Sam Wasson

A history of the uniquely American art form of improv, from its beginnings during the McCarthy Era through the rise of such institutions as Second City, the Groundlings, and the Upright Citizens Brigade and such performers as Tina Fey, Steve Carell, and Bill Murray.

Granted total and unprecedented access to the Academy Award-winning director's archives, the author, drawing on hundreds of interviews with the artist and those who have worked closely with him, chronicles his attempt to reimagine the entire pursuit of moviemaking though his production company American Zoetrope.

"From the New York Times bestselling author of Fifth Avenue, Five A.M. and Fosse comes the revelatory account of the making of a modern American masterpiece. Chinatown is the Holy Grail of 1970s cinema. Its twist ending is the most notorious in American film and its closing line of dialogue the most haunting. Here for the first time is the incredible true story of its making. In Sam Wasson's telling, it becomes the defining story of the most colorful...

Before “Breakfast at Tiffany's” Audrey Hepburn was still a little-known actress with few film roles to speak of; after it—indeed, because of it-she was one of the world's most famous fashion, style and screen icons. It was this film that matched her with Hubert de Givenchy's "little black dress". Meanwhile, Truman Capote's original novel is itself a modern classic selling huge numbers every year, and its high-living author of perennial interest. Now,...

Audrey Hepburn is an icon like no other, yet the image many of us have of Audrey—dainty, immaculate—is anything but true to life. Here, for the first time, Sam Wasson presents the woman behind the little black dress that rocked the nation in 1961. The first complete account of the making of Breakfast at Tiffany's, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. reveals little-known facts about the cinema classic: Truman Capote desperately wanted Marilyn Monroe

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Bob Fosse is a visionary filmmaker and one of theater's most influential choreographers and directors. Gwen Verdon is the greatest Broadway dancer of all time. Fosse/Verdon will tell the story of these two brilliant, complicated individuals and the love they shared, the art they created, and the price they paid in the pursuit of greatness.