This is a short and pungent New Yorker-style profile/extended essay of one of the great literary talents and some would say underachievers of American literature.Robert Emmet Long presents a full account of Truman Capote's early life, making use of Capote's unpublished papers. The topics covered include his strange relationship with his beautiful but immature mother (she was sixteen years old when Capote was born), as well as his friendships with a series of rich and talented women.Combining biographical insights with literary criticism, "Truman Capote, Enfant Terrible" presents a grand overview of a complex and fascinating author: one who remained a child in appearance and behavior; a Southerner who strayed from the South, a celebrity while living the most solitary realm of his vast imagination.

James Ivory in Conversation is an exclusive series of interviews with a director known for the international scope of his filmmaking on several continents. Three-time Academy Award nominee for best director, responsible for such film classics as A Room with a View and The Remains of the Day, Ivory speaks with remarkable candor and wit about his more than forty years as an independent filmmaker. In this deeply engaging book, he comments on the many aspects of his world-traveling career: his growing up in Oregon (he is not an Englishman, as most Europeans and many Americans think), his early involvement with documentary films that first brought attention to him, his discovery of India, his friendships with celebrated figures here and abroad, his skirmishes with the Picasso family and Thomas Jefferson scholars, his usually candid yet at times explosive relations with actors. Supported by seventy illuminating photographs selected by Ivory himself, the book offers a wealth of previously unavailable information about the director's life and the art of making movies. James Ivory on: On the Merchant Ivory Jhabvala partnership: "I've always said that Merchant Ivory is a bit like the U. S. Govenment; I'm the President, Ismail is the Congress, and Ruth is the Supreme Court. Though Ismail and I disagree sometimes, Ruth acts as a referee, or she and I may gang up on him, or vice versa. The main thing is, no one ever truly interferes in the area of work of the other." On Shooting Mr. and Mrs. Bridge: "Who told you we had long 18 hour days? We had a regular schedule, not at all rushed, worked regular hours and had regular two-day weekends, during which the crew shopped in the excellent malls of Kansas City, Paul Newman raced cars somewhere, unknown to us and the insurance company, and I lay on a couch reading The Remains of the Day." On Jessica Tandy as Miss Birdseye in The Bostonians: "Jessica Tandy was seventy-two or something, and she felt she had to 'play' being an old woman, to 'act' an old woman. Unfortunately, I'couldn't say to her, 'You don't have to 'act' this, just 'be,' that will be sufficient.' You can't tell the former Blanche Du Bois that she's an old woman now." On Adapting E. M. Forster's novels "His was a very pleasing voice, and it was easy to follow. Why turn his books into films unless you want to do that? But I suppose my voice was there, too; it was a kind of duet, you could say, and he provided the melody." On India: "If you see my Indian movies then you get some idea of what it was that attracted me about India and Indians...any explanation would sound lamer than the thing warrants. The mood was so great and overwhelming that any explanation of it would seem physically thin...I put all my feeling about India into several Indian films, and if you know those films and like them, you see from these films what it was that attracted me to India." On whether he was influenced by Renoir in filming A Room with a View "I was certainly not influenced by Renoir in that film. But if you put some good looking women in long white dresses in a field dotted with red poppies, andthey're holding parasols, then people will say, 'Renoir.'" On the Critics: "I came to believe that to have a powerful enemy like Pauline Kael only made me stronger. You know, like a kind of voodoo. I wonder if it worked that way in those days for any of her other victims--Woody Allen, for instance, or Stanley Kubrick." On Andy Warhol as a dinner guest: "I met him many times over the last twenty years of his life, but I can't say I knew him, which is what most people say, even those who were his intimates. Once he came to dinner with a group of his Factory friends at my apartment. I remember that he or someone else left a dirty plate, with chicken bones and knife and fork, in my bathroom wash basin. It seemed to be a symbolic gesture, to be a matter of style, and not just bad manners."

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).

For more than thirty years, the Wing has produced the "Working in the Theatre" seminars, a series that features the greatest names in theatre. It is now available in book form for the first time, compact, and at an affordable paperback price.Spanning the range of these seminars, with a concentration on the most recent shows and current stars, the information, anecdotes, gossip (yes!), heartaches and triumphs are all here.We learn: what a career in the theatre is really about, from inspiration to a Tony or Pulitzer Prize; how actors prepare; what actors have found to be the best techniques; how writers get their work staged; and, how playwrights and cast interact with the director.

"Broadway, the Golden Years", is a wonderfully readable group portrait of the great Broadway choreographer-directors: Jerome Robbins, Agnes de Mille, Gower Champion, Bob Fosse, Michael Bennett, Tonny Tune, Graciela Daniele, and Susan Stroman. The hits generated by two generations of choreographer-directors define the Broadway stage: "Oklahoma!", On the Town"; "West Side Story"; "Hello, Dolly!"; "Fiddler on the Roof"; "A Chorus Line; Dancin'"; "Dream Girls"; "The Producers"; and many more.

For more than 30 years, the Wing has produced the Working in the Theatre seminars, a series that features the greatest names in theatre. This is presented in book form, for the first time, compact, and at an affordable-paperback price. Spanning the range of these seminars, with a concentration on the most recent shows and current stars, the information, anecdotes, gossip (yes!), heartaches, and triumphs are all here. We learn: What a career in the theatre is really about, from inspiration to a Tony or Pulitzer Prize; How actors prepare? What actors have found to be the best techniques? How writers get their work staged? How playwrights and cast interact with the director?

For more than 30 years, the Wing has produced the Working in the Theatre seminars, a series that features the greatest names in theatre. In book form for the first time, this title is compact, and at an affordable-paperback price. Spanning the range of these seminars, with a concentration on the most recent shows and current stars, the information, anecdotes, gossip (yes!), heartaches, and triumphs are all here. Here, we learn: what a career in the theatre is really about, from inspiration to a Tony or Pulitzer Prize; how actors prepare? What actors have found to be the best techniques? How writers get their work staged? How playwrights and cast interact with the director?