George Cukor: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers Series) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1578063876 ISBN 13: 9781578063871

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi, 2001

Synopsis

For investing movies with an image of style and glamour George Cukor (1899--1983) is considered one of the founding fathers of the Golden Age of Hollywood. The roll call of the great films he made and the stars he directed validates his rank as one of cinema's greatest moviemakers.

"The only really important thing I have to say about George Cukor," Katharine Hepburn proclaimed, "is that all the other directors I have worked with starred themselves. But George 'starred' the actor. He didn't want people to say, 'this great director.' He wanted them to say 'this great actor.' "

Along with introducing Hepburn and Greta Garbo to American audiences, he worked with many of the most acclaimed movie actresses of his day, including Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, Jean Harlow, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Crawford, Ingrid Bergman, Ava Gardner, Claudette Colbert, Angela Lansbury, Judy Holliday, Audrey Hepburn, and Marilyn Monroe.

These interviews are a pleasure to read because Cukor is so immersed in his subject and so forthright in his observations. He comes to life immediately with disarming candor and infectious enthusiasm for cinema and the people who make it.

In addition to discussing his romantic comedies, Cukor talks about his famous screen adaptations of classic novels and plays, including Little Women (1933) and David Copperfield (1935). His experience of being fired by producer David O. Selznick partway through the shooting of Gone With the Wind (1939) surfaces in nearly every interview. Instead of having his career derailed by this dismissal, however, he continued his rise as one of America's premier directors. In his cornucopia of films are Holiday (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Adam's Rib (1949), Born Yesterday (1950), A Star Is Born (1954), Let's Make Love (1960), and My Fair Lady (1964).

Cukor was a man of myriad dimensions. In his last years he opened up about his private life and his previously undisclosed homosexuality. He was ardent in his friendships and single-minded in his devotion to making quality movies for a popular audience.

Robert Emmet Long, a literature and film scholar and writer living in Fulton, New York, is the author or editor of more than forty books, including John Huston: Interviews (University Press of Mississippi).

About this title

Book Description:

Collected interviews with the director of such films as The Philadelphia Story, Adam?s Rib, A Star Is Born, and My Fair Lady

From Booklist:

Cukor thrived in the Hollywood studio system, creating some of the most beloved movies of the '30s and '40s, including The Philadelphia Story and Adam's Rib. He continued making films into the '80s, but during most of his last three decades, he just tried to recapture his glory days. These interviews come from that period and possess a retrospective, valedictory feeling. Cukor provides insight on his screenwriters, cinematographers, and other collaborators, but his casts get the most attention. After all, "I achieved practically all my screen effects through actors and actresses," he says. In the latest interviews, he grows increasingly curmudgeonly, bemoaning the increased sexual freedom and other changes in Hollywood. It is ironic, then, that the last of these 21 interviews was conducted by the gay magazine The Advocate only months before his death. In it Cukor touches for the first time upon his homosexuality, well known within the industry but covert outside of it. Gordon Flagg
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About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1578063876
• ISBN 13: 9781578063871
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 191
• Editor: Long Robert Emmet