I have it on order. Hope it's more substantial than Boyer's book on Astaire. There's a lot that could be learned from Gary Grant.
Thanks for the order. And I agree about Boyer's book. It was a magazine article with photos. No doubt some of CG: A Celebration of Style will be familiar because you guys are so damn knowledgeable, but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by most of it. Giorgio Armani was. Getting him to write the Foreword is a story in itself.
And you're right. There's a lot to be learned from CG. Not only how he created his style but how style reflects character and enriches one's life.
Without even knowing it, I geared much of the book to the kind of people who visit this site, which I only discovered last night, and by accident. So if you guys don't approve, then I've failed. And I'll be forever depressed.
Greetings Mr. G:
Absolutely none. His style did evolve, but the guy had more style by the time he was 23, long before he set foot in H'wood, than George Clooney and Jude Law will ever have. And you'll be amused by how I prove it in the book with some pretty rare and never-before-seen documents, photos, and interviews.
Thanks for the warm welcome.
My uncle told of CG shooting a movie and during a break in filming a scene he placed a call to his tailor and all he said was,"Move the button over an 1/8 of an inch". Click!
Here's an early CG flick, "The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss", courtesy of Google Video.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7896250984852369645&q=cary+grant&hl=en
Ali: Did your uncle observe this himself or did he hear about it from someone else? No matter, it does sound somewhat typical of CG. I'm sure you know the story of CG halting filming of An Affair to Remember when he noticed that the uniforms of the stewards aboard the Queen Mary did not have the correct buttons. He had sailed the Queen Mary many times. Still, the producers said no one will notice. But he said, but I will. And the buttons were replaced.
I don't hold this kind of thing against him. There was a right way and there was a wrong way to do things and he insisted on doing things, all things, even trivial things, the right way. I think that's one of the ways he achieved iconic movies—an iconic career—as well as an iconic style. Of course, too, you could just say the guy was a royal pain in the ass, an anal-retentive pest, but I like to think of him as an artist, and artists are always concerned with details.
Last edited by Tomasso (2006-08-12 01:27:26)