Word: thomson
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AUTHOR: DAVID THOMSON...
...wore himself out in 63 years, but he never wears down biographer David Thomson, and despite a length more appropriate to the life of a world leader than that of a relatively minor -- though never inconspicuous -- movie producer, Thomson's book never wears down the reader either. Partly that's because Thomson is a writer of rare grace as well as a shrewd, knowledgeable and critically astute observer of high Hollywood's golden years. Partly it is because, despite many exasperating sins and shortcomings, David O. Selznick was a curiously likable...
...were of a piece with his whimsical enthusiasms -- for a new project (or a series of last-minute changes in an old one) or a new bauble (he was a Jewish lad who loved Christmas, each year turning it into a production that rivaled his movies in prodigality). As Thomson puts it, "It was the speed with which he changed his mind that amounted to genius...
...soft klutz who never exercised anything but his ego, Selznick was the son of one of the industry's pioneer pirates, a high roller who was quickly rolled over by better organized competitors. Thomson hints at a streak of madness in the Selznick line (one brother, Myron, a legendary Hollywood agent, died of alcoholism; another was institutionalized for many years). But in David's case it looked at first like genius. He was head of production at RKO at 30, had his own unit at MGM a year later, his own company four years after that. And he oversaw some...
Although he did not vote against the proposal,the lone dissenter, Thomson Professor ofGovernment Harvey C. Mansfield Jr., called theconcentration "just the sort of P.C. thing weshould be staying away from...