Sidney Skolsky (1905–1983)

Skolsky writes in 1975 of a career honed in New York (a boy out of Hell's Kitchen), and transported to Hollywood with the advent of the talkies. A press man. A reviewer. A columnist about the business and the art and the people of the movies. Written with love and with a clear perspective. Written as an observer of all, a lover of the art of many, and as a writer/producer of several films himself including The Jolson Story. His story is written in his later years, published in 1975, in a hardback edition with a dustjacket festooned with a picture of LIza Minnelli and himself on Oscar night in 1973 (though the text within hardly focuses on New Hollywood), she with her Oscar and towering above him. Which gives a sense of his physicality (Minnelli is not a tall woman).

A charming addition to the memoirists and observers who have attempted to provide a taste of the studio and post studio world creating Hollywood movies.… (more)