A fictitious dinner party featuring Hollywood ``royalty,'' with dialogue taken from their own words during actual interviews with Speck. From 1985 to 1988, Speck did a series of 24 interviews for Interview magazine, talking with Katherine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, Olivia de Havilland, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, Joan Fontaine, Gregory Peck, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and others. Since many of these celebrities spoke on the same topic, or were led to speak on that topic, Speck has decided to arrange this book not simply as a sheaf of interviews, but by topics, as if one were at a party in which Stewart, Fontaine, Peck, and others all tell about their work with Alfred Hitchcock (a revised picture of Hitch emerges, after his blackening by Donald Spoto) and with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. Bette Davis and others tell about making pictures with William Wyler, and a dozen or more have their memories of working with, of dining with, or of just watching Greta Garbo—memories that, when strung together like this, produce a rainbow of awe and a heartfelt if stagestruck chorus of ``incomparable''s. Geraldine Fitzgerald says of Garbo that she ``liked to try on hats without any other clothes. They used to have these tours through the Metro lot, and one time a tour came into the fitting room. Well, there on a high chair, trying on hats, completely nude, was Garbo....It would have made a wonderful picture.'' Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh get the big treatment, as do Davis, Clark Gable, James Cagney, Marilyn Monroe, David Selznick, Henry Fonda, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Capra, John Ford, Spencer Tracy, and others. Guess who's coming to dinner! A brilliant idea well carried out. (Photographs throughout—not seen.)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1992
ISBN: 1-55972-150-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Birch Lane Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1992
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
