Sam Wasson

"We see Bob Fosse's legacy everywhere--from Broadway to "Billy Jean" to Beyonce;'s moves in the "Single Ladies" video. Yet in spite of Fosse's deep cultural significance, no biography has ever brought him fully to life, unveiling the man behind the bowler hat and the swaggering sex appeal. Now, acclaimed cultural historian Sam Wasson traces Fosse's numberless reinventions of himself over a career that would spawn The Pajama Game, Cabaret, Pippin,...

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.

"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...

"The real story of Hollywood as told by such luminaries as Steven Spielberg, Frank Capra, Katharine Hepburn, Meryl Streep, Harold Lloyd, and nearly four hundred others, assembled from the American Film Institute's treasure trove of interviews, reveals a fresh history of the American movie industry from its beginnings to today"--