Billy Wilder in Hollywood

"A double delight: a richly entertaining biography of both screenwriter-director Wilder and his milieu - Hollywood... a fascinating montage of a man whose talents and quirks, virtues and faults, are endlessly engrossing. Electrifying opinions of those with whom he has worked and the original casting choices for his films are often surprising: Mae West was his first choice for Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard and Mary Pickford was his second! A first-rate book about a complicated, talented curmudgeon." - After Dark