“A WILD, FUN RIDE THROUGH TINSEL TOWN, PAST AND PRESENT!”
— Jan Wahl, KCBS AM/FM & KRON-TV
At high noon on a cold November day in 1974, sixty-seven-year-old John Wayne faced off with the staff of the Harvard Lampoon on the famous campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The students had issued their challenge by calling the beloved American icon a fraud. Wayne, who had his new movie McQ to promote, responded by saying he would be happy to show his film in the pseudo-intellectual swamps of Harvard Square. After the screening, without writers, the former USC footballer delivered a classic performance. When one smart young man asked where he got his phony toupee, Wayne insisted the hair was real. It wasn’t his, but it was real. The appreciative underclassmen loved him and after the Q and A session, they all sat down to dinner. Later Wayne, who was suffering greatly from both gout and the after effects of lung cancer (sadly the Duke only had five years to live), said that day at Harvard was the best time he ever had.
Just when you thought you’ve heard everything about Hollywood comes a totally original new book — a special blend of biography, history and lore.
Hollywood Stories is packed with wild, wonderful short tales about famous stars, movies, directors and many others who have been a part of the world’s most fascinating, unpredictable industry!
What makes the book unique is that the reader can go to any page and find a completely engaging and illuminating yarn. Sometimes people won’t realize that they are reading about The Three Stooges or Popeye the Sailor until they come to the end of the story. The Midwest Book Review says Hollywood Stories is, “packed from cover to cover with fascinating tales.”
Targeted Age Group:: twenty and above
How is Writing In Your Genre Different from Others?
Writing about Hollywood ties in with so many varied interesting subjects. Here is an example from the book Hollywood Stories of different anecdotes related to the same topic:
Amadeus Was Here
New York actor F. Murray Abraham didn’t mind spending months in Prague when he starred in the 1984 Mozart fantasy Amadeus. In the Communist controlled city, you could turn the camera 360 degrees and it still looked like the eighteenth century. So what if there were a few inconveniences? One night a friend of Abraham’s, who was staying in the same building, was consumed with searching the actor’s apartment for electronic listening devices. F. Murray, who would win an Oscar for his performance as Mozart’s obsessed
rival Salieri, couldn’t care less if the secret police heard them, and just wanted to go to dinner. But when his buddy found a mysterious plate under a decoration rug, he exclaimed to Abraham, “I told you, man!” and attempted to disable the suspected bug by triumphantly wielding a butter knife to undo the screws.
When they suddenly heard the loud crash of a chandelier hitting the floor of the room beneath them, the two shocked men then beat a hasty retreat to the nearest restaurant.
Who Cares If it is not Real?
The lavish 1984 production of Amadeus angered some classical music scholars with its portrayal of Wolfgang Mozart. The film’s depiction of the former child prodigy as a foul-mouthed juvenile was a stretch; in reality, Mozart enjoyed toilet humor but was too well bred to act that way in front of royalty.
And his supposed rival Salieri was a talented composer, not the jealous mediocrity displayed onscreen. There was no evidence to prove that he plotted Mozart’s demise. In 1791, the final year of his short thirty-five-year life, Wolfgang was hired to write a death requiem (not as shown in the movie by
Salieri, but instead by a Viennese Count that passed off others’ work as his own). Some who defended the picture pointed out since it was narrated by a madman in an insane asylum, dramatic license was allowed. Amadeus won eight Oscars including Best Picture, and proved that historical accuracy was not
necessary to achieve great cinema.
Extra: Shortly after Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) died, a rumor spread
through Austria that the Italian composer had admitted to the murder of
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). The most widely accepted theory of
Mozart’s demise was rheumatic fever, and no foul play was suspected at the
time. The negative portrayal had begun during Wolfgang’s life when the Mozart
family occasionally accused Salieri of using his influence with the Royal Court to
stop Mozart from obtaining important posts. There was more evidence that
Antonio admired Wolfgang and tried to help him. When Salieri was appointed
Kapellmeister, or head music maker, in 1788, he revived Mozart’s The Marriage of
Figaro (1784). The comic opera, which had originally been banned in Vienna
because it made fun of the aristocracy, went on to become one of the alwaysstruggling-
for-money Wolfgang’s most famous works. Salieri’s attending
doctors and nurses later claimed that Antonio’s death-bed confession never
happened. Yet the gossip about enmity between the two men persisted for
centuries, and inspired fifty-three-year-old Peter Schaffer to write the play
Amadeus in 1979.
What Advice Would You Give Aspiring Writers?
Find someone you trust who will give you honest feedback. Get a great cover and editor.
Author Bio:
A professional tour guide in Hollywood, Stephen Schochet has researched and told thousands of entertaining anecdotes for over twenty years. He is also the author and narrator of two audiobooks Tales of Hollywood and Fascinating Walt Disney. Tim Sika, host of the radio show Celluloid Dreams on KSJS in San Jose has called Stephen,” The best storyteller about Hollywood we have ever heard.”
I’m a tour guide in Hollywood and years ago I started collecting little stories to tell the customers and had the idea that the tales could be told anywhere. I had always been interested in the movies and history so it was kind of a natural fit for me. When I first started I had a study buddy named Ivan. During our breaks we would research information about old Hollywood and share it with each other. I remember one time we met on Hollywood Boulevard and said to me in a low, conspiratorial tone,” Steve, man, you what I found out today? That Thomas Edison owned the rights to the movie camera and the early moguls like Mayer, Warner, and Zukor they had to pay him tributes. They why they left the East Coast and came west — they were outlaws, baby!” The more information we found out, the more fun it was to give the tour. And I’ve got a good memory for stories so having different material kept it fresh, I think for the customers as well. Anyway, eventually I had the idea that these very short anecdotes could be told anywhere and that’s what led, after a few other projects, to the idea for the book.
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