About the Book:

An elegant new edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning oral historian's "richly entertaining"(Publishers Weekly) conversations with the masters of stage and screen.

The Studs Terkel Interviews: Film and Theater collects Studs Terkel's remarkable conversations with some of the greatest luminaries of film and theater. Originally published under the title The Spectator, this "knowledgeable and perceptive" (Library Journal) look at show business presents the actors, directors, playwrights, dancers, lyricists, and others who created the dramatic works of the twentieth century.

Among the many highlights in these pages, Buster Keaton explains the wonders of unscripted silent comedy, Federico Fellini reflects on honesty in art, Carol Channing reveals that she is far more serious than she lets on, and Marlon Brando turns the tables and wants to interview Terkel. We learn about crucial artistic decisions in the lives of Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Edward Albee and hear from a range of film directors, from Vittorio De Sica and King Vidor to Satyajit Ray. We even get to witness Terkel playing straight man to a wildly inventive Zero Mostel. Because Studs Terkel knows his subjects' work intimately, he asks precisely the right questions to elicit the most revealing responses.

What people say:

"Lively, engaging… a spirited, passionate and richly quirky homage to the power of the dramatic arts and to those who devote their lives to them." — Chicago Sun-Time

"Terkel's knowledge and force of personality make him fully a player alongside his famous guests." — New York Times Book Review

About the Author:

Studs Terkel (1912-2008) was an American historian, actor, broadcaster, activist, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author.  Celebrated for his streetwise portrayals of the American working class, he was best known for letting the common people he called "the uncelebrated" tell their stories in books like Working and The Good War. His first love was acting. He played gangsters in radio soap operas, starred in the 1950s television show Studs' Place, and appeared in such films as John Sayles's Eight Men Out.

Garry Wills is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian. He teaches at Northwestern University and lives in Evanston, Illinois.