Billy Wilder in Hollywood

by Maurice Zolotow

Book Overview

"A double delight: a richly entertaining biography of both screenwriter-director Wilder and his milieu - Hollywood... a fascinating montage of a man whose talents and quirks, virtues and faults, are endlessly engrossing. Electrifying opinions of those with whom he has worked and the original casting choices for his films are often surprising: Mae West was his first choice for Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard and Mary Pickford was his second! A first-rate...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 039911789X
• ISBN13: 9780399117893
• Release Date: January 1977
• Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
• Length: 364 Pages
• Weight: 2.20 lbs.

Customer Reviews

As charming and witty as Wilder himself

I never read this book without laughing out loud in wonderment and delight. Unlike most other Wilder biographers, Zolotow (who died only a few years before Wilder) was a contemporary and spent years with the man, interviewing meticulously Wilder, Iz Diamond, and many of Wilder's actors and friends.His was the original, foundational research many later biographers drew oon. "Words, words, words?" Well, of course --- that is what books are made of! In the interest of full disclosure: I am Zolotow's daughter. I don't adore all my father's books, but this one truly delights me. The tapes of these interviews, BTW, are held by the University of Texas Special Collections department.

Fascinating Look at Hollywood's Grand Old Man

Amidst the flurry of new books by and about Billy Wilder, don't neglect this forgotten gem originally published in the mid-70s. Author Zolotow has an 'Old Hollywood' perspective on Wilder's astonishingly productive career and acerbic personality--not to be missed.