

Letter writing, Saint said, is something of a lost art. I particularly like, for instance, the 1933 letter from cameraman Bert Glennon to Katharine Hepburn. We wanted to get some big names, but we also wanted to include letters by someone who wasn’t as well-known or remembered, if had an amazing voice or revealed something about Hollywood that maybe we hadn’t seen before. “We were looking for letters that revealed something about what it was like to live and work in Hollywood. What sorts of letters were she and Lang looking for? “Rocky and I talked about this a lot,” she told Vanity Fair. She was familiar with the archives that preserve the collections of film-business professionals. Prouty recommended that Lang collaborate with Hall, who was a special-collections researcher at the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library before becoming an archivist for the Art Directors Guild. His whole life was ahead of him, and the letter moved me so much.” He gave Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg their first directing gigs. He went on to represent Joan Crawford and Humphrey Bogart, and later produced the sequels to Airport, as well as Earthquake. “He had just come off the train from New York with $100 in his pocket. “Ten minutes with a young personable attorney, with years of drama and screen criticism experience, and with a living desire to imitate you and your position might not prove boring,” the young go-getter wrote.
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“One, as a movie I love two, it’s a great piece of film history and three, as a filmmaker, I’m constantly dealing with creative and executive people trying to guess the market.”įor Lang, who has been in the film business for 35 years as a producer, writer, and director ( White Squall, Girl Fight), one letter in particular-shared with him by Howard Prouty, then the acquisitions archivist at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences-hit home, inspiring him to compile Letters from Hollywood.ĭated April 14, 1939, it was written by his father to celebrated literary agent H.N. In it, Sherwood tries to convince producer Samuel Goldwyn to abandon the proposed postwar drama that would become The Best Years of Our Lives, arguing that it “will be doomed to miss the bus.” Years would go on to win seven Oscars in the main competition categories-including best picture and, for Sherwood, best screenplay-plus an honorary award. Or try a 1945 letter from playwright and screenwriter Robert Sherwood, which Lang calls one of his favorites in the book. “New York did not care for Connery,” Broccoli reports. Several letters call to mind Oscar-winning screenwriter William Goldman’s classic Hollywood maxim, “Nobody knows anything.” Consider the 1961 telex to producer Harry Saltzman from his partner “Cubby” Broccoli, who was seeking a leading man to portray James Bond in Dr. “And Gyl says, ‘You know who I am, don’t you?’ I said, ‘Yes, I do.’ She says, ‘You do know I know who you are.’ I said, ‘I know.’ Huge dramatic pause-and she says, ‘Well, was Walter accurate ?’ And I said, ‘No, or I wouldn’t be here talking to you.’” “We chitchat about the book,” Lang recalled in an interview. When Wanger learned this, he retaliated in spectacular fashion-by allegedly shooting Jennings in the balls. In short: In 1951, Jennings was having an affair with actor Joan Bennett-the wife of producer Walter Wanger, and Gyl Roland’s aunt. Lang-who went to great lengths to secure the rights to dozens of vintage missives for his coffee-table book, Letters from Hollywood-is himself a Hollywood scion: His father was Jennings Lang, an agent celebrated for his A-list clients, but infamous for a scandalous affair that found him on the wrong end of a jealous husband’s gun. Before Gyl Roland, daughter of actor Gilbert Roland, gave Rocky Lang permission to print a passionate letter her father wrote to silent-screen siren Clara Bow, she wanted something in return. Check resumes and CV, social media profiles, places of employment, photos and videos, news, skilled experts, work history, public records and business records. View contact information: phones, addresses, emails and networks. Joan Hopper Found 136 people in California, Florida and 34 other states
