Just Tell Me When to Cry: A Memoir
Fleischer has directed 47 feature films, including Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , Doctor Dolittle , Tora! Tora! Tora! and Conan the Destroyer , but his delightful memoir is concerned less with his own accomplishments than with his encounters with "the moguls, monsters, superstars, greats, near-greats and ingrates of Hollywood." While admiring their individual talent, Fleischer is appalled by their sometimes infantile behavior. In a series of often hilarious anecdotes, he describes John Wayne's petty side, Kirk Douglas's ludicrous demands for attention, Robert Mitchum's methodical trashing of a set during a tantrum and Darryl Zanuck's very public infatuation with the French singer Juliette Greco. Other celebrated figures whose portraits are decidedly unflattering: Howard Hughes, Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, Charles Bronson. Among those who escape unscathed: Irish playwright Brendan Behan, with whom the director spent a teetotaling but nontheless wild day in Dublin, and Edward G. Robinson, one movie star Fleischer admired as a human being. Photos. 35,000 first printing; $30,000 ad/promo .Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.