Author, George Cukor’s People: Acting for a Master Director

This week, Ira spoke with Joseph McBride, author of George Cukor’s People: Acting for a Master Director. In this celluloid episode of “Ira’s Everything Bagel,” Joesph talks about what made Cukor unique; how he worked through his actors; how he used the camera eloquently; why Cukor believed in “fidelity to the text”; why he was elusive; living the double life; dealing with the boundaries of behavior; why the Hollywood production code was a spur to creativity; and why a great director handles every person differently.

Joseph McBride learned about film acting by playing a film critic for Orson Welles for more than five years, the entire length of shooting (1970-75) on Welles’s Hollywood satire “The Other Side of the Wind.” While working as a reporter and reviewer for Daily Variety in Hollywood in the 1970s (and later), Joseph visited many sets of films and watched directors in action. He also worked with a wide range of actors and directors as a film and TV writer in Hollywood for seven years (1977-84). He was primarily responsible for casting, working on scripts with, and rehearsing the cast members of the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award CBS-TV specials honoring James Stewart, Fred Astaire, Frank Capra, John Huston, and Lillian Gish. That rare experience enabled Joseph to work with many great stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood whom a youngish writer otherwise would not have worked with, as well as many contemporary stars. He also helped write feature films, including the cult classic punk rock musical “Rock ’n’ Roll High School,” and he has co-produced or appeared in numerous documentaries.