Who the Hell's in It: Conversations with Hollywood's Legendary Actors

By Peter Bogdanovich

Book Overview

Peter Bogdanovich, known primarily as a director, film historian and critic, has been working with professional actors all his life. He started out as an actor (he debuted on the stage in his sixth-grade production of Finian's Rainbow); he watched actors work (he went to the theater every week from the age of thirteen and saw every important show on, or off, Broadway for the next decade); he studied acting, starting at sixteen, with Stella Adler (his work with her became the foundation for all he would ever do as an actor and a director).

Now, in his new book, Who the Hell's in It, Bogdanovich draws upon a lifetime of experience, observation and understanding of the art to write about the actors he came to know along the way; actors he admired from afar; actors he worked with, directed, befriended. Among them: Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, John Cassavetes, Charlie Chaplin, Montgomery Clift, Marlene Dietrich, Henry Fonda, Ben Gazzara, Audrey Hepburn, Boris Karloff, Dean Martin, Marilyn Monroe, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, Frank Sinatra, and James Stewart.
Bogdanovich captures--in their words and his--their work, their individual styles, what made them who they were, what gave them their appeal and why they've continued to be America's iconic actors.

On Lillian Gish: "the first virgin hearth goddess of the screen . . . a valiant and courageous symbol of fortitude and love through all distress."

On Marlon Brando: "He challenged himself never to be the same from picture to picture, refusing to become the kind of film star the studio system had invented and thrived upon--the recognizable human commodity each new film was built around . . . The funny thing is that Brando's charismatic screen persona was vividly apparent despite the multiplicity of his guises . . . Brando always remains recognizable, a star-actor in spite of himself. "

Jerry Lewis to Bogdanovich on the first laugh Lewis ever got onstage: "I was five years old. My mom and dad had a tux made--I worked in the borscht circuit with them--and I came out and I sang, 'Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?' the big hit at the time . . . It was 1931, and I stopped the show--naturally--a five-year-old in a tuxedo is not going to stop the show? And I took a bow and my foot slipped and hit one of the floodlights and it exploded and the smoke and the sound scared me so I started to cry. The audience laughed--they were hysterical . . . So I knew I had to get the rest of my laughs the rest of my life, breaking, sitting, falling, spinning."

John Wayne to Bogdanovich, on the early years of Wayne's career when he was working as a prop man: "Well, I've naturally studied John Ford professionally as well as loving the man. Ever since the first time I walked down his set as a goose-herder in 1927. They needed somebody from the prop department to keep the geese from getting under a fake hill they had for Mother Machree at Fox. I'd been hired because Tom Mix wanted a box seat for the USC football games, and so they promised jobs to Don Williams and myself and a couple of the players. They buried us over in the properties department, and Mr. Ford's need for a goose-herder just seemed to fit my pistol."
These twenty-six portraits and conversations are unsurpassed in their evocation of a certain kind of great movie star that has vanished. Bogdanovich's book is a celebration and a farewell.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345480023
• ISBN13: 9780345480026
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 544 Pages
• Weight: 1.27 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Classic Hollywood

If you love the old movies and their stars, you'll love reading Mr. B's reminiscences. He met and worked with so many of them! His wonderful writing style is conversational, not scholarly, which is not to say that he doesn't know his subject. Peter Bogdonovich loves and understands movies and moviemaking, and has a great appreciation for actors and actresses. His book is a great read!!

25 Chapters on 25 Hollywood Stars By One of their Own

I picked up this book and flipping through it came upon some still pictures of John Wayne from several of his movies. This made me turn the pages back to the beginning of that chapter and read it. Then I turned the page and the next chapter was Henry Fonda. I was getting tired of standing up so I took it home with me. The author has been working with actors virtually all of his life. And he has done this, not as a reporter, but as one of their own. He's acted, directed, written, just about everything in the movie business. In this book he is not writing from second hand reports, he knew and associated with the people he is writing about. Well in a few cases he knew people around them, like Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe's husband. This book has 25 chapters, one each for 25 of the most memorable people Hollywood has produced.

More Stars Than there are in Heaven

If you're looking for a book that spills the dirt on some of the biggest names in Hollywood (when Hollywood WAS Hollywood), this ain't it! Bogdanovich, as he did with the great directors in "Who The Devil Made It?", has penned love-letters to some of tinsel town's greatest performers. As with the first volume, almost all of these pieces are told from the personal viewpoint of his inter-actions with each of the stars, a ploy that could become tedious in less capable hands. It is important to remember, however, that, before he was a director, and sometime actor, Bogdanovich was one of the best writers on the art of film, a talent he retains to this day. The pieces vary in length from less than 10 pages to an almost novella length essay on Jerry Lewis. The problem, if any, is that the short pieces often seem TOO short and the longer ones, especially the Lewis piece, could have stood a little trimming. But, all in all, these mash notes (you won't find many negative comments on any of his subjects) are beautifully written and speak of a time and place we shall never see again. If you love film, this is your next big read!