"There's no business that's bigger or more exciting than show business, and for almost a century Variety has been the single most authoritative and influential publication devoted to the entertainment industry, including the worlds of movies, television, theater, and live performance. With colorful lingo that has enriched the American language, a talent for spotting trends and events long before anyone else does, and statistics to back up its hunches, Variety is one of the most widely known and oft-quoted periodicals in our movie-mad, celebrity-obsessed world." "If Variety could go back and cover the great events of show-business history with all the style, verve, and insight for which it's famous - and add dramatic, revealing photographs - the result would be The Variety History of Show Business." "Each of forty chapters focuses on a pivotal event, introduces its key players, and explores its longterm impact on show business. The reader journeys to Hollywood in 1913, where Cecil B. DeMille shoots The Squaw Man and inadvertendy brings an entire industry West; to the opening night of Eugene O'Neill's Beyond the Horizon in 1920, which establishes Broadway as a center for serious theater; to the premiere of the first talking picture in 1927 and the first Cannes Film Festival in 1946; to the final concert of the most popular singing group of the '60s and the first broadcast on MTV in 1981. Along the way, we meet the actors, entertainers, producers, directors, writers, agents, financiers, and a host of other colorful characters who people the world of entertainment."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

For almost a century Variety has been the single most authoritative and influential publication devoted to the entertainment industry. Here Variety's editors go into the past and cover the great events of show business history with characteristic style and with more than 100 revealing photos.

An illuminating view of the world as seen through the tinted lens of Hollywood’s most important chronicler of entertainment news and show business. Variety is not only a fascinating look at the history of entertainment as reported by the world’s most highly regarded commentator of show business news, it is also a history of American popular culture and a record of the influence and confluence of art, life, and Hollywood. Illustrated with hundreds of front pages, its articles chronicle everything from Debbie Reynolds’s opinions of 1960s youth to how Steven Spielberg and Jaws transformed the movie business. With new and archival photographs spanning Variety’s more-than-century-old archives, the book includes exclusive essays by a host of well-regarded artists about what Variety means to them, how Variety has impacted the entertainment industry, and what they felt like the first time they saw their names in Variety’s pages. Variety is a decade-by-decade documentation of such pivotal moments as the audience’s move from vaudeville houses to movie theaters, censorship, how Lucy and Desi changed the face of television, Walter Cronkite’s shaping of America’s view of the Vietnam War, the birth of the summer blockbuster, the game-changing technology of Jurassic Park and Avatar, and how the movies, television, and theater reflect society’s ever-changing social values and mores. The perfect gift for anyone who loves Hollywood, Variety is also a never-before-available look at the premier source of entertainment reporting.

Beginning in the William Morris mail room in 1955, Bernie Brillstein wanted only three things: “to walk into a restaurant and have people know who I am…to be the guy who gets the phone calls and doesn’t have to make them…to represent the one performer people must have.” Throughout his long career at the top of the entertainment industry––as TV and movie producer, agent and brilliant personal manager––Brillstein has accomplished it all. Where Did I Go Right? is Brillstein’s street-smart, funny, and thoroughly human story of a life in show business. With his trademark wit and candor, he speaks out for the first time about his feud with Mike Ovitz, and how it felt to pass the leadership of his company to his partner, Brad Grey, and “no longer be the king.” He describes his close relationship with John Belushi and what it was like being alone with Belushi’s body as it lay “stretched out across two cramped seats in a tiny jet, wrapped up in a body bag” on the way to his funeral. He shares stories about Jim Hensen and Gilda Radner, about Lorne Michaels and the early days of Saturday Night Live. He takes us behind the scenes at such hits as The Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and The Muppet Show. Brillstein also reveals his secrets about how to survive and prosper in Hollywood, the real meaning of “the art of the deal,” the difference between “hot” and “good,” and why instinct is so crucial to the future of the entertainment industry. “Becoming successful is the most fun of all. I’m not talking about being successful or staying successful. I mean the getting there, the instant you arrive, and for the first time you think, ‘Where did I go right?’” After eight years, Phoenix Books is re-releasing this bestseller, with an updated epilogue from Bernie Brillstein entitled, “Still going right.”

The story of the William Morris Agency is the stoyr of show business itself. Founded at the turn of the century, it stood as the premier agency in Hollywood for 80 years. With unvarnished descriptions of the board that runs William Morris and the needy and demanding stars they represent, The Agency is a compelling tale that lifts the curtain on the most intriguing business in Americ today. Photos.