Bring on the Empty Horses [antikvár]

O^nJtmduMlnn F at this moment you are in a bookstore leafing through these early pages and wondering if the whole thing is worth a sizable expenditure, may I suggest that you keep your back toward the salesman and read on because, coming up, is a brief description of what this book is all about. To be an actor, it is essential to be an egomaniac; otherwise it just doesn't work. The supreme act of egomania is to sit down and write 130,000 words about oneself. That I have al- ready done in The Moon's a Balloon, so you will be relieved to learn that this is not a book about David Niven at least, it is not meant to be. Unfortunately, the actor's urge to take up a firm position at center stage is a strong one, and if, de- spite valiant efforts to remain in the wings, I have, on occa- sion, eased myself forward, I apologize. This book is about Hollywood; not the whole mishmash, because that has been done a hundred times, and anyway, the canvas is too huge and quite beyond my mini-brushwork, so I have attempted to splash a little color on just one cor- ner—the twenty-five years between 1935 and 1960. I was there from "extra" on down (or up—it's for you to decide), and I was part of it, but I have made little effort to keep things in chronological order; provided the people and events coincided with the allotted time span, I have just de- scribed them as I saw them. The period covered in this book is often hailed as the