Secret Lives of Great Filmmakers [Paperback]

Robert Schnackenberg (Author), Mario Zucca (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2009 | Series: Secret Lives

Strange-But-True Tales of Cross-Dressers, Drug Addicts, Foot Fetishists, and Other Legendary Filmmakers.
 
With outrageous and uncensored profiles of everyone from D. W. Griffith to Quentin Tarantino, Secret Lives of Great Filmmakers reveals the little-known secrets of all your favorite directors. Why did Charlie Chaplin refuse to bathe for weeks at a time? Was Alfred Hitchcock really missing a belly button?  Is Walt Disney’s corpse preserved in a state of suspended animation? And why on earth did Francis Ford Coppola direct a 3-D pornographic movie? The legends of the silver screen will never be the same!

Editorial Reviews

Review

“When Robert Schnakenberg's Secret Lives of Great Filmmakers arrived in my mailbox, I braced myself for 288 pages of future dinner-party tidbits. To my delight, it delivered.”—USA Today, Popcandy

About the Author

Robert Schnakenberg is the author of several nonfiction books, including Secret Lives of Great Authors. He lives in Brooklyn.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Quirk Books; 1 edition (February 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594744343
• ISBN-13: 978-1594744341
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #674,928 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert Schnakenberg has been called "the Howard Zinn of nerd pop culture." He is the author of more than a dozen books, including Distory: A Treasury of Historical Insults, Christopher Walken A-to-Z, Secret Lives of Great Authors, and The Encyclopedia Shatnerica--the world's first A-to-Z guide to the life and career of William Shatner. His work has appeared in Penthouse, The American Writer, and Real People; and online at Alternet, HoleCity, Mental Floss, and PopPolitics.com. He has been a major contributor to numerous multi-volume reference works, including The St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture; Fashion, Fad, and Style; and Bowling, Beatniks, and Bell Bottoms: Pop Culture of 20th Century America.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Piquant, piquant as hell, March 16, 2010

By 

Orlando Ozio (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secret Lives of Great Filmmakers (Paperback)

I wasn't expecting much, having been disappointed by another entry in this series (the decidedly lackluster Secret Lives of the Civil War--the product of a different, and inferior, author). But having opted to wet my beak a second time I was pleasantly surprised. It's a well-researched, tartly crafted survey of more than 100 years of movie history, told through the lives and foibles of some 40 or so famous directors. I learned quite a few things I didn't know, and a few others I wished I hadn't learned (the anecdote about Frank Capra and adult circumcision will stay with me forever). All in all, a feast for film buffs--if a bit of a dog's breakfast!

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good gift for film fan, March 16, 2010

By 

John Flicker (Cabo San Lucas, Mexico) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secret Lives of Great Filmmakers (Paperback)

I bought this book as a gift for my 62 year old father, & he said it was THE best gift he had ever received! He said he just can't put it down! I am now buying him "Secret Lives of Great Composers" also.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read!, August 8, 2011

By 

redtalus - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Secret Lives of Great Filmmakers (Paperback)

I found this book to be an amusing collection of unknown facts about filmmakers. It is a quick read and the author gets to the point concerning the "juicy stuff" after giving a very brief synopsis of the filmmaker's formative years. He tries with success most of the time to link personal life-changing events to the creative (or destructive)forces which caused them to make their unique movies. I highly recommend this to not only the person new to cinema, but also the seasoned student of film.