From Publishers Weekly
Since Gazzara's been a star for more than 50 years, most readers can remember at least one of his performances: on stage in Who's Afraidof Virginia Woolf?, in old television shows like Arrest and Trial and Run for Your Life or in recent independent films like The Spanish Prisoner and The Big Lebowski. In this memoir, Gazzara recalls his altar boy days on East 29th Street in New York City; his discovery of acting at the Madison Square Boys Club; his immigrant Italian parents, who trusted their son to embark on a totally non-blue collar career; his training in the Actors Studio; his experiences on the sets of various films; his affairs with a series of attractive women. His prose is plain and he's too much the gentleman to do a kiss-and-tell on his celebrity lovers like Audrey Hepburn, but his thoughts on working with various creative men—Kazan, Bogdanovich, Albee and others—are revealing. Gazzara is most engaging when he describes working with John Cassavetes and Peter Falk on that masterpiece of scriptless filmmaking, Husbands; a story about three men who bond while mourning a friend who has died, Husbandsbrought the three actors a profound sense of closeness as they went through intense improv sessions. While not bursting with the typical salaciousness of a Hollywood autobiography, Gazzara's simply written memoir should please fans of late 20th–century stage and screen craft. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Book Description
In the Moment is an intimate memoir by the quintessential "actor's actor." Ben Gazzara established his name at the Actor's Studio in 1952. Working under Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg, alongside Marlon Brando and James Dean, and gaining success with mega-stars like Marilyn Monroe, Gazzara helped to introduce a new acting style to the world. More importantly, however, the Actor's Studio launched his career as a leading man when he was handpicked by Kazan to originate the role of Brick on Broadway in Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Soon Gazzara achieved national fame in the film Anatomy of a Murder. Launched into a career in which he worked and played with Frank Sinatra, Orson Welles, Laurence Olivier, Shelley Winters, Lee Remick, Woody Allen, and Audrey Hepburn, who was for a time the author's lover, Gazzara may be best known for his early work in independent film, collaborating on a string of off-beat, experimental movies by John Cassavetes. In the Moment takes readers onto the movie sets, revealing for the first time how these and other much-loved films were created. More recently, Gazzara has sprung into the second phase of his career by appearing in newer independent films.
In the Moment: My Life as an Actor FROM THE PUBLISHER
"The son of Sicilian immigrants, Ben Gazzara began acting at age twelve in New York City's Italian American community. Making the improbable leap to the Actor's Studio in the 1950s, Gazzara learned his craft alongside stars such as Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe and went on open-calls and auditions with the young James Dean. But Elia Kazan launched Gazzara's career in 1955 when he hand-selected him to originate the role of Brick in the landmark Broadway production of Tennessee William's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." "Gazzara made the jump to Hollywood when Sam Spiegel offered him The Strange One. Otto Preminger's Anatomy of Murder (in which Gazzara costarred with boyhood movie idol Jimmy Stewart) followed, bringing him national stardom. Over the next twenty years, the author worked and played with luminaries such as Laurence Olivier, Shelley Winters, Orson Welles, George C. Scott, Geraldine Page, Anna Magnani, Frank Sinatra, and Anthony Hopkins, among others." "Sadly, Gazzara's troubled marriage to actress Janice Rule could not be assuaged by his work and the accompanying social swirl. In time he became passionately involved with Audrey Hepburn, before meeting and marrying Elke Stuckmann. Additionally In the Moment offers a poignant look at the ups and downs of Gazzara's battle against severe depression, as well as his courageous stand against cancer, which almost ended his career." Among his many accomplishments, he is most celebrated for the series of innovative movies he made with John Cassavetes - movies that in the 1970s helped launch today's independent film movement. In the Moment for the first time takes readers behind-the-scenes and onto the sets of Husbands, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, and Opening Night, revealing how these and other much-loved movies were created through an intense collaboration between actors and their director. Since then Gazzara's more recent films - Happiness, Buffalo 66, The Spanish Prisoner, and Dogville, among them - continue
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Since Gazzara's been a star for more than 50 years, most readers can remember at least one of his performances: on stage in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, in old television shows like Arrest and Trial and Run for Your Life or in recent independent films like The Spanish Prisoner and The Big Lebowski. In this memoir, Gazzara recalls his altar boy days on East 29th Street in New York City; his discovery of acting at the Madison Square Boys Club; his immigrant Italian parents, who trusted their son to embark on a totally non-blue collar career; his training in the Actors Studio; his experiences on the sets of various films; his affairs with a series of attractive women. His prose is plain and he's too much the gentleman to do a kiss-and-tell on his celebrity lovers like Audrey Hepburn, but his thoughts on working with various creative men-Kazan, Bogdanovich, Albee and others-are revealing. Gazzara is most engaging when he describes working with John Cassavetes and Peter Falk on that masterpiece of scriptless filmmaking, Husbands; a story about three men who bond while mourning a friend who has died, Husbands brought the three actors a profound sense of closeness as they went through intense improv sessions. While not bursting with the typical salaciousness of a Hollywood autobiography, Gazzara's simply written memoir should please fans of late 20th-century stage and screen craft. Agent, Jennifer Lyons. (Nov.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Actor Gazzara radiates the energy of a nuclear fuel rod-and manages to bring that candent glow here. "In the fifties, I'd sort of led the way for actors who were offbeat," Gazzara writes, with a touch of understatement. He was weaned at Erwin Piscator's Dramatic Workshop in his native New York City and moved on to Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. From these serious roots comes a serious actor writing a serious memoir, in high relief from standard fluff. Here is a man more interested in conveying his art than his celebrity: though Gazzara occasionally drifts into unexpected self-pity with comments like "superstardom had eluded me; that had not been easy to take," in fact he hadn't exactly taken the superstar track. What he wishes his readers to understand is how he went about shaping his fine roles in Saint Jack, The Spanish Prisoner, Tales of Ordinary Madness, and especially the films he worked in with his close friend John Cassavetes, including Husbands and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. He spells out his version of method acting as best he can, but still fairly obliquely, as he explains how he makes a character his own, gets the tempo right, uses sense memory (recalling a similar incident in his own life), and applies it believably to a part. In the course of this life narrative, Gazzara has his heart broken, endures bouts of hard loneliness, and suffers from depression described as bitingly and eerily as William Styron and Jim Harrison did in their own memoirs. But this account always circles back to acting, an art one senses Gazzara will continue to practice until the vanishing point. Theater buffs will take particular interest in his recollections of working withEdward Albee, who lets plays evolve organically according to the cast, while film fans will relish Gazzara's vivid evocation of the highly creative, free-form atmosphere Cassavetes created on his sets. A sui generis autobiography from a gentleman with a deep reservoir of romanticism, responsibility, and guilt. Agent: Jennifer Lyons/Writers House
Art & Photography
Book Info
