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Overview"As a young Jewish boy growing up in Vienna, Georgia, Abe Orovitz could never have predicted the twists and turns his life would take. Many years later, as retired film director with more than thirty movies to his credit, Vincent Sherman is no less surprised when he looks back on that life. In Studio Affairs he retraces his life with candor and enthusiasm. Sherman discusses the details of his three-year relationship with Joan Crawford, his inadvertent connection with the death of Bette Davis's second husband, and his poignant romantic involvement with Rita Hayworth. Providing counterpoint to these liaisons is the love and devotion of Sherman's wife, Hedda, who accepted her husband's occasional infidelities as part and parcel of his career. Studio Affairs provides an inside look at the motion picture industry during the heyday of the studio system by one who worked his way from nearly starving actor and playwright to respected director. In effect, the book serves as a primer on the art of film directing. Sherman quickly developed a reputation of being a consummate rewrite artist, able to take whatever assignment given him and turn it into a first rate motion picture. His skill at reworked scripts led him to bigger and bigger projects, even as the salary set by his long-term contract with Warner Brothers remained below that of most of his colleagues. Though not originally signed to direct, when asked to do so he drew on his experience putting together productions at summer camps across the ""borscht circuit"" in upstate New York. Like so many talented individuals in Hollywood during the 1950s, Sherman was targeted by the House Un-American Activities Committee, owing in part to his active support of the WPA Theatre project in New York two decades previous. Time spent on the lesser known gray list kept him out of work for several years. Eventually, he again enjoyed some critical success, but after the demise of the studio system life was never quite the same. The quintessential ""studio director"" ended his career directing for television. Vincent Sherman's path from Georgia to southern California is compelling, and his legendary talent for good storytelling makes the book impossible to put down." Full Product DetailsAuthor: Vincent ShermanPublisher: The University Press of Kentucky Imprint: The University Press of Kentucky Dimensions: Width: 15.20cm , Height: 3.10cm , Length: 22.90cm Weight: 0.753kg ISBN: 9780813119755ISBN 10: 0813119758 Pages: 344 Publication Date: 26 September 1996 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Awaiting stock  The supplier is currently out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out for you. Table of ContentsReviewsA workmanlike job from an admirably hard worker. -- Publishers Weekly A workmanlike job from an admirably hard worker. -- Publishers Weekly Those seeking a portrait of Hollywood's seedy underbelly won't find it here. What Sherman has written is far more unusual: a frank, detailed, eminently clear record of the exhausting, exhilarating business of making films. -- Kirkus Reviews A very entertaining and exciting book, bull of fascinating details, not only about the Hollywood movie art and business, but about the New York theatre as well. Deeply interesting material about the 'red scare, ' all with an absence of bitterness. A real picture of how studio directors worked -- the freedom of creation and the collaboration. -- Bertrand Tavernier, New York Film Critics Award-winning director One of the great craftsmen from the old studio system, Vincent Sherman writes straight from the heart.... Many colorful insights into Bette Davis and Joan Crawford and the other stars he directed. -- Oliver Stone Many of the stories Sherman tells are quite amusing and give insight into the lives of revered silver-screen idols such as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. -- Journal of the West Offers intelligent discourses on writing and directing, taking the reader through the filmmaking process from 1939 through 1966.... With its revealing stories of the stars and its enlightening personal perspective on directing, Studio Affairs is recommended for both movie fans and movie makers. -- Curio A very entertaining and exciting book, bull of fascinating details, not only about the Hollywood movie art and business, but about the New York theatre as well. Deeply interesting material about the 'red scare, ' all with an absence of bitterness. A real picture of how studio directors worked -- the freedom of creation and the collaboration. -- Bertrand Tavernier, New York Film Critics Award-winning director A workmanlike job from an admirably hard worker. -- Publishers Weekly One of the great craftsmen from the old studio system, Vincent Sherman writes straight from the heart.... Many colorful insights into Bette Davis and Joan Crawford and the other stars he directed. -- Oliver Stone Those seeking a portrait of Hollywood's seedy underbelly won't find it here. What Sherman has written is far more unusual: a frank, detailed, eminently clear record of the exhausting, exhilarating business of making films. -- Kirkus Reviews Many of the stories Sherman tells are quite amusing and give insight into the lives of revered silver-screen idols such as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. -- Journal of the West Offers intelligent discourses on writing and directing, taking the reader through the filmmaking process from 1939 through 1966.... With its revealing stories of the stars and its enlightening personal perspective on directing, Studio Affairs is recommended for both movie fans and movie makers. -- Curio Hollywood reminiscences, and more, from the quintessential studio system director. When Sherman began his directing career in the 1930s, directors were almost as low on the Hollywood totem pole as writers, just one more component of a vast hierarchy where real power and creative vision tended to belong to executive producers and studio moguls. At the heart of the system was its audacious application of the mass production techniques of the Industrial Revolution to movies. Good or bad, films had to be cranked out on a regular schedule to help cover the studios' huge overheads. Jack Wamer's appeal to Sherman was typical: I know it's not a great story, but I've got six actors sitting around doing nothing but picking up their checks . . . do me a favor: Make the picture and do the best you can. Much of Sherman's career consisted of doing precisely this, reluctantly taking on films he didn't like and then trying to improve them as much as tight schedules and budgets allowed. Over the course of 30 features, he sometimes succeeded - Mr. Skeffington, The Hard Way - and sometimes failed. Along the way he worked with some of the greatest of the greats: Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, Paul Newman. He also enjoyed a reputation as a woman's director, working with Joan Crawford, Rita Hayworth, and the notoriously difficult Bette Davis (he had extramarital affairs with all three). Despite his current semi-obscurity, his films are certainly worth a second look. Those seeking a portrait of Hollywood's seedy underbelly won't find it here. What Sherman has written is far more unusual: a frank, detailed, eminently clear record of the exhausting, exhilarating business of making films. The life, times, and techniques of a director from Hollywood's so-called Golden Age have rarely been so illuminatingly and insightfully detailed. (Kirkus Reviews) <p> A workmanlike job from an admirably hard worker. -- Publishers Weekly Author InformationTab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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