The Sam Wasson Show

Inside this Episode with host, Mitch Hampton

When it comes to nonfiction prose, surely the work and accomplishments of biographers and cultural and social historians might be at the forefront of meaningful documents of a given society.

When you being to consider what is involved in narrating the life story of a well known and public figure in the arts it becomes clear that this too is an art in itself.

The guest of this episode, Sam Wasson is one of the leading figures in such writing, not only is he a comprehensive and indefatigable chronicler of the history of Hollywood cinema, he is most unusual in his ability to understand equally both the classical Hollywood of the 1920s through the fifties as well as the New Hollywood of the 1960s and 70s.

Wasson is also a consummate journalist who has been able to speak with many of the most important figures and players in both periods and has been crafting surveys of the periods and their creators.

Interestingly I first became familiar with Wasson for his biography of Bob Fosse, only later reading his work on Hollywood.

I see Wasson as somebody on whom future academic historians and fans alike will rely to get a real feelings for the qualities of popular art over the past sixty odd years.

Sam Wasson's Bio

L.A. native Sam Wasson studied Film at Wesleyan University and at the USC School of Cinematic Arts before publishing his first book, A Splurch in the Kisser: The Movies of Blake Edwards, “the critical resurrection of Blake Edwards" (Andrew Sarris). The subsequent publication of Paul on Mazursky, Wasson’s book of conversations with the legendary writer-director of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and Down and Out in Beverly Hills, occasioned Quentin Tarantino to declare Mazursky "one of the great writer-directors of cinema.”

Published in 2010, Wasson's Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman became a New York and Los Angeles Times Best Seller and a New York Times and Publishers' Weekly best book of the year. Winner of the Cinémathèque française’s Meilleur livre étranger sur le cinéma, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. has been translated into over a dozen languages and was named by Entertainment Weekly one of the best pop-culture books of all time. 

For his full bio visit:https://www.samwasson.com/about

Links to Mr. Wasson’s works: https://www.amazon.com/Books-Sam-Wasson/s? rh=n:283155,p_27:Sam+Wasson