Tough as Nails: The Life and Films of Richard Brooks (Wisconsin Film Studies)
"This first major biography of Brooks is a well-written and insightful study of an unfairly neglected filmmaker. ... An enjoyable read for film buffs and historians. -- Library JournalA "very welcome biography ... I liked Richard Brooks a great deal, and I like Mr. Daniel's biography so much that I wish there were more of it." --Scott Eyman, The Wall Street Journal“Reads like a wonderful movie. Richard Brooks’s story is feisty, opinionated, emotional, heartfelt, bitter, angry, warmhearted, and even funny. I loved Richard Brooks and I love this wonderful book.”—Paul Mazursky, Academy Award–nominated filmmaker “Mr. Daniel has captured the essence of the artist known as Richard Brooks. The struggle of the Outsider who became an Insider in Hollywood in spite of being a ruffian cannot be put down. I admired Mr. Brooks when I worked with him and through this wonderful book I grew to love him.”—Shirley Knight, actress “Douglass Daniel has nailed Richard Brooks. It is high time for this engrossing and revelatory account of his life, his work and his creative drive. This places Brooks where he rightfully belongs, among the greats of cinema history.”—Scott Wilson, actor who portrayed Dick Hickock inIn Cold Blood“In recent years writer-director Richard Brooks has been making frequent, noisy walk-on appearances in other people’s biographies, picking fights, yelling, being fantastically rude and abrasive, and prompting this reader many times to think, ‘Wow, I want to read his biography.’ Well, here it is, and it delivers. Not only do we get the very best/worst of Brooks’ incredibly irascible on-set personality, we get to see beyond the barking autocrat and observe what several friends and co-workers call ‘the mischievous twinkle in his eye,’ which suggested that the other stuff was maybe all a nervous put-on. More important, author Douglass K. Daniel is cleareyed in his assessment of the enduring value and power of Brooks’ best work.”—The DGA Quarterly