Anjelica Huston Books

An irresistible volume chronicling the fiery photographic collaboration of David Bailey and Angelica Huston David Bailey was the model for the swinging playboy photographer in Michelangelo Antonioni’s classic 1966 film, Blow-Up . Born in London in 1938, Bailey had, by 1960, become the first celebrity photographer--known especially for his revolutionary work for Vogue , and for the fact that he socialized with actors, musicians and royalty. His many influential books include, Trouble and Strife (1980), Nudes (1984), If We Shadows (1991), The Lady Is a Tramp (1995) and Rock ’n’ Roll Heroes (1997). Bailey’s Box of Pin-Ups (1964)--a box of posters of London celebrities like Terence Stamp, The Beatles and the notorious East End gangsters, The Kray Twins--remains an extremely influential publication for its then-odd close cropping of the subjects’ heads, which has since become a common technique in fashion photography, in order to give the illusion that the model is larger than life. In 1973, Bailey did all his major fashion shoots for British Vogue with actress and, at that time, occasional model, Anjelica Huston. This irresistible volume chronicles the duo's fiery photographic collaboration. The title, “Is That So Kid,” is borrowed from Huston's father, film director John Huston’s, trademark retort.

Picking up where A Story Lately Told leaves off, when Anjelica Huston is 22 years old, Watch Me chronicles her glamorous and eventful Hollywood years. She tells the story of falling in love with Jack Nicholson and her adventurous, turbulent, high-profile, spirited 17-year relationship with him and his intoxicating circle of friends. She writes about learning the art and craft of acting, about her Academy Award-winning portrayal of Maerose Prizzi in Prizzi's Honour, about her collaborations with many of the greatest directors in Hollywood, including Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, Richard Condon, Bob Rafelson, Francis Ford Coppola and Stephen Frears. She writes movingly and beautifully about the death of her father, the legendary director John Huston and her marriage to sculptor Robert Graham.

"Lillian Ross worked at The New Yorker for more than half a century, and might be described not only as an outstanding practitioner of modern long-form journalism but also as one of its inventors. Picture, originally published in 1952, is her most celebrated piece of reportage, a closely observed and completely absorbing story of how studio politics and misguided commercialism turn a promising movie into an all-around disaster. The charismatic and hard-bitten director and actor John Huston is at the center of the book, determined to make Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage--one of the great and defining works of American literature, the first modern war novel, a book whose vivid imagistic style invites the description of cinematic--into a movie that is worthy of it. At first all goes well, as Huston shoots and puts together a two-hour film that is, he feels, the best he's ever made. Then the studio bosses step in and the audience previews begin, conferences are held, and the movie is taken out of Huston's hands, cut down by a third, and finally released--with results that please no one and certainly not the public: It was an expensive flop. In Picture, which Charlie Chaplin aptly described as "brilliant and sagacious," Ross is a gadfly on the wall taking note of the operations of a system designed to crank out mediocrity."-- Provided by publisher