Synopses & Reviews
The
Backstory series of unique "oral histories" chronicles the lives and careers of notable Hollywood screenwritersand#151;in their own words.
Backstory: Interviews with Screenwriters of Hollywood's Golden Age focused on the early sound era and the 1930s.
Backstory 2 featured Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1940s and 1950s.
Backstory 3 takes up the history of American screenwriting in the 1960s, through the experiences of fourteen key scenarists. These lively interviews, conducted by Pat McGilligan and others, feature Jay Presson Allen, George Axelrod, Walter Bernstein, Horton Foote, Walon Green, Charles B. Griffith, John Michael Hayes, Ring Lardner Jr., Wendell Mayes, Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr., Arnold Schulman, Stirling Silliphant, and Terry Southern.
The series has proven useful and edifying for film students, scholars, and historians, for screenwriters and other professionals, and for film buffs in general. Applauded by reviewers and named among the "100 essential film books" by a Los Angeles Times-appointed panel, it is cited often and quoted in many film histories.
Synopsis
"Backstory 3 targets the 1960s, probably the most neglected period in American film history. These screenwriters are extremely articulate, and one would be hard pressed to find better, more vivid or compelling accounts of what Hollywood was like during this period."and#151;Matthew Bernstein, author of Walter Wanger, Hollywood Independent
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 401-406) and indexes.
About the Author
Pat McGilligan, a resident of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has written acclaimed biographies of James Cagney, Robert Altman, George Cukor, and Jack Nicholson, and a new biography of director Fritz Lang called Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast. His Backstory series for the University of California Press, like the Nicholson biography, has been translated into several foreign languages.