movies
Honey, you’re looking great. What an ordeal this has been. Four years culminating in… Hold on. We’ve made it this far. Let’s step into the light. In a few short days things will start to change. My aim in podcasting my novel has been to entertain until that change comes.…
There were heaps — accumulated reminders of a life — all around. Everything that served as an archival asset, or a teaching aid for future filmmakers, I boxed and hauled over to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Clothes, I donated. Books, I culled down to the essentials…
I’m not going to enter into the year that was conversation. I think it’s too early. I will say one thing that kept me going this year was being able to read to you in a podcast. In my isolation it was one way I could contribute, if only to…
All through life, instinctively or intellectually, we adapt to survive. Even insects have some boss strategies, for example, the formation of a chitinous exoskeleton, which is the somewhat see-through shell that encapsulates and protects a shrimp or a spider. I have a theory about directors who succeed in the movie…
Lethal stress can come at you no matter whether you’re onscreen or off. Actors in Hollywood have committed suicide by swallowing ant paste, Nembutal, or barbiturates. George Sanders (check out his performance in All About Eve) swallowed five bottles of pills in Barcelona and left two suicides notes. One in…
Clara Bow wasn’t the only one who found Hollywood depressing. On a chilly, unusually clouded over, February afternoon in 2009 when I was 48, after the fourth week of shooting on the revived franchise, I received a call. It was Antoine. He told me he couldn’t make it to set…