Showing results by author "Michael B. Druxman" in All Categories

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a revisionist history of Hollywood's Golden Era and the tabloid press that covered it. Harry Pennypacker was a prolific and revered newspaper columnist; a colleague of Louella Parsons, Walter Winchell, and the other great columnists of the day.

Unfortunately, nobody has ever heard of him because the papers never ran his articles. They were too hot. Too dangerous. Too likely to tarnish the delicate image of silver screen icons. The newspaper syndicate couldn't fire him because he had an ironclad contract, so Pennypacker wrote his stories...and the editors buried them. Until now.

Orson Welles is a one-person play in two acts about the life and times of Orson Welles. Some say that Orson Welles was a genius, but he always denied that. He did give us Citizen Kane, considered by most critics to be the best film ever made, but after that, his career took one long downward plunge. The play finds Welles trying to find the financing for one of his film projects. It's a difficult task, since most of the Hollywood community considers him to be a "screwball".

Christopher Lee: A One-Person Play by Michael B. Druxman (Lee’s one-time publicist), joins the actor in 1976, as he is about to depart his home in England for the United States. It is his hope that, in America, he will be able to abandon the horror genre, and find a greater variety of roles.

Jack Oakie’s forte was comedy. He appeared in over 100 motion pictures, mostly as a good-natured, somewhat dim-witted buffoon, and often in his early films, in a college setting. Although he co-starred with the likes of Clara Bow, W. C. Fields, Bing Crosby, Alice Faye, Betty Grable, and Doris Day, his most durable performances were in The Call of the Wild (1935) with Clark Gable and Loretta Young, and The Great Dictator (1940) in which he spoofed Benito Mussolini to Charlie Chaplin’s Adolph Hitler.

Claire Trevor was one of the finest character actresses of her day. Often cast as a “lady of the night”, or the alluring blonde female fatale, she co-starred in such classic films as Dead End with Humphrey Bogart, Stagecoach with John Wayne, Murder, My Sweet with Dick Powell, Key Largo with Bogart and Edward G. Robinson, for which she won an Academy Award, and The High and the Mighty with Wayne and an all-star cast.

He was “Ben-Hur", “Moses” in The Ten Commandments, and he did battle with the Planet of the Apes. During his long career, Charlton Heston projected an unequaled image of strength and authority, tempered with compassion and wisdom. Charlton Heston, Michael B. Druxman’s one-person stage play, finds the Oscar-winning actor in his final years, shortly after it has been discovered that he suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease. Struggling to hold onto his memories, he thinks back on his life; its many successes, as well as its disappointments. One actor; one set.

The Barrymores were “The Royal Family of Broadway”, and Ethel Barrymore was their queen. Along with her brothers, Lionel and John, she was a legendary presence in the theatre and in motion pictures during the first half of the 20th century. In fact, the Barrymores and the Drews were a theatrical family that dated back many generations.

Michael B. Druxman’s one-person play, Ronald Reagan: Movie Star, joins the actor in 1949, when he has just lost a major film role to Errol Flynn. Indeed, not much in his life seems to be going well at this time. Divorced from actress Jane Wyman, his recent romance with Patricia Neal has also taken a wrong turn after she discovered Gary Cooper.

Although he had a long career as an actor and director, Paul Henreid is certainly best remembered for two films he made in the early 1940s: Now, Voyager with Bette Davis, and Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Michael B. Druxman’s Paul Henreid is set in 1968 and finds the actor in Nice, France, about to costar in a film with Katharine Hepburn. He has just learned that his friend, the movie’s original director, has quit the production and must decide whether he will do the same.

Merv Griffin had a way with stars. They loved him, and he’d given that “big break” to countless young hopefuls who became major celebrities, including Sonny and Cher, Dick Cavett, Richard Pryor, and Tony Orlando and Dawn. Merv was one of America’s best-loved TV personalities. Millions of fans were hooked on his sincerity, intelligence, and showmanship. Merv worked hard to get to the top. Here is the true public, private, and on-stage life of the man who won the hearts of America.

Abe Vigoda worked as an actor for all of his adult life. He did theatre...He did television...But it wasn’t until he was 50-years-old that he got a role where the public even noticed him. He played Tessio in The Godfather. Michael B. Druxman’s humorous one-person play, Abe Vigoda, finds the actor with a major problem. The press has, erroneously, announced that he is dead, and his agent’s phone has stopped ringing. Now, Abe has to convince the entertainment industry that he is still with us.

Peter Lorre, Michael B. Druxman’s one-person stage play, finds the famous actor in poor health near the end of his life. He contemplates his third divorce and ponders how he will provide for his young daughter, while remembering the greener years that he spent with the likes of Humphrey Bogart, John Huston, and Sydney Greenstreet. One simple set.

Maureen O’Hara was “the queen of technicolor”. With her bright red hair and piercing green eyes, this Irish colleen’s career spanned over 70 years, as she held her own against such leading men as Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn, James Stewart, Charles Laughton, Henry Fonda, and, of course, John Wayne. Her films include such classics as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, How Green Was My Valley, Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, Miracle on 34th Street, and The Parent Trap.

Michael B. Druxman followed his dreams to Hollywood, and although he may not have "reached the stars", his persistence made it possible for the vast majority of those dreams to come true. His new book My Forty-Five Years in Hollywood and How I Escaped Alive, a memoir, is the story of that remarkable adventure.

Returning to his boyhood in Seattle, Michael explores with greater depth his journey to Los Angeles where, without any show business contacts whatsoever, he was able to create a successful career for himself as a publicist, playwright, screenwriter, director, and Hollywood historian. From Rock Hudson and Christopher Lee to George Raft and Frank Sinatra; from playwright Tennessee Williams and legendary producer Roger Corman, the work is filled with amusing stories of his encounters and the lessons he learned from Hollywood's rich and famous.

Sixteen years have passed, and Jay Barnett returns to the resort town of Mineral Lake with his five-year-old son only to find open hostility, anti-Semitism, and terror. Inspired by true events.

A native of New Jersey, Roy Scheider was his own man. He did his work well and was not afraid to butt heads with producers and directors with whom he disagreed, even to the detriment of his career. Michael B. Druxman’s Roy Scheider & the Bigger Boat finds the actor in 2002 during a lull in his career. He hasn’t done a major film for several years, as he ponders how he can change his luck.

During their prime in the 1940s and early 1950s, Abbott and Costello were the most popular comedy duo in show business. They first became a team in burlesque, graduated to radio with Kate Smith, then Broadway with comedian Bobby Clark and Carmen Miranda; and, ultimately, to the movies, making their debut supporting Allan Jones and Nancy Kelly in One Night in the Tropics (1940).

When you think of Jason Robards, you also think of Eugene O’Neill and the tragic, hard-drinking characters he created in The Iceman Cometh, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Hughie and The Moon for the Misbegotten. Robards, the son of a failed actor, Jason Robards Sr., discovered O’Neill’s plays when he was in the Navy during WW2. After the war, without his father’s encouragement, he pursued his own acting career, but it was 11 years and two failed marriages before he finally achieved success.

Audrey Hepburn was not your usual movie star. She was the highest paid actress of her day, yet she never took a formal acting lesson. A child of war, and the daughter of a Fascist sympathizer, she spent her last years helping children of other wars. An Academy Award-winner for her first major film role (Roman Holiday), Hepburn continued her storybook career with such classic movies as Sabrina, Funny Face, The Nun's Story, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Charade, My Fair Lady and Wait until Dark. Her two marriages ended in divorce.