The Studs Terkel Interviews: Film and Theater – by Studs Terkel

An elegant new edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winner's "richly entertaining" (Publishers Weekly) conversations with the masters of stage and screen.

The Studs Terkel Interviews: Film and Theater collects the Pulitzer Prize-winning oral historian's remarkable conversations with some of the greatest luminaries of film and theater. Originally published under the title The Spectator, this "knowledgeable and perceptive" (Library Journal) look at show business presents the actors, directors, playwrights, dancers, lyricists, and others who created the dramatic works of the twentieth century.

Among the many highlights in these pages, Buster Keaton explains the wonders of unscripted silent comedy, Federico Fellini reflects on honesty in art, Carol Channing reveals that she is far more serious than she lets on, and Marlon Brando turns the tables and wants to interview Terkel. We learn about crucial artistic decisions in the lives of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Edward Albee and hear from a range of film directors, from Vittorio De Sica and King Vidor to Satyajit Ray. We even get to witness Terkel playing straight man to a wildly inventive Zero Mostel. Because Terkel knows his subjects' work intimately, he asks precisely the right questions to elicit the most revealing responses. As the New York Times Book Review noted, "Terkel's knowledge and force of personality make him fully a player alongside his famous guests."

With: Edward Albee, Marlon Brando, James Cagney, Carol Channing, Federico Fellini, Lillian Gish, Uta Hagen, E.Y. (Yip) Harburg, Eugene Ionesco, Pauline Kael, Buster Keaton, Joan Littlewood, Marcel Marceau, Ian McKellen, Arthur Miller, Zero Mostel, Geraldine Page, Satyajit Ray, William Saroyan, Kenneth Tynan, Tennessee Williams, August Wilson, and many more.

Released: 2008