Overview
Paul Mazursky - writer, film director, actor, and producer - has created a body of work over the past thirty years that has established him as one of America's most respected and admired filmmakers. His films are often personal, intimate, and humorous observations of the human condition. In Show Me the Magic, Mazursky brings that same unique gift to his memoir, as he takes us behind the scenes and literally shows us the magic of a career that boasts such cinematic triumphs as Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Harry and Tonto, Tempest, An Unmarried Woman, and Down and Out in Beverly Hills, as well as providing warm, touching, and very human portraits of many of Hollywood's legends, including Peter Sellers, Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, Federico Fellini, John Cassavetes, Orson Welles, and many, many more.Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
Director Paul Mazursky got his start as an actor and comedy writer before breaking into the movies with his screenplay I Love You, Alice B. Toklas. In Show Me the Magic, the man who directed such classics as Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, and Enemies: A Love Story looks back at a successful career and recalls his interactions with such legendary figures as Peter Sellers, Natalie Wood, Orson Welles, and Stanley Kubrick.Charles Taylor
No filmmaker has ever combined neurosis with appetite in quite the way Paul Mazursky has. Even in his comedies about the California good life -- Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Blume in Love, Down and Out in Beverly Hills -- a distinctive New York Jewish show biz energy comes through. Mazursky doesn't regard California with the judgmental superiority of a Woody Allen. He is open to L.A. lifestyles, to whatever new analysis trend everyone is into (even as he satirizes it). But something tells you he doesn't quite believe in Los Angeles. There's a middle-of-the-night moment in Down and Out in Beverly Hills when the self-made business tycoon Richard Dreyfuss plays is preparing a snack of lox and bagels; you get the feeling that the food he's holding is more real to him than the million-dollar house he's standing in.
Scenes like that may explain the sense of consistency that permeates Mazursky's new memoir, Show Me the Magic. I don't mean to suggest that Mazursky lays on any of that phony, show biz, "Underneath, I'm still just a guy from Brooklyn" jazz. But the book reveals something reassuringly regular about Mazursky: his neurotic capacity for enjoying life.
Show Me the Magic isn't anything so formal as a memoir. It's a loosely strung-together collection of vignettes with the focus mostly on the people Mazursky has met or worked with. That's a fortunate approach. Mazursky's films have always had a shaggy-dog quality, and the structure of Show Me the Magic allows him to go from one story to another without any of the connective filler ("and then I made ...") that's usually the most boring thing in show business memoirs.
Mazursky doesn't pretend to have equal fondness for all of the people who've crossed his path, but there's no meanness here. Even when he's relating experiences that sound like nightmares (working with Peter Sellers, for example), he comes across as more amused than appalled. The section on his tortured relations with his mother, Jean -- imagine a Jewish mother with the soul of a gypsy bohemian -- suggests that he could have gone into much deeper territory. But doing so wouldn't have been true to the tone of the rest of the book.
Mazursky must be a wonderful mimic. Throughout the book he offers sketches (Shelley Winters, Sammy Davis Jr., Jack Nicholson) that have the note-perfect feel of the best impersonations, the kind that begin from the inside and work their way out. Show Me the Magic is exactly the sort of book you'd hope for from the best American comic filmmaker of the past 30 years -- warm, off the cuff and possessed of an enormous capacity for amused curiosity.
— Salon
Michele Orecklin
...Show Me the Magic is a refreshing account of Hollywood by an insider who has retained the appreciation and wonder of one still on the outside.—The New York Times Book Review
From The Critics
...[O]ffers some entertaining anecdotes....Occasionally, he pokes fun at himself...Publishers Weekly -
Infused with the energy and clarity of reflection that often accompany a life-altering experience (in this case, quadruple heart bypass surgery in 1996), Mazursky (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice; Harry and Tonto; Enemies, a Love Story) replays with relish key scenes from his life as a Hollywood screenwriter, director, producer and actor. During his boyhood in a boisterous Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, Mazursky honed his skills as a storyteller and mimic who "loved to make people laugh." In college, his chutzpah landed him a bit role in the Stanley Kubrick film Fear and Desire; the experience only increased his yearning to make it in the entertainment business. In the 1960s, a successful nightclub comedy act and a gig writing for television's Danny Kaye Show provided Mazursky with the confidence to write his first screenplay, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (with Larry Tucker), and a reputation that opened doors. Peter Sellers, the star of Toklas, is the subject of hilarious anecdotes, from his demands to work with Fellini or Bergman to his refusal to leave his trailer because the script girl was wearing a purple sweater ("purple is death"). Other highlights here include a wacky, calamity-laden Brazilian location shoot for the film Moon over Parador and a suspenseful 1983 trip to Russia to check the verisimilitude of the screenplay of Moscow on the Hudson. Mazursky's skills as a crowd-pleasing raconteur have not diminished; he describes his successes and drops famous names with all the color and comfortable rhythms of engaging dinner party conversation. He also balances the glitz with brief, tender passages on his strong, loving family life. This well-rounded memoir leaves the door open for chapters yet to come. (June) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.Library Journal
Writer, actor, and director of such films as Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Harry and Tonto, and Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Mazursky leads us on a hilarious, star-studded adventure through Hollywood. Along the way, he reveals the fragile nature of the moviemaking process and the eccentricities of its stars. From his on-again, off-again dealings with the manic Peter Sellers to smoking pot with Jack Nicholson, Mazursky offers a rare glimpse of life with the famous. He forms a deep and abiding friendship with the ebullient Fellini and tells of working with Orson Welles and Danny Kaye. Throughout, Mazursky shares the highlights of his career with characteristic humor and humility. Enjoyable reading for Hollywood buffs; recommended for public library and film collections.--Kelli N. Perkins, Herrick P.L., Holland, MI Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.Lawrence Van Gelder
On beaches this summer, some readers nostalgic for the New York of another era will respond to Mazursky's mentions of candy stores where you could buy Lucky Strikes or Camels or a piece of licorice or chocolate for a penny, of the Loew's Pitkin movie house and night spots like the Ruban Bleu, the Purple Onion and Bon Soir. And they will derive intermittent pleasure from his show-business reminiscences.....Perhaps then, like Mazursky in his days as a comic, they can say, "Thanks, I needed that."— The New York Times
Michele Orecklin
...Show Me the Magic is a refreshing account of Hollywood by an insider who has retained the appreciation and wonder of one still on the outside.— The New York Times Book Review