On Cukor [*SIGNED*]

New York: Rizzoli International Publications. Fine in Fine dj. (c.2000). Revised Edition. Hardcover. [a lovely, as-new copy, with no discernible wear to either book or jacket]. (B&W and color photographs) SIGNED by Gavin Lambert on the half-title page, where there is also (laid in) an original George Cukor bookplate, designed by Paul Landacre. A revised, updated and redesigned edition of a book originally published in 1972, this edition has incorporated "new material from [the] original taped interviews with Cukor, assembled never-before-published photographs from Cukor's personal collection, and updated a complete filmography that includes movies re-shot by Cukor without credit." The book is basically a long interview with Cukor, recorded in multiple sessions in 1970 as an American Film Institute oral history project -- and is almost a textbook case of the importance of employing an intelligent, well-informed interviewer (who also happened to be a terrific writer himself). Not only had Lambert been a longtime personal friend of Cukor's, they were also quite simpatico as gay men working in Hollywood -- although in retrospect it seems unfortunate (if unsurprising) that this topic was not discussed, at least on the record, in their interview sessions; in the original 1972 edition, in fact, it's not even alluded to. As Lambert explains in his rewritten introduction here, "At Cukor's insistence, his personal life was off-limits for publication (or taping). As friends, of course, we knew about each other's sexuality, but Cukor grew up at a time when discretion was obligatory. And although he never felt guilty about being gay, he was pragmatic; and chose to realize himself in creative work at the expense of personal fulfillment." Signed by Author .