Almost fifty years in the making! This is the definitive interview book with John Milius, the provocateur who has etched -- no, make that blasted -- a name for himself with such films as "Dillinger," "Big Wednesday," "Red Dawn," "Flight of the Intruder"and written, among other breakthroughs, "Apocalypse Now." John is bigger than any film he ever made, and these covers barely contain his bravura personality. He and I have been friends since 1973 and the intimacy, cheek, and wit (from him) of this encounter are the result.
Buy it here: https://bearmanor-digital.myshopify.com/products/big-bad-john-the-john-milius-interviews-paperback?_pos=3&_sid=d7726e43d&_ss=r |
Films and filmmakers
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Guarding Gable starts with an actual event in the life of the screen’s number one star and becomes a story worthy of a Hollywood movie.
It’s 1942 and World War Two is just beginning. Beloved actress Carole Lombard is killed in a plane crash while returning from a bond-selling tour and her devoted husband, Clark Gable, is beyond consolation. Depressed to the point of suicide, he enlists in the U.S. Army Air Corps, telling his bosses at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that he doesn’t care if he ever comes back.
Naturally, MGM is apoplectic at the prospect of losing their top box office attraction. In desperation, studio head Louis B. Mayer leans on a lowly publicist, Alan Greenberg, to enlist with Gable with orders to keep him alive during World War Two. That’s hard to do when Gable insists on flying combat missions over Nazi-occupied Europe. Not only that, he and Alan fall in love with the same woman -- and, if you’re Alan, how do you win the girl if your competition is Clark Gable, the “King” of Hollywood?
Guarding Gable is a story of love, war, and humor. It also has a little rough language but, after all, this is the Army.
This title is also available for download as an enhanced audiobook form Bear Manor Audio, from Audible.com, and on CD from Blackstone Audio.
It’s 1942 and World War Two is just beginning. Beloved actress Carole Lombard is killed in a plane crash while returning from a bond-selling tour and her devoted husband, Clark Gable, is beyond consolation. Depressed to the point of suicide, he enlists in the U.S. Army Air Corps, telling his bosses at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that he doesn’t care if he ever comes back.
Naturally, MGM is apoplectic at the prospect of losing their top box office attraction. In desperation, studio head Louis B. Mayer leans on a lowly publicist, Alan Greenberg, to enlist with Gable with orders to keep him alive during World War Two. That’s hard to do when Gable insists on flying combat missions over Nazi-occupied Europe. Not only that, he and Alan fall in love with the same woman -- and, if you’re Alan, how do you win the girl if your competition is Clark Gable, the “King” of Hollywood?
Guarding Gable is a story of love, war, and humor. It also has a little rough language but, after all, this is the Army.
This title is also available for download as an enhanced audiobook form Bear Manor Audio, from Audible.com, and on CD from Blackstone Audio.
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Imagine you’re a young movie producer trying to jump from small pictures into the international film market. Imagine a novice German director comes to you with a lousy script and barely enough money to pick up lunch. Now imagine that, for reasons that boggle your mind, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton announce that they want to star in your movie.
This is the outlandish, funny, touching, and mostly true story told by Yoram Ben-Ami in Guiding Royalty: My Adventure with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. |
www.amazon.com/dp/B07MZPBMRCIn 1975, Ben-Ami was a struggling young producer making movies and TV shows in Israel. He was married, trying to start a family, and desperate to make it to Hollywood. Suddenly the highest-paid, highest-profile movie stars in the world land in his lap. They are movie royalty and their marriages and private lives fill supermarket tabloids everywhere. He brings them to Israel for publicity only to discover that, as famous as they are, “Liz and Dick” are out of work with no prospects. In other words, both sides need each other. During the five days that they spend together, all of Israel opens up to Taylor and Burton, and Burton and Taylor open up to Ben-Ami. Now Ben-Ami opens up to the reader about what happened.
Guiding Royalty: My Adventure with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton is an intimate look at two ultra-famous people at a time when their fame was at low ebb. Set in the Holy Land and featuring places and personalities who shaped the history of their times, here is an untold and richly human story.
(For those who like their human stories on Kindle, hewww.amazon.com/dp/B07MZPBMRCre's a link)
Guiding Royalty: My Adventure with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton is an intimate look at two ultra-famous people at a time when their fame was at low ebb. Set in the Holy Land and featuring places and personalities who shaped the history of their times, here is an untold and richly human story.
(For those who like their human stories on Kindle, hewww.amazon.com/dp/B07MZPBMRCre's a link)
The controversial Hugo and Locus award nominated biography of the controversial Hugo and Locus award winning speculative fiction writer. Ellison is at his most intimate, confessional, and provocative in the only book he has ever allowed to quote from his work.
"Compelling and Unconventional - A Best book of the Year" - Amazon "Superb! Harlan is a lot of things, and this book does a superb job of telling his life story" - Amazon "Fascinating read. Terrific look at a legend that digs deep into some of the myths and misconceptions about him. A must if you're a Harlan fan!" - Amazon "This is an absolutely fascinating biography of a man who was my favorite writer for nearly 25 years" - Goodreads "Fantastic book. Loved it" - Goodeads |
Nat contributed a chapter to Get That Cat Outa Here, a collection of backstories about films that editor-publisher Ben Ohmart liked while he was growing up and now wants to bring to light. He got to write about The End, starring Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise. Dom was a close friend and Nat was honored to be able to celebrate his brilliant work in this dark comedy (which Reynolds directed).
The other chapters in the book aren’t too shabby, either. As Ben Ohmart writes, “Citizen Kane and Titanic might have an artistic and popular monopoly on greatness, but when it comes to sitting down to a strictly enjoyable film, give me The North Avenue Irregulars any day. [Here] is a collection of behind the scenes essays dealing with the unheralded wonders of my youth. I am nobody, but I do have a publishing company, so please excuse the one vanity project you now read. |
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However, I think you’re going to find some really good stuff here. If you, like me are a true fan of ignored classics like The Shaggy DA and The Good Fairy, then this is going to be a book you will treasure.
“I tried to collect up a group of my favorite films that have not been covered much in print before, then asked a few good writers I knew if they would be interested in writing chapters on each, with a particular emphasis on how the films were made and interviews with any cast or crew they could catch, rather than just criticism. I am pleased with this book and hope you will be too.”
“I tried to collect up a group of my favorite films that have not been covered much in print before, then asked a few good writers I knew if they would be interested in writing chapters on each, with a particular emphasis on how the films were made and interviews with any cast or crew they could catch, rather than just criticism. I am pleased with this book and hope you will be too.”
NEW AND NOTORIOUS!
Screen Saver Too: Hollywood Strikes Back (Bear Manor Media, 2017). In a sequel memoir to Screen Saver: Private Stories of Public Hollywood, Nat settles scores and recalls adventures with celebrities, network executives, and other denizens of the entertainment industry menagerie. Darker and funnier than Screen Saver, Screen Saver Too looks at commercial cinema and suggests ways that it can coexist with independent filmmaking. Plus -- as Bear Manor Media publisher Ben Ohmart told the author -- "Any book that has both Butterfly McQueen and Linda Lovelace in it, I have to publish."
www.bearmanormedia.com/screen-saver-too-hollywood-strikes-back-softcover-edition-by-nat-segaloff
Screen Saver Too: Hollywood Strikes Back (Bear Manor Media, 2017). In a sequel memoir to Screen Saver: Private Stories of Public Hollywood, Nat settles scores and recalls adventures with celebrities, network executives, and other denizens of the entertainment industry menagerie. Darker and funnier than Screen Saver, Screen Saver Too looks at commercial cinema and suggests ways that it can coexist with independent filmmaking. Plus -- as Bear Manor Media publisher Ben Ohmart told the author -- "Any book that has both Butterfly McQueen and Linda Lovelace in it, I have to publish."
www.bearmanormedia.com/screen-saver-too-hollywood-strikes-back-softcover-edition-by-nat-segaloff
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Screen Saver: Private Stories of Public Hollywood (Bear Manor Media, 2016): How do celebrities behave when they’re away from the protective Hollywood bubble? Author Nat Segaloff knows because he had to mind them while they were on the road. He started as a studio publicist, then became a film journalist bringing his inside information with him. Read the skinny about how press junkets work, tricks of publicity and advertising, stars with their defenses down, and other adventures that never make it into the national rags. |
Stirling Silliphant: The Fingers of God (Bear Manor Media, 2014): What do The Towering Inferno, In the Heat of the Night, Charly, Route 66, and Naked City have in common? All of them were hugely successful and all of them were written by Stirling Silliphant. In a rare biography of a screenwriter, Nat Segaloff exhaustively interviewed Silliphant, speaks to his colleagues, and tracks the career of the highest paid writer in Hollywood whose life was never as happy as the endings he wrote for the movies. |
Final Cuts: The Last Films of 50 Great Directors (Bear Manor Media, 2013): Nat Segaloff was granted access to the personal papers of the greatest filmmakers in Hollywood history to explore what went right and what went wrong the last time they called “action.” From Atman to Zinneman, Hitchcock to Hawks, and 46 other great directors, Final Cuts is a compelling look at the struggles of even the most accomplished filmmakers do do it just once more. |
Mr. Huston/Mr. North: Life, Death, and Making John Huston’s Last Film (Bear manor Media, 2014): When legendary director John Huston brought this family to the resort town of Newport, Rhode Island in th summer of 1987 to make a small movie called Mr. North no one could have predicted that he would die midway through shooting and his movie would become a mission. Nat Segaloff was the only reporter allowed on the set, and he recorded what he saw compassionately and knowledgeably. Read how the cast and crew coped with a personal tragedy: Robert Mitchum, Lauren Bacall, Anthony Edwards, Harry Dean Stanton, Anjelica Huston, and director Danny Huston among them. |
Arthur Penn: American Director Revised Second Edition (BearManor Media, 2020): A supplement to includes tributes to Arthur Penn following his death (four days after the First edition was finished) and new information about "Nonny," the woman who exposed young Arthur to the arts.
In this, the first biography of master director Arthur Penn, we enjoy an encompassing, intimate portrait of the man who hated violence yet brought it blazingly to the screen with Bonnie and Clyde; who nurtured the New Hollywood yet never made a film that was anything like one of theirs; and who quietly set the standard for excellence on stage, on early TV, and in the movies. This book being offered both as e-book and as a print-on-demand hardcover and softcover editions from BearManor Media and may take a few extra days for your order to arrive. NOTE: The first edition (from the University Press of Kentucky) is now out of print. Sell yours to eBay now! https://bearmanor-digital.myshopify.com/products/arthur-penn-american-director-second-edition-paperback?_pos=2&_sid=0c24689d8&_ss=r |
Hurricane Billy: The Stormy Life and Films of William Friedkin (William Morrow and Co., 1990): The man behind The French Connection, The Exorcist, Sorcerer, and To Live and Die in L.A. had a life as exciting and combative as anything he ever put on screen. This first-ever biography of the Oscar®-winning director was researched over a period of 15 years and explores his creative process with explosive results. |
Love Stories: Hollywood’s Most Romantic Movies (Longmeadow Press, 1991): Factual, evocative essays on dozens of the best films about relationships ever made examining their timeless appeal. All the favorites are here and even a few that have escaped the revival circuit. Co-written with Daniel M. Kimmel, this a highly personal adventure in affairs of the movie-based heart. (A great gift item if you can find a copy.) |
The Everything Series
The Everything books are highly readable, wonderfully informative, lots of fun, and make lovely time-killers in the best bathrooms everywhere. The working title of Tall Tales... was The Myth, Hoax, and Scam Book, which gives you a sense of where it was headed. The Trivia book begat a mini-trivia book and is a snapshot of the popular culture of the era in which it was written. The standout is The Everything Etiquette Book, which promotes "aggressive etiquette," best described as extending the middle finger instead of the pinky. The reason Nat took the job was to be able to say "I wrote the book on good taste," then found himself forever bound to obey the rules of good manners.
Copyright © 2024 Nat Segaloff