George Cukor's people : acting for a master director / Joseph McBride.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McBride, Joseph, 1947- author.

Series:

Film and culture

Film and culture series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cukor, George, 1899-1983--Criticism and interpretation.

Cukor, George.

Motion picture producers and directors--United States.

Motion picture producers and directors.

Physical Description:

xii, 518 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, [2025]

Summary:

"The director of classic films such as Sylvia Scarlett, The Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, Adam's Rib, A Star Is Born, and My Fair Lady, George Cukor is widely admired but often misunderstood. Reductively stereotyped in his time as a "woman's director"-a thinly veiled, disparaging code for "gay"-he brilliantly directed a wide range of iconic actors and actresses, including Cary Grant, Greta Garbo, Spencer Tracy, Joan Crawford, Marilyn Monroe, and Maggie Smith. As Katharine Hepburn, the star of ten Cukor films, told the director, "All the people in your pictures are as goddamned good as they can possibly be, and that's your stamp." In this groundbreaking, lavishly illustrated critical study, Joseph McBride provides insightful and revealing essayistic portraits of Cukor's actors in their most memorable roles. The queer filmmaker gravitated to socially adventurous, subversively rule-breaking, audacious dreamers who are often sexually transgressive and gender fluid in ways that seem strikingly modern today. McBride shows that Cukor's seemingly self-effacing body of work is characterized by a discreet way of channeling his feelings through his actors. He expertly cajoled actors, usually gently but sometimes with bracing harshness, to delve deeply into emotional areas they tended to keep safely hidden. Cukor's wry wit, his keen sense of psychological and social observation, his charm and irony, and his toughness and resilience kept him active for more than five decades in Hollywood."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Is George Cukor an auteur? And why does that matter?

Lew Ayres in All Quiet on the Western Front and Holiday

Fredric March and Ina Claire in The Royal Family of Broadway

Kay Francis in The Virtuous Sin and with Lilyan Tashman in Girls About Town

Lowell Sherman in What Price Hollywood?

Katharine Hepburn and John Barrymore in A Bill of Divorcement

John Barrymore and Jean Harlow in Dinner at Eight

Katharine Hepburn in Little Women; the ensemble of David Copperfield

Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in Sylvia Scarlett

Greta Garbo in Camille

Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in Holiday

Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen in Gone with the Wind

Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, and Joan Fontaine in The Women

Joan Crawford in Susan and God with Rita Quigley and in A Woman's Face

Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story

Ingrid Bergman and Angela Lansbury in Gaslight

Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn in Adam's Rib with Judy Holliday and in Pat and Mike

Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday, The Marrying Kind with Aldo Ray, and It Should Happen to You with Jack Lemmon

Thelma Ritter and company in The Model and the Marriage Broker

Spencer Tracy and Jean Simmons in The Actress

Judy Garland and James Mason in A Star is Born

Ava Gardner in Bhowani Junction, Kay Kendall in Les Girls, and Sophia Loren and Anthony Quinn in Heller in Pink Tights

Marilyn Monroe in Let's Make Love and Something's Got to Give

Claire Bloom, Jane Fonda, Glynis Johns, and Shelley Winters in The Chapman Report

Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady

Anna Karina and Dirk Bogarde in Justine

Maggie Smith, Alec McCowen, Lou Gossett, Robert Stephens, and Cindy Williams in Travels with My Aunt

Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen in Rich and Famous

Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier in Love Among the Ruins.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: McBride, Joseph. George Cukor's people

ISBN:

9780231210829

0231210825

OCLC:

1437536970