Close-Ups: Intimate Profiles of Movie Stars by Their Costars, Directors, Screenwriters, and Friends

by Danny Peary

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671657585
• ISBN13: 9780671657581
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 608 Pages
• Weight: 3.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 8.3" x 10.7"

Customer Reviews

A Hollywood Cavalcade

This is a movie lovers book that should have some appeal to connosieurs. From Mary Pickford to the Three Stooges to Marlon Brando to Richard Dreyfuss, the selection is large, with names familiar to every movie-goer, including some not so familiar. The authors are also a diverse lot (usually directors or film writers), having either a personal or professional familiarity with their subject. This is both a boon and a bane. A boon, because of the opportunity for anecdotes or insights which only intimate friends or professionals can provide; a bane, because the tone and content of too many articles is too respectful. Readers would be better served by a greater critical distance between author and subject, so that the flaws of a more rounded human being can emerge. Too bad more profiles don't reach the level of Alvah Bessie's unforgettable reminiscence of Bette Davis, which is just the right mixture of sugar and spice. Still the entertainment value is high, and no book that includes the likes of Claude Rains, Lee J. Cobb, or Louise Brooks, can afford to be overlooked.