| A Great Lady: A Life of the Screenwriter Sonya Levien Volume 50 Contributor(s): Ceplair, Larry (Author) |
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ISBN: 0810830922 ISBN-13: 9780810830929 Publisher: Scarecrow Press OUR PRICE: $82.65 Product Type: Hardcover Published: June 1996 Annotation: Sonya Levien left behind a glittering record of credits and awards that will never be equaled. She possessed a remarkable ability to adapt stories, plays, and novels into entertaining, filmable movie scripts, as well as a willingness to make all script changes that her supervisors directed. These qualities contributed to her rise from an immigrant factory girl on the Lower East Side of New York to one of Hollywood's highest-paid and most respected writers. Her success came at a price. As her career grew, Levien was forced to jettison the political radicalism of her youth and measure the effect that each step on the professional ladder had on her family. She was forced to maintain a very low political posture in Hollywood, and she carefully refrained from infiltrating politically radical characters into her scripts. She also abandoned her desire for a large nuclear family, although she compensated somewhat by nurturing a loyal group of friends and extended family. In this way, A Great Lady offers readers not only a glimpse into the world of a screenwriter, but a rare look at the experience of being a woman behind the scenes in Hollywood's early days. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography | Entertainment & Performing Arts - Performing Arts | Film - Screenwriting |
| Dewey: B |
| LCCN: 95043945 |
| Series: Scarecrow Filmmakers |
| Physical Information: 0.61" H x 6.6" W x 8.78" (0.81 lbs) 176 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Sonya Levien was among the most successful and respected screenwriters in Hollywood. During her career from 1919 to 1960, Levien worked on well over one hundred screen stories and scripts for both silent and sound pictures. She wrote comedies, melodramas, epics, and musicals. A Great Lady details the course of this exceptional career at Fox and M-G-M and her most interesting projects and colleagues. It examines her relationship to the important political and labor movements affecting the motion picture industry and her change from her socially and politically radical younger years as an anarchist, socialist, and suffragist to a highly successful, moderately conservative screenwriter. Includes a detailed filmography. |