Contemporary Authors

• Roger Corman: An Unauthorized Biography of the Godfather of Indie Filmmaking Renaissance Books (Los Angeles, CA), 2000
• Ron Howard: From Mayberry to the Moon ... and Beyond Rutledge Hill Press (Nashville, TN), 2003
• Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How 'The Graduate' Became the Touchstone of a Generation Algonquin Books (Chapel Hill, NC), 2017

1. Roger Corman : an unauthorized biography of the godfather of indie filmmaking https://lccn.loc.gov/00101883 Gray, Beverly. Roger Corman : an unauthorized biography of the godfather of indie filmmaking / Beverly Gray. 1st ed. Los Angeles : Renaissance Books, c2000. 302 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. PN1998.3.C68 G73 2000 ISBN: 1580631460 2. Roger Corman : blood-sucking vampires, flesh-eating cockroaches, and driller killers https://lccn.loc.gov/2013908593 Gray, Beverly. Roger Corman : blood-sucking vampires, flesh-eating cockroaches, and driller killers / Beverly Gray. 3rd ed., fully updated, with a new epilogue. Santa Monica, California : AZ Ferris Publications, [2014]©2014 xii, 323 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm ISBN: 978098857982809885798209780988579804098857980497809885798110988579812 3. Seduced by Mrs. Robinson : how The Graduate became the touchstone of a generation https://lccn.loc.gov/2017021025 Gray, Beverly, author. Seduced by Mrs. Robinson : how The Graduate became the touchstone of a generation / Beverly Gray. First edition. Chapel Hill, North Carolina : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2017. pages cm PN1997.G665 G73 2017 ISBN: 9781616206161 (hardcover : alk. paper) 4. Ron Howard : from Mayberry to the moon-- and beyond https://lccn.loc.gov/2002153251 Gray, Beverly. Ron Howard : from Mayberry to the moon-- and beyond / Beverly Gray. Nashville, Tenn. : Rutledge Hill Press, c2003. xi, 303 p., [16] p. of plates (some col.) : ill. ; 24 cm. PN1998.3.H689 G73 2003 ISBN: 1558539700 (hardcover)

• Beverly Gray - https://beverlygray.com/about/

  Beverly Gray, Movie Maven

  Beverly GrayBeverly Gray has spent her career fluctuating between the world of the intellect and show biz. As she was completing her doctorate in Contemporary American Fiction at UCLA, she surprised everyone (including herself) by taking a job with B-movie legend Roger Corman. At down-and-dirty New World Pictures, she edited scripts, wrote publicity material, cast voice actors, supervised a looping session, and tried her hand at production. She collaborated with such rising directors as Joe Dante, Jonathan Demme, and Paul Bartel, and thought up the twist ending to a cult classic, Death Race 2000.

  Leaving New World for academia, Beverly also found time to write about theatre and film for Performing Arts magazine, Theatre Crafts, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. Then Roger Corman beckoned once again. Beverly went on to spend eight years at Concorde-New Horizons Pictures as Corman’s story editor and development expert, overseeing the making of 170 low-budget features. Some of these were family-friendly, others decidedly not. Along the way she earned six screenwriting credits and played several cameo roles, in all of which she kept her clothes on.

  More recently, Beverly has returned to both teaching and journalism. She has covered the entertainment industry for The Hollywood Reporter, and leads screenwriting workshops for UCLA Extension’s world-renowned Writers’ Program.

  Beverly’s first book, Roger Corman: An Unauthorized Biography of the Godfather of Indie Filmmaking, debuted in the #4 spot on the Los Angeles Times hardcover non-fiction bestseller list. She next published Ron Howard: From Mayberry to the Moon . . . and Beyond, then followed up with an expanded paperback edition of the Corman bio, released under the tasteful new title Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers. Her updated 3rd edition paperback and ebook versions of Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers now bring the Roger Corman saga into the present day.

  Beverly is a popular speaker both at home and abroad, on topics ranging from the art of biography to the secrets of low-budget filmmaking. Her newest, most exciting project yet is Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How The Graduate Became the Touchstone of a Generation. Its publication in November 2017 coincides with the 50th anniversary of this landmark film, which is beloved by Baby Boomers for capturing their view of the adult world that in 1967 they were poised to enter.

  For the past six years Beverly has written a popular twice-weekly blog, Beverly in Movieland. She has also starred in the blogs of others, like Craig Edwards’ award-winning movie and pop culture site, Let’s Get Out of Here. This in-depth interview is punctuated by vintage photographs, some of them just a trifle embarrassing, but it’s all in good fun.

• Stuart Bernstein - http://www.stuartbernstein.com/gray.html

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  BEVERLY GRAY is the author of Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How The Graduate Became the Touchstone of a Generation, published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the iconic film. Her first book, Roger Corman: An Unauthorized Biography of the Godfather of Indie Filmmaking, debuted in the #4 spot on the Los Angeles Times hardcover non-fiction bestseller list. She next published Ron Howard: From Mayberry to the Moon . . . and Beyond, then followed up with an expanded paperback edition of the Corman bio, released under the new, improved title Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers.

  As she was completing her doctorate in Contemporary American Fiction at UCLA, Gray surprised everyone (including herself) by taking a job with B-movie maven Roger Corman. She edited scripts, wrote publicity material, cast voice actors, supervised a looping session, and tried her hand at production. She collaborated with such rising directors as Joe Dante, Jonathan Demme, and Paul Bartel, and thought up the twist ending to a cult classic, Death Race 2000.

  Leaving New World for academia, Beverly also found time to write about theatre and film for Performing Arts magazine, Theatre Crafts, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. Then Roger Corman beckoned once again. Beverly went on to spend eight years at Concorde-New Horizons Pictures as Corman's story editor and development expert, overseeing the making of 170 low-budget features. Along the way she earned six screenwriting credits and played several cameo roles, in all of which she kept her clothes on.

  More recently, Beverly has returned to both teaching and journalism. She has covered the entertainment industry for The Hollywood Reporter, and leads screenwriting workshops for UCLA Extension's world-renowned Writers' Program. Beverly is a popular speaker both at home and abroad, on topics ranging from the art of biography to the secrets of low-budget filmmaking. She's working to update both of her books, while also wrestling with film history projects that touch on the impact of the Sixties on the Baby Boom generation.

• How DId You Write That - https://howdidyouwritethat.com/2014/06/04/how-did-you-write-that-beverly-gray/

  QUOTE:
  As Roger’s story editor, I was deeply involved in the making of 170 low-budget features, until the day in 1994 when I unexpectedly discovered I was out of a job. (It seems Roger had decided to hand my position to a former employee who was talented, needy, and willing to work for much less than what I was being paid.)
  By the time I completed the book, I had traded Roger stories with well over a hundred former Cormanites from every phase of his career.
  How did you write that, Beverly Gray?

  Beverly Gray describes herself as “movie-mad.” In the 1970s her madness led her to Hollywood, where she worked closely with legendary B-movie director Roger Corman. He would become the subject of her first biography, Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers.

  In this interview, Beverly talks about:

  How she chose her subject (or did he chose her?).
  Her low-tech organizational methods.
  How her relationship with her subject continues to evolve.

  HDYWT: How did you come up with the idea for Roger Corman?

  Beverly GrayBeverly: My situation was not a conventional one. B-movie legend Roger Corman was my boss both at New World Pictures (1973-1975) and later at Concorde New-Horizons (1986-1994). As Roger’s story editor, I was deeply involved in the making of 170 low-budget features, until the day in 1994 when I unexpectedly discovered I was out of a job. (It seems Roger had decided to hand my position to a former employee who was talented, needy, and willing to work for much less than what I was being paid.)

  Desperate for a new source of income, I began teaching screenwriting through UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program. That gig entitled me to take the occasional UCLA Extension course, free of charge. So I enrolled in a class called “Writing the Non-Fictional Book Proposal.”

  At the outset, I had no idea what I wanted to write. But on the first evening the instructor impressed upon us the fact that in order to break into the publishing industry, it was essential to choose a topic that no one else could handle quite as well. For me it was a lightbulb moment. I went home and wrote, “The first time I ever saw Roger Corman,” because I had a really telling anecdote about my job interview back in 1973. Then I wrote “The last time I ever saw Roger Corman,” and explained why I was no longer on the Corman payroll. Those two stories were featured in my book proposal, and they ultimately kicked off the introduction to my published Corman biography.

  HDYWT: How did you begin work on this project?

  Beverly: Of course I began with my own recollections, as well as memorabilia I’d collected over the years. And I did some important research in the Roger Corman files at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, while also reading every book that had previously been published about Roger.

  But most essential to the success of my biography was the series of interviews I conducted with Corman alumni, many of whom had been my colleagues and friends over the years. I remember that actor Dick Miller was one of the very first I approached. Like so many others, Dick spoke to me at length, going into lively detail about both the admiration and the resentment he felt toward this B-movie giant.

  By the time I completed the book, I had traded Roger stories with well over a hundred former Cormanites from every phase of his career. Biggest coup? Maybe the tracking down of Charles B. Griffith, the eccentric but brilliant writer of such signature Corman films as Little Shop of Horrors and Bucket of Blood. I found Chuck in Australia, and a long email correspondence ensued. I should add that I’ve somehow never stopped researching Roger Corman, and my collection of interview files continues to grow.

  HDYWT: How do you organize your research?

  Beverly: For the purposes of this book, I invented an elaborate but low-tech system involving large, colorful index cards. Each chronological phase of Roger’s career was assigned its own color. For example, I chose the color yellow to represent Roger’s New World Pictures era. Using my stack of yellow cards, I gave each one a heading, like Money, or Family, or Death Race 2000. Then, moving methodically through the printouts of all my transcribed interviews and other materials, I pulled quotes and details that fit the topic and notated them on the appropriate card. Eventually I ordered my cards in sequence, and that’s when I began to write.

  It was a long slow process, made even more difficult on the day that the ceiling above my dining room table started leaking (because of a poorly installed second-floor shower), leaving many of my cards sopping wet.

  HDYWT: What does a typical day of research/writing/promotion look like?

  Beverly: I never have typical days! I’m a wife and mother, and am quite used to being pulled in many directions, sometimes needing to set my professional life aside completely in order to deal with family obligations. It’s not the most efficient way to work, but I must say that I never get bored.

  And the Corman project, which had a short deadline, was such a labor of love that I found myself being remarkably productive. During the writing process I remember going to bed late and rousing early, always knowing exactly where I would pick up the narrative thread when I sat down at the keyboard. Despite all the pressure, I slept beautifully and woke up happy. Writing has never been quite as exciting for me since, though I’ve regained some of that joy in the last few years by way of my Beverly in Movieland blog, which covers movies, movie-making, and growing up Hollywood-adjacent.

  HDYWT: What are your favorite tools in your writer’s toolbox?

  Beverly: It’s hard to imagine, but when I wrote the first edition of the Corman book a lot of the tools we now take for granted didn’t exist. My tape recorder was hardly high-tech, and I had no special equipment for transcribing interviews. The invaluable Internet Movie Database was available but full of errors, and neither Wikipedia nor YouTube had yet made an appearance. Of course today I constantly use all three of these sites.

  I also use a number of film archives, of which the Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills, California, is by far the most comprehensive. It’s also a delightful place in which to work.

  Bonus question: Have you found any unique challenges in writing about Hollywood celebrities?

  Beverly: Great question! Hollywood celebrities, whom I’ve interviewed for all sorts of writing projects, are very good at being self-protective. They are often surrounded by handlers, and they like to use their clout to put their own spin on a writer’s findings.

  Roger Corman, in particular, did his very best to take control of my work, even after I told him that one of the key things he’d taught me over the years was the value of artistic independence. Now, even though my book has been hailed by critics and Cormanites alike, he’s still finding subtle ways to show me his displeasure, by (for instance) having me edited out of commentary tracks that are intended to accompany Corman video collections. I provide a few more details of his low-key vendetta against me in the new 3rdedition of Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers. It’s quite an eye-opening tale.
  Posted in biography, interviews, libraries, organization, research on June 4, 2014. Leave a comment
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• WORKMAN - https://www.workman.com/authors/beverly-gray

  After earning her PhD in American literature at UCLA, Beverly Gray spent nearly a decade in the film industry, where she was Roger Corman’s story editor at both New World Pictures and Concorde–New Horizons Pictures. She has covered the entertainment industry for the Hollywood Reporter and leads screenwriting workshops for UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program. Gray is the author of Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers and Ron Howard: From Mayberry to the Moon . . . and Beyond. She lives in Santa Monica, California. Her website is beverlygray.com.

• ASJA Confidential - http://www2.asja.org/theword/2017/03/14/2267/

  Spotlight On: Beverly Gray: The Comeback Kid
  By Sandra Gurvis
  Posted on Tuesday, March 14, 2017
  Editor’s note: Ever asked yourself, “Why go to a conference when my writing is at a standstill (or worse)?” While attending may seem counterintuitive during tough times, it can actually boost your career to new heights, as the following story attests.

  Beverly Gray, author of the bestselling and much-reprinted Roger Corman: An Unauthorized Biography of the Godfather of Indie Filmmaking and Ron Howard: From Mayberry to the Moon . . . and Beyond hit a professional wall familiar to many seasoned and even newbie writers. “In 2007, I sold a proposal on a film retrospective of the year 1967,” she recalls. “Because it was a university press, it took them a long time to get the contract together. Meanwhile another book on the exact same subject was published to rave reviews.”

  No stranger to sudden shifts in course, Beverly, who after completing her doctorate in contemporary American fiction at UCLA surprised everyone (“especially myself”) by taking a job with B-movie mogul Roger Corman. While at New World Pictures, she edited scripts, wrote publicity material, cast actors and even tried her hand at production, rubbing shoulders with directors Joe Dante, Jonathan Demme and Paul Bartel, earning six screenwriting credits and appearing in several cameo roles. “I never had to take my clothes off once,” she adds with a smile.

  So, when confronted with this latest challenge, “my editor and I put our heads together and figured out ways in which we could make it different” from the competing book. She then shifted her focus to a pop culture history of and contrast among the five “Best Picture” Oscar nominees for that year, all of which mirrored the social and political upheaval of the late 1960s. “My editor was happy with the project, even though it kept getting longer and longer.” Finally completed in 2010, the book was sent to two film critics for peer review: “They hated it, so the project was dead in the water. I was devastated.”

  Yet she still went to the ASJA conference that year. “There was a lot of discussion about branding and platform-building which I took to heart. I even had a head shot done right afterwards, even though I had no idea where my career was going.”

  Although “it took a while” she started a blog, “Beverly in Movieland,” “covering movies, moviemaking, and growing up Hollywood-adjacent,” she says. Since its debut in 2011, the blog has expanded from 3,000 page views per month to over 20,000, “making it seem like” a reel, er “real thing.” She also revamped her Web site, while continuing to write freelance articles and teach screenwriting workshops for the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. And “thanks to ASJA and its emphasis on professional self-publishing,” she updated and reissued her now out-out-print Roger Corman book, which not only garnered speaking engagements and subsequent sales but also received a favorable mention in The New York Times.

  Beverly also began thinking about “The Graduate,” one of the movies covered in the failed project. “This little comedy was originally supposed to be of the moment and ended up lasting 50 years.” With the encouragement of her longtime agent, she began working on a half-a-century timed proposal “and suddenly the phone began ringing with offers from three major publishers.” This November, in honor of the anniversary, Algonquin will publish Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How “The Graduate” Became the Touchstone of a Generation.

  Thanks to her previous research, “I was able to write the book quickly and had much of the material at hand.” So out of the ashes of one project rose an even more successful endeavor. Moral of the story? Rather than pulling the plug, look for other promising connections.

  Sandra Gurvis
  Sandra Gurvis (www.sandragurvis.com, www.booksaboutthe60s.com) is the author of 15 books, including Where Have All The Flower Children Gone? (University Press of Mississippi), Country Club Wives (Loconeal) and Day Trips From Columbus (3rd ed Globe Pequot). Along with Life During Wartime, she is completing Confessions Of A Crazy Cat Lady, a book of essays.

QUOTE:
there is plenty to enjoy in this fond remembrance of how we were all seduced by Mrs. Robinson.

Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How the
Graduate Became the Touchstone of a
Generation
Bill Ott
Booklist.
114.6 (Nov. 15, 2017): p10. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How the Graduate Became the Touchstone of a Generation.
By Beverly Gray.
Nov. 2017.304p. Algonquin, $24.95 (9781616206161); e-book, $11.99 (9781616207663). 791.43.
This tribute to Mike Nichols' landmark film The Graduate, released 50 years ago, falls comfortably between a "Making of" movie book and a memoir. Gray, who was once maverick director Roger Corman's story editor, brings both an insider's knowledge and a fan's enthusiasm to the project. The text is divided into three sections--"Making the Movie"; "The Screening Room," a mix of plot synopsis and critical interpretation; and "After the Lights Came Up," a gathering of responses to the movie from critics at the time and fans over the years. The first section is the most successful, with Gray recounting some fascinating bits of backstory, including how Nichols explained to rising star Robert Redford why he wasn't right for the role of the bumbling Benjamin Braddock. Nichols made his point by asking Redford about the last time he had struck out with a woman. "What do you mean?" Redford replied. The attempts to explain the film's enduring popularity are less successful, too often belaboring the obvious, but overall there is plenty to enjoy in this fond remembrance of how we were all seduced by Mrs. Robinson.--Bill Ott
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
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http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
Ott, Bill. "Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How the Graduate Became the Touchstone of a Generation." Booklist, 15 Nov. 2017, p. 10. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A517441683/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=03f6fc7b. Accessed 19 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A517441683
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QUOTE:
Gray effectively shows how The Graduate, despite ignoring the flashpoint issues of the day, worked as a subversive force in a period about to reassess its cinematic and cultural conventions.

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Gray, Beverly: SEDUCED BY MRS. ROBINSON
Kirkus Reviews.
(Sept. 1, 2017): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Gray, Beverly SEDUCED BY MRS. ROBINSON Algonquin (Adult Nonfiction) $24.95 11, 7 ISBN: 978-1-61620-616-1
A Hollywood industry insider unspools an absorbing, sometimes-uneven analysis of a film classic on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.At its best, Gray's (Roger Corman: An Unauthorized Biography of the Godfather of Indie Filmmaking, 2000) book is a well-researched and skillfully composed echo of such Hollywood tomes as Aljean Harmetz's Round Up the Usual Suspects. Only now does The Graduate (1967) reveal itself, in one sense, as a film that was out of place and time in its own era. As Gray points out, it is a movie that has always meant different things to different people, "a cinematic Rorschach test." Though it has its detractors, not least for a somewhat abrupt segue from social satire to romantic comedy, this seminal, deceptively sophisticated film has shown great staying power, and its innovative approach to collaboration, casting, and cinematic invention were, and remain, influential--as was its ambiguous climax, the significance of which Gray captures exceptionally well. She reveals a film viewed as an outsider's effort in more ways than one: outside a studio system whose demise it helped accelerate and outside the dominant American cultural milieu. The author, who leads screenwriting workshops at UCLA, has a practiced interpretive mind. She demonstrates how, for all its popularity and game-changing success, the toughest critics were split on the film's value and how many in the youth movement rebutted rather than embraced the movie's relevance. It is in these passages, and in offering an alternative, not-so-sympathetic take on the movie's protagonist, that Gray is most penetrating. But one wonders if a scene-by-scene synopsis and scrutiny is really necessary. Interesting in the main, it can get tedious. The author also engages in some questionable, rather high-blown assaying of the filmmakers' intents and weakens her remembrance of the '60s with a glib introduction. The book is not without flaws, but Gray effectively shows how The Graduate, despite ignoring the flashpoint issues of the day, worked as a subversive force in a period about to reassess its cinematic and cultural conventions.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Gray, Beverly: SEDUCED BY MRS. ROBINSON." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Sept. 2017. Book Review
Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A502192170/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=81b05739. Accessed 19 Apr. 2018.
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Gale Document Number: GALE|A502192170
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Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How 'The
Graduate' Became the Touchstone of
a Generation
Publishers Weekly.
264.33 (Aug. 14, 2017): p62. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How 'The Graduate' Became the Touchstone of a Generation Beverly Gray. Algonquin, $24.95 (306p) ISBN 978-1-61620-616-1
Hollywood biographer Gray (Ron Howard) delivers a celebration of Mike Nichols's seminal The Graduate in time for the film's 50th anniversary. Unfortunately for a film so worthy of our admiration, Gray's effort comes across as unnecessary. Split into three sections, her book begins with a history of the film's production, continues with a retelling of its story, and ends with a discussion of its release and influence. The production history feels at once drawn-out and shallow, though it provides some insight into Dustin Hoffman's feelings about his unlikely and unexpected elevation to leading man. The middle section is less close reading than unabashed rehash of the film's plot. Appropriately for a book about how the film became "the touchstone of a generation," the third section, on The Graduate's, afterlife, is the most effective. One begins to see on the page why this film has remained in America's collective unconscious for half a century, but Gray falls short of adding to or reframing the film's cultural cachet. (Nov.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How 'The Graduate' Became the Touchstone of a Generation."
Publishers Weekly, 14 Aug. 2017, p. 62. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com /apps/doc/A501717136/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=3af6c4e7. Accessed 19 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A501717136
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QUOTE:
A development exec for Corman for many years, Gray knows both the business side of the low-budget mogul and something of Corman's almost-forgotten high-minded soul.
Gray gives a penetrating analysis of Corman's exit from the director's chair in 1970,
While the book serves as an informed journey through a key section of the history of independent cinema, it also isn't afraid to point out the paradoxes inherent in devoting one's life to movies with titles such as "Private Duty Nurses" and "Tigress of Siberia."

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ROGER CORMAN
STEVEN GAYDOS
Variety.
378.12 (May 8, 2000): p92. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2000 Penske Business Media, LLC http://variety.com
Full Text:
ROGER CORMAN
BY BEVERLY GRAY (RENAISSANCE BOOKS; 302 PGS.; $23.95)
There's a growing number of people in Hollywood who feel that the one obvious figure who has been overlooked for the Academy's Thalberg Award is producer-director Roger Corman. Who else helped jumpstart the careers of so many key filmmakers?: Martin Scorsese, Francis Coppola, James Cameron, Joe Dante, Monte Hellman, Peter Bogdanovich, Carl Franklin, Janusz Kaminski, Ron Howard, Jonathan Demme, Gale Anne Hurd, John Sayles, et al., all toiled early in their careers for Corman.
But there's a catch: Legendarily frugal, Corman will probably never get this award because he has always worked the cheap, mean streets of indie film. He doesn't buy ads, throw parties, pick up tabs, lavish gifts. He simply gave opportunities to handfuls of untested filmmakers who became major figures.
Beverly Gray's terrific bio of Corman explains his colorful career both as an amazing business tale and a strange, even mournful, personal journey. A development exec for Corman for many years, Gray knows both the business side of the low-budget mogul and something of Corman's almost-forgotten high-minded soul. He made an ambitious film on race relations, "The Intruder," and popularized (some might say pulverized) Poe in the '60s.
Gray gives a penetrating analysis of Corman's exit from the director's chair in 1970, the same year he was lauded in Edinburgh with a retrospective of his helming efforts. On "Von Richtofen and Brown," his last directing effort of that time (he subsequently directed "Frankenstein Unbound" decades later), Gray writes:
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"... Though he is not naturally prone to self-analysis, he does refer to this work in admitting the contradictory drives within hims.... Monte Hellman, for one believes `he felt in awe of actors. ... He didn't feel he knew the language.' Nor was Corman ever comfortable with the degree of emotional investment that the director's job demands."
While the book serves as an informed journey through a key section of the history of independent cinema, it also isn't afraid to point out the paradoxes inherent in devoting one's life to movies with titles such as "Private Duty Nurses" and "Tigress of Siberia."
And the book is up to the minute in its recounting of the Corman saga, which finds him again in the center of controversy with the current lawsuit over the supposed Corman factory expose "Some Nudity Required."
Would anyone make a docu about Thalberg with that title? Probably not, unless it was Corman himself, and he thought it would sell in the Midwest.
Of course, such a film might wind up being directed by the next Scorsese. And that's the paradoxical wonder of the indie world and its reigning King Corman.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
GAYDOS, STEVEN. "ROGER CORMAN." Variety, 8 May 2000, p. 92. Book Review Index
Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A62298289/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=5508b1fa. Accessed 19 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A62298289
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QUOTE:
writes smartly and insightfully
offers a fascinating look at how this movie tells a timeless story: that life is always about making choices.

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Book World: At 50, does 'The
Graduate' still hold up - or is it all
plastics now?
Amy Henderson
The Washington Post.
(Dec. 11, 2017): News: From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Full Text:
Byline: Amy Henderson
Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How "The Graduate" Became the Touchstone of a Generation
By Beverly Gray
Algonquin. 304 pp. $24.95
---
Is 50 the new 20? Does "The Graduate" - a blockbuster movie celebrating its 50th anniversary this year - retain the flush of youth?
Beverly Gray argues that it does, and has written "Seduced by Mrs. Robinson" to explore how an obscure novel, a neophyte film director, unlikely casting and a pop music score revolutionized post-studio Hollywood.
Gray uses a "making of" approach to examine how this mash-up of a movie made magic. The key figure was director Mike Nichols, who turned to movies after his comedy partnership with Elaine May dissolved. Nichols framed "The Graduate" as a story about young boomers rejecting the mid-century world honed by their parents. Twenty-one-year-old Benjamin Braddock is the touchstone, the prototype for a new generation's "general malaise."
As fans of the movie know, Benjamin's parents live in Los Angeles. When he returns from college in the East, he feels trapped in a hometown where now, Gray writes, he "can see and be seen, but remains forever cut off." His parents throw him a graduation party and give him a frogman's outfit. Mr. Braddock forces him to don the scuba suit and jump into the family pool, and Nichols shapes that scene to portray the submerged Benjamin as "some exotic, but glassed-in sea creature, placed on exhibit to dazzle his parents' friends." To the Braddocks, Benjamin is their "trophy son."
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http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
For the role of Benjamin, Nichols cast against type. Instead of a Southern California hunk, he selected a still-unknown Dustin Hoffman. Nichols said he identified with Hoffman as "a short, dark, Jewish, anomalous presence, which is how I experience myself." Nichols wanted Benjamin to radiate the discomfort of an outsider - to know only that he didn't want to be submerged in the world of his parents.
Nichols chose respected actress Anne Bancroft as the seductress, and he framed Mrs. Robinson as a predator. Her wardrobe evoked tiger and leopard motifs, and she wore extravagant furs. "All her clothes are animals," Nichols said. Yet Mrs. Robinson was only a diversion. She is part of an older world, and Nichols told Hoffman to imagine that Benjamin "is still in bed with his parents' generation."
Benjamin suddenly finds purpose by falling in love with Mrs. Robinson's daughter, Elaine. She is marrying someone else, but nothing stops Benjamin once he's in command mode. He grabs Elaine from her wedding and whisks her off on a city bus. They both look confused, and the movie ends ambiguously as "The Sound of Silence" plays in the background. Is darkness ahead, or is the bus heading into a sunset?
Gray views their future with optimism, suggesting that "whatever age you may be, if the vision that was planted in your brain still flickers, it's a sign you retain a shard of Benjamin Braddock's youthful capacity for hope and wonder."
Will the wonder last? Ben's self-discovery is what attracted Gray to write "Seduced by Mrs. Robinson" in the first place. Growing up in the '60s, she embraced "The Graduate" because it made her understand "how badly we wanted to distance ourselves from the world of our parents." Fifty years later, she has adopted the movie as a generational template, and for most of the book she writes smartly and insightfully about how the characters were shaped by a disruptive age.
The final section focuses on how "The Graduate" became a transformative force in Hollywood filmmaking, but here Gray's discussion tends to ramble. Despite this weakness, though, the book as a whole offers a fascinating look at how this movie tells a timeless story: that life is always about making choices.
---
Henderson is historian emerita of the National Portrait Gallery. She writes frequently on media and culture.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Henderson, Amy. "Book World: At 50, does 'The Graduate' still hold up - or is it all plastics
now?" Washington Post, 11 Dec. 2017. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com /apps/doc/A518324803/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=ebc815cd. Accessed 19 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A518324803
9 of 9 4/18/18, 11:32 PM

Ott, Bill. "Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How the Graduate Became the Touchstone of a Generation." Booklist, 15 Nov. 2017, p. 10. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A517441683/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=03f6fc7b. Accessed 19 Apr. 2018. "Gray, Beverly: SEDUCED BY MRS. ROBINSON." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Sept. 2017. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A502192170/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=81b05739. Accessed 19 Apr. 2018. "Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How 'The Graduate' Became the Touchstone of a Generation." Publishers Weekly, 14 Aug. 2017, p. 62. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A501717136/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=3af6c4e7. Accessed 19 Apr. 2018. GAYDOS, STEVEN. "ROGER CORMAN." Variety, 8 May 2000, p. 92. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A62298289/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=5508b1fa. Accessed 19 Apr. 2018. Henderson, Amy. "Book World: At 50, does 'The Graduate' still hold up - or is it all plastics now?" Washington Post, 11 Dec. 2017. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A518324803/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=ebc815cd. Accessed 19 Apr. 2018.

• Daily Grind House
  http://dailygrindhouse.com/thewire/remaking-king-beverly-gray-revisits-world-roger-corman/
  Word count: 2369

  QUOTE:
  While there are more than a few works on the life and times of exploitation film pioneer Roger Corman (including his own autobiography), Beverly Gray’s biography, originally published in 2000, ranks as the most in-depth.
  The book makes a triumphant return this fall with new interviews and updates about the man who brought the world DEATH RACE 2000, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS and, more recently, SHARKTOPUS.
  REMAKING THE B KING: BEVERLY GRAY REVISITS THE WORLD OF ROGER CORMAN
  Nov 11, 2013 Books, The Wire Tagged Beverly Gray, biography, Books, roger corman Comments 0

  corman-unauthorized-225While there are more than a few works on the life and times of exploitation film pioneer Roger Corman (including his own autobiography), Beverly Gray’s biography, originally published in 2000, ranks as the most in-depth. Originally employed as a story editor at Concorde, Gray’s heavily researched tome presents a portrait of the man that paints him respectfully without shying away from less-than-flattering aspects of his personality and career.

  The book makes a triumphant return this fall, as Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers has been revised with new interviews and updates about the man who brought the world DEATH RACE 2000, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS and, more recently, SHARKTOPUS. We had a chance to speak to Ms. Gray about the updated version of her book, which can be purchased via Amazon here.

  beverly-gray-pressDG: What inspired you to revisit Roger Corman’s life and career? He seems to have entered a new phase with the likes of PIRANHACONDA and SHARKTOPUS.

  BG: I’ve discovered, as a biographer, that you never stop being interested in a life you’ve explored in print. My insider biography of Roger, which originally was titled Roger Corman: An Unauthorized Biography of the Godfather of Indie Filmmaking, came out in 2000. I updated it for a paperback edition in early 2004, at a time when it seemed that the King of the Bs was winding down his legendary career. Since then, however, Roger has found a new lease on life. He’s discovered new technologies, as well as new sources of revenue. He’s had some major triumphs, and at the same time he’s had to contend with some tough personal challenges. I wanted to cover all of that, by way of truly bringing Roger Corman into the 21st century.

  DG: What can we expect from the update? The revised title and cover are reminiscent of classic Corman, revisiting vintage material with a new, more “exploitation-friendly” skin.

  BG: The revised title, Roger Corman: Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches, and Driller Killers, has been around since the first paperback edition of 2004. Along with that title, the Thunder’s Mouth paperback was given a much more eye-catching cover. For this new 3rd edition, I kept that outrageous title but helped design a new cover, one that I feel really reflects the spirit of Roger Corman movies. I worked with a designer, J.T. Lindroos, who loves my book and is a big fan of the wonderful world of Corman. Together we chose a design that’s deliberately garish, “wild” (a favorite Roger Corman adjective), and fun. See my Beverly in Movieland blog post for January 7, 2013 for a full description of how the new cover evolved.

  You’ll find within the covers of the 3rd edition a new set of vintage photos, some major additions to the capsule bios in my “Famous Alumni” appendix, and quotes from significant new sources. There’s also – most importantly – a brand-new epilogue, which I call “The Epilogue Strikes Back.” It goes into detail about what Roger’s doing now, and how his outlook has changed in the current century.

  DG: Was there material that you’d wanted to include before that you’ve now included in the revised edition? If so, what prompted you to edit it out previously?

  BG: When you’re an author, especially a first-time author, you follow the lead of your editor. Mine was very concerned about the inclusion of a few stories having to do with the bad behavior of Roger’s sons. He also felt uncomfortable about a brief section touching on Roger’s attitude toward homosexuality. I felt these details gave important glimpses into Roger’s personal life, and so I’ve gladly restored them.

  DG: How was your book originally received by Corman and those who know him? It paints a less flattering portrait of him than his own autobiography, obviously.

  BG: To make a long story short, when I first told Roger I was under contract to write a biography about him, he told me he’d gladly cooperate, so long as I intended it to be “largely favorable.” Soon afterward, he phoned me to say that he wanted my publisher and me to sign a legal document allowing him to read my book in manuscript and remove anything he considered “derogatory. “ At that point I wrote him a very polite letter, saying that of all the lessons he’d taught me, perhaps the most important was the value of artistic independence. He tried on one more occasion to get some control over my book, but I was smart enough to realize that I needed to go it alone. He never speaks of my work, but those around him know that he strongly dislikes it, mostly because he never got a chance to shape it, as he’s long done with books by others who want to curry favor. He’ll smile and sign a copy of my book when it’s presented to him at a public event, but interview footage of me has been cut out of several projects, including the “extras” for the SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE trilogy box-set, much to the dismay of the documentary filmmakers involved. I know others who’ve had similar experiences after writing about him. Frankly, I find this petty vindictiveness a bit sad.

  I should add that Corman alumni of many eras love this book, which they see as reflecting the many-sided Roger they remember. I’m especially proud of the rave reviews I’ve gotten from early Cormanites, like Charles B. Griffith, Beverly Garland, and Mel Welles. Their praise means a lot to me, as does Joe Dante’s comment that, although no one will ever wholly capture Roger Corman on the printed page, I’ve come far closer than anyone else.

  DG: What do you think inspires Corman to keep making films?

  BG: That’s a question that many people have pondered. At times, when I worked for him at Concorde-New Horizons, he seemed weary of the whole process. A colleague has heard him say, more than once,“I never want to see another movie. But it’s the only thing I know how to do.” Still, Roger has a great capacity for discovering new challenges. These challenges are often less artistic than logistical: he enjoys planning out complicated ventures. And he absolutely loves finding new ways to make money. Even when he’s tired of movie-making, money-making never ceases to interest him.

  DG: Why do you think Corman has stood the test of time as a cult movie figure? The average moviegoer may not have any idea who David Friedman or Charles Band are, but everyone seems to have an idea as to what Corman symbolizes, even if that idea is often just “cheap movies.”

  BG: I think there are multiple answers to this important question. First of all, Roger has genuine skills as a filmmaker. He knows how to craft an exciting movie, whether or not he’s the movie’s director. His Poe films, in particular, will live on because of their intrinsic merit. And movies like THE WILD ANGELS and THE TRIP last because they’re groundbreaking cinema, reflecting (and helping to shape) the counterculture of the Sixties in a way that few films have. So they survive as historical artifacts. Though his films are all low-budget, his range is wide, encompassing many genres. Then of course we can’t forget the so-called Roger Corman Alumni Association. Roger has given a start to so many prominent Hollywood figures that this in itself is a major claim to fame. Such luminaries as Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, and Ron Howard laud him, and sometimes put him in their movies, which in turn helps keep him in the public eye. He’s also a charming individual who’s lived a long, full life and is beloved by the press, so it’s no surprise that moviegoers of all sorts are well aware of his existence.

  DG: In the first edition of your book, you mention an attempt to get Corman an honorary Oscar, an attempt which has now succeeded. How is that honor reflected in the book?

  BG: Like most Cormanites, I was delighted when Roger was granted an honorary Oscar in 2009. That was the first year of the Academy’s Governors Awards banquet, at which three or four honorees are toasted by their peers, with no television cameras present. My new epilogue provides an up-close look at that very special evening. I spoke to long-time Corman colleagues who were present, and I also gained access to the Academy’s own videotape of the awards presentations. Readers of my book will find juicy excerpts from the speeches made by Ron Howard, Quentin Tarantino, and Jonathan Demme on Roger’s behalf, as well as Roger’s brief but elegant acceptance speech.

  DG: What were your feelings on the rumors that Joe Dante would be making a Roger Corman biopic?

  BG: I first became aware of this project, which chronicles the acid trip made by Roger in preparation for shooting THE TRIP, when a copy of the script was sent to me by Tim Lucas, one of the original authors. Frankly, it needed a lot of work, and I wondered who the target audience might be. Later, Joe Dante became interested in directing this film, and I know there was another draft involving the talents of Michael (NADJA) Almareyda. When I last spoke to Joe in 2011, we discussed how THE MAN WITH KALEIDOSCOPE EYES couldn’t seem to find funding, even though one of the world’s leading actors had signed on to portray Roger. That story is featured in my new epilogue. Since the publication of my 3rd edition, however, I’ve seen reports that the project is now moving ahead. I’m very curious as to whether it will really happen.

  DG: Do you think a film version of Corman’s life would be interesting? He’s always struck me as a relatively low-key presence and didn’t seem interested in presenting himself as a bawdy showman like William Castle or David Friedman did.

  BG: I agree that Roger is not the kind of flamboyant character that filmmakers and film audiences love. I think he’s endlessly fascinating as a human being, but it would be hard to capture his contradictions on film, and his life story as a whole doesn’t seem cinematic to me. I believe that those involved with THE MAN WITH KALEIDOSCOPE EYES like the idea of plunking the very buttoned-down Roger into the psychedelic excesses of the Sixties. The contrast could be quite colorful, but I’m still not totally convinced that this film would find an audience. I’ve been wrong before, of course!

  DG: In your book, you mention that the “dirty old man” image that Corman felt the documentary SOME NUDITY REQUIRED seemed to suggest was problematic for him — do you think that was part of the reason he moved away from doing erotic thrillers? Or was it just that the market was no longer there?

  BG: Those who’ve worked for Roger Corman do not agree about the extent to which he personally enjoyed making erotic films, those requiring large doses of sex and female nudity. But we all agree that Roger makes his decisions based almost totally on what the market will bear. When, in the wake of FATAL ATTRACTION and BASIC INSTINCT, erotic thrillers were doing big business, we made lots of them. After that trend had peaked, we turned to other genres, even including family films.

  DG: You worked with him primarily in the Concorde/New Horizons era, and in your book, Adam Simon, among others, seems to suggest that the films were essentially just a product rather than anything with artistic aspirations. (I was recently at a Q&A with director David Schmoeller, who suggested something similar for the films he made with Charles Band.) Do you think Corman’s views as to “producing product” as opposed to “creating art” have changed over the years?

  BG: In the early days, especially during the Poe period, Roger had genuine artistic ambitions, at the same time that he was determined to make money. (He was proud of his one real message film, THE INTRUDER, but didn’t repeat the experiment after it failed to break even.) When I worked at Concorde-New Horizons, at the height of the video boom, we were cranking out movies so fast that there was little time to think about artistry. Even then Roger occasionally made a choice based on artistic considerations, but the main goal was to save money while keeping the wheels of production turning. Writer-director Jon Purdy, who shot three Corman films in the 1990s, put it to me bluntly, “Corman has evolved into someone who is essentially manufacturing toilet seats. He has no interest in style or transcendent quality because there are only limited profits to be made on each release.” Personally, I can’t help but agree that Roger’s views about creating art have changed over time. Which, perhaps, is part of the reason he doesn’t always seem like a happy man.

  Follow Ms. Gray on her “Beverly in Movieland” blog here!

  @Paul Freitag-Fey

• Arizona Jewish Life
  http://azjewishlife.com/insights-on-the-graduate-with-author-beverly-gray/
  Word count: 743

  Insights on “The Graduate” with author Beverly Gray

  Mala Blomquist Front & Center February 28, 2018

  Beverly Gray will be in Tucson in March for two events surrounding her latest book, Seduced by Mrs. Robinson, How “The Graduate” Became the Touchstone of a Generation. On March 8 at 7:30 pm she will give a talk before a screening of “The Graduate” at the Loft Theater. She will also appear March 10-11 at the Tucson Festival of Books on the University of Arizona campus.

  The path that led her to write her third book wasn’t what she had in mind when she was completing her doctorate in Contemporary American Fiction at UCLA. She planned a career in academia when she received two very different job offers. One was to work with B-movie legend Roger Corman, and the other was to teach English at a girl’s school. “I went to my professors and asked them which they thought was the better option, and they said, ‘Take the movie job.’ ” says Beverly.

  She’s never regretted her decision, although she does admit to making some “pretty sleazy movies” but she learned a lot – including not to take herself too seriously. At New World Pictures with Corman, some of her duties included editing scripts, writing publicity material, casting voice actors and collaborating with directors.

  “I love working with writers and improving others’ ideas,” she says. Beverly teaches aspiring screenwriters at UCLA Extension’s world-renowned Writer’s Program. “I’m trying to help the students be the best writers they can be, given the way they choose to approach it. I don’t promise anyone fame or fortune, or failure, but I want the script to be as good as they can make it – given what their goals are for it.”

  Beverly had already written two books, Roger Corman, Blood-Sucking Vampires, Flesh-Eating Cockroaches and Driller Killers and Ron Howard, from Mayberry to the Moon…and Beyond and was looking for inspiration for the third, when she realized the interesting turn that movies took in 1967 –they reflected real life.

  “The baby boomers had been molded by our memories of JFK in 1963, the civil rights movement (both the positive, idealistic side and the other side with civil disturbances and riots) and the Vietnam war,” says Beverly. “The war was affecting our outlook on a day-to-day basis.”
  One of the films in that era that particularly interested Beverly was “The Graduate.” “It does not mention the things going on – like racial strife and the war,” she says. “But the movie was very clever and powerful, and young people immediately connected with it.”

  Beverly comments that “The Graduate” was like a Rorschach test; when she talks to people about the film, they all view it through the lens of what was on their mind at the time– from sex to feminism.

  “For me, the whole party situation at the beginning of the film, where everyone welcomes the homecoming of this graduate and then proceeds to tell him exactly how he should live his life – that I really understood. It was exactly what I was feeling right about then,” Beverly says of how she identified with the film.

  The underlying Jewish component of the film also fascinated Beverly. The director, Mike Nichols, himself a Jewish immigrant who came to the United States from Berlin as a child in 1939, was looking for a leading man who was out of the mainstream, someone who didn’t seem to fit into the context in which he found himself.

  Beverly remembers a favorite quote from Nichols, “I kept looking and looking until I found Dustin, who is short and dark and Jewish, which is the way I envision myself.” Hoffman’s character resonated with a generation of young people who didn’t feel quite right themselves.

  Seduced by Mrs. Robinson, features insight about how the film was made, the various decisions that had to be reached and compromises made. It also touches on parts that aren’t necessarily obvious, like the art direction and the camera work. She also assesses how and why the movie is still with us today.

  “It was really a fun book to write, and I enjoy talking about it,” says Beverly. For more information about Beverly, including her entertaining blog, Beverly in Movieland, visit beverlygray.com.

• CNN
  http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/books/06/17/review.howard/
  Word count: 729

  QUOTE:
  Despite the cumbersome title, she has produced a breezy and informative examination of Howard's professional and personal lives, and the sometimes-hazy line that separates them.
  While "Ron Howard: From Mayberry to the Moon ... and Beyond" won't shatter the image of the Hollywood powerhouse, it does offer some perspective. His successes are counterbalanced by some notable failures, yet he seems to have emerged from each one better equipped to pursue his career.

  More than anything else, Gray helps the reader understand how this particular nice guy manages to finish first.
  Review: Ron Howard biography reveals nice guy

  By L.D. Meagher
  CNN
  Tuesday, June 17, 2003 Posted: 11:34 AM EDT (1534 GMT)

  "Ron Howard: From Mayberry to the Moon ... and Beyond"
  By Beverly Gray
  Rutledge Hill Press
  Biography
  336 pages

  Story Tools
  RELATED
  • 'A Beautiful Mind' is best picture

  (CNN) -- According to an old saying, "Nice guys finish last." How, then, are we to account for Ron Howard?

  Howard's life appears to be an unbroken series of successes, yet by all accounts, he's one of the nicest guys in the world.

  Biographer Beverly Gray looks for answers in her new book "Ron Howard: From Mayberry to the Moon ... and Beyond." Despite the cumbersome title, she has produced a breezy and informative examination of Howard's professional and personal lives, and the sometimes-hazy line that separates them.

  The legend of Ron Howard is well known. He has been a fixture in the consciousness of practically everyone born in the second half of the 20th Century. In many ways, he is an archetypal baby boomer -- reared in the churning social milieu of postwar America.

  Fundamentally, however, he is different from the rest of his generation. He's a born showman, the son of actors, raised in Hollywood and marinated in the business of entertainment.
  A star from childhood

  By the time he was 10, Howard was the star of a hit TV show and two major motion pictures. Even during those awkward teenage years, when most child stars fade from view in a maelstrom of growing pains, he kept working, and by the time he turned 20, he was starring in "American Graffiti" and "Happy Days."

  By age 30, he had firmly established himself as a director of hit movies and he hasn't looked back.

  "Ron Howard" goes beyond his résumé in search of the "real" man behind the lifelong fame. What Gray finds is a fellow who is not significantly different from his public persona. She describes his film sets as workmanlike, focused, yet collegial. He makes a home for his family in Connecticut, far from the distractions he grew up with in Tinseltown.

  If there are dark secrets lurking in Howard's life, Gray doesn't find them. Again and again, she quotes friends and colleagues who paint a glowing picture of Howard. His business partner Brian Grazer describes him as "intelligent" and "tough," "calm" but "not easygoing."

  The most common descriptive, though, is "nice."
  A PG-13 life

  Even when Howard turns playfully suggestive, he seems to be living a PG-13 life.

  "Howard candidly admitted that he hoped to spend [time] working on the romantic side of his relationship with Cheryl (his wife)," Gray writes. "Obviously, the spark between them was successfully rekindled. When the family flew to England in 1987 in preparation for Howard's next film, Cheryl was once again pregnant. In April 1987 the couple's first and only son was born in a London hospital. The redheaded newcomer was dubbed Reed Cross. To those who remembered the family tradition of giving the children middle names based on the place of their conception, Howard cheerfully explained that his son bore the name of a street, because 'Volvo isn't a very good middle name.' "

  While "Ron Howard: From Mayberry to the Moon ... and Beyond" won't shatter the image of the Hollywood powerhouse, it does offer some perspective. His successes are counterbalanced by some notable failures, yet he seems to have emerged from each one better equipped to pursue his career.

  More than anything else, Gray helps the reader understand how this particular nice guy manages to finish first.

• New York Times
  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/05/books/review/beverly-gray-seduced-by-mrs-robinson-the-graduate.html
  Word count: 1170

  Throwing a Poolside Cocktail Party for ‘The Graduate’

  By LISA SCHWARZBAUMJAN. 5, 2018
  Photo
  Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman in “The Graduate.” Credit United Artists

  SEDUCED BY MRS. ROBINSON
  How ‘The Graduate’ Became the Touchstone of a Generation
  By Beverly Gray
  Illustrated. 282 pp. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. $24.95.

  Aside from the joyfully cocky title of a classic 1965 song by the Who, the phrase “my generation” is not generally used by anyone of my generation — or anyone else either. While those living it make their own discoveries, mistakes and art, generational descriptions are almost always the work of elders (“the younger generation”), youngers (“our parents’ generation”) or marketers (Silent, Greatest, Boomer, Pepsi) attempting to commodify the unstoppable cultural changes that accompany the forward movement of time.

  But here comes “Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How ‘The Graduate’ Became the Touchstone of a Generation,” in which the Santa Monica-based entertainment writer Beverly Gray doubles down on the declaration embedded in her book’s subtitle by inserting herself throughout the pages as a leading touchstone toucher: By “a generation,” she really means “my generation.” And to prove it, the author, who has previously published books about the filmmakers Roger Corman and Ron Howard, pops up in first person throughout an otherwise average recounting of the making of “The Graduate” and its reception to say, “I was there.”
  Photo
  A publicity still for the film, also used on the cover of the original soundtrack album. Credit Bettmann

  At first, I couldn’t figure out why Gray kept chiming in. (“How well I remember!” she volunteers, describing thoroughly well-documented changes in the 1960s California educational system.) After all, last month marked the 50th anniversary of the movie’s release, and that is reason enough to throw “The Graduate” a poolside cocktail party on its own merits. Why strain so hard to lay a personal generational narrative on a Hollywood history far more interesting than Gray or me or you or most any individual reader who was or wasn’t around in 1967 to help make the movie the surprise hit it was?

  (Why, too, does the author devote the whole middle section of her book to what is essentially a scene-by-scene recap, from opening logo to closing moments? Those who are interested in “Seduced by Mrs. Robinson” have presumably seen the movie, and those who have not seen the movie will not be enlightened by Gray’s chatty narration for the visually impaired.)
  Continue reading the main story
  Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How ‘The Graduate’ Became the Touchstone of a Generation Beverly Gray

  We earn an affiliate commission with each book purchase, which helps support our journalism at The New York Times.

  A half-century has passed since the bewildered college graduate Benjamin Braddock, played with star-making originality by a then largely unknown Dustin Hoffman, floated, directionless, in his parents’ glassy Beverly Hills pool, and was told (by someone of his Parents’ Generation) that the future lay in “plastics.” It has been a half-century since Anne Bancroft smoldered as the seductive Mrs. Robinson, an unhappy woman who was the opposite of bewildered — an adult mature enough to know she was trapped in the hell of plastic marital conventions. It has been 50 years since Hoffman, Bancroft and the incandescently creative team of the director Mike Nichols and the screenwriter Buck Henry took Charles Webb’s small 1963 novel of domestic discontents and turned it into a movie that epitomized huge shifts in both popular culture and Hollywood commerce.

  Then again, all this has been recounted before, with nuanced and perceptive synthesis, by Mark Harris in his popular 2008 history, “Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood,” now a classic of cultural reporting and analysis. (Gray refers to Harris, a friend of mine, more than once.) And, for a fine magazine-length version, a reader can call up Sam Kashner’s 2008 Vanity Fair piece “Here’s to You, Mr. Nichols: The Making of ‘The Graduate.’”
  Photo

  “Seduced by Mrs. Robinson” is a puzzling project. It is also a compilation of an awful lot of distracting clichés. The famous camera shot of Hoffman framed by the crook of Bancroft’s stockinged leg is a moment “that lives on in film history.” The voices of the movie’s fans “still echo through the years.” Gray cites notebook entries the producer Lawrence Turman made “when the project was merely a gleam in his eye.” She explains that “The Graduate” appealed to “high-spirited young rebels who delighted in thumbing their noses at the status quo.” She interviews Hoffman “at a film industry gathering, held at an upscale Beverly Hills Mexican eatery,” where “he proved surprisingly approachable, despite the throngs of fans waiting their chance to schmooze with the star.” Recent allegations of sexual harassment by Hoffman may dim a reader’s envy at the opportunity for schmoozing.

  Do not take this as a nose-thumb so much as a brow-furrow. The author’s interview with Hoffman took place in 2008 — and here we come to a clue to understanding the book’s tortured structure, its pained search for an angle: Most of the research seems to have taken place a decade ago. The majority of Gray’s direct reporting comes from two long interviews with Turman, now 91, who, as a Hollywood novice, was canny enough to obtain the rights to Webb’s novel. The first of those interviews took place in 2007. Turman published his own book, “So You Want to Be a Producer,” in 2005. (The second Turman interview took place in 2015.)

  Gray says in her acknowledgments that her book “rose like a phoenix from the ashes of a previous project.” Was it shelved after “Pictures at a Revolution” and the Vanity Fair history of “The Graduate” came out in 2008, making her version a making-of too many? Is it out now by the luck of a marketed golden anniversary? This formerly youthful moviegoer would like to know. In the meantime, she recommends looking up the provocative re-review written by Roger Ebert in 1997 to mark the movie’s 30th anniversary. The movie critic, who died in 2013, was in his youthful-enough 20s in 1967 when he declared “The Graduate” “the funniest American comedy of the year.” Three decades later, he saw that Hoffman’s Benjamin was an “insufferable creep,” and that Bancroft’s Mrs. Robinson — “sardonic, satirical and articulate” — was “the only person in the movie you would want to have a conversation with.”

  Ebert was talkin’ ’bout my generation.

  Lisa Schwarzbaum, a former critic at Entertainment Weekly, is a freelance journalist.

  Follow New York Times Books on Facebook and Twitter (@nytimesbooks), and sign up for our newsletter.

  A version of this review appears in print on January 7, 2018, on Page BR21 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Our Generation. Today's Paper|Subscribe

• The Washington Post
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/at-50-does-the-graduate-still-hold-up--or-is-it-all-plastics-now/2017/12/08/43b2a44e-db52-11e7-a841-2066faf731ef_story.html?utm_term=.b4c8a1dd90ea
  Word count: 732

  At 50, does ‘The Graduate’ still hold up — or is it all plastics now?
  By Amy Henderson December 11, 2017

  Is 50 the new 20? Does “The Graduate” — a blockbuster movie celebrating its 50th anniversary this year — retain the flush of youth?
  (Algonquin )

  Beverly Gray argues that it does, and has written “Seduced by Mrs. Robinson” to explore how an obscure novel, a neophyte film director, unlikely casting and a pop music score revolutionized post-studio Hollywood.

  Gray uses a “making of” approach to examine how this mash-up of a movie made magic. The key figure was director Mike Nichols, who turned to movies after his comedy partnership with Elaine May dissolved. Nichols framed “The Graduate” as a story about young boomers rejecting the mid-century world honed by their parents. Twenty-one-year-old Benjamin Braddock is the touchstone, the prototype for a new generation’s “general malaise.”

  As fans of the movie know, Benjamin’s parents live in Los Angeles. When he returns from college in the East, he feels trapped in a home town where now, Gray writes, he “can see and be seen, but remains forever cut off.” His parents throw him a graduation party and give him a frogman’s outfit. Mr. Braddock forces him to don the scuba suit and jump into the family pool, and Nichols shapes that scene to portray the submerged Benjamin as “some exotic, but glassed-in sea creature, placed on exhibit to dazzle his parents’ friends.” To the Braddocks, Benjamin is their “trophy son.”

  For the role of Benjamin, Nichols cast against type. Instead of a Southern California hunk, he selected a still-unknown Dustin Hoffman. Nichols said he identified with Hoffman as “a short, dark, Jewish, anomalous presence, which is how I experience myself.” Nichols wanted Benjamin to radiate the discomfort of an outsider — to know only that he didn’t want to be submerged in the world of his parents.
  Author Beverly Gray (Mikel Healy)

  Nichols chose respected actress Anne Bancroft as the seductress, and he framed Mrs. Robinson as a predator. Her wardrobe evoked tiger and leopard motifs, and she wore extravagant furs. “All her clothes are animals,” Nichols said. Yet Mrs. Robinson was only a diversion. She is part of an older world, and Nichols told Hoffman to imagine that Benjamin “is still in bed with his parents’ generation.”

  Benjamin suddenly finds purpose by falling in love with Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, Elaine. She is marrying someone else, but nothing stops Benjamin once he’s in command mode. He grabs Elaine from her wedding and whisks her off on a city bus. They both look confused, and the movie ends ambiguously as “The Sound of Silence” plays in the background. Is darkness ahead, or is the bus heading into a sunset?

  Gray views their future with optimism, suggesting that “whatever age you may be, if the vision that was planted in your brain still flickers, it’s a sign you retain a shard of Benjamin Braddock’s youthful capacity for hope and wonder.”

  Will the wonder last? Ben’s self-discovery is what attracted Gray to write “Seduced by Mrs. Robinson” in the first place. Growing up in the ’60s, she embraced “The Graduate” because it made her understand “how badly we wanted to distance ourselves from the world of our parents.” Fifty years later, she has adopted the movie as a generational template, and for most of the book she writes smartly and insightfully about how the characters were shaped by a disruptive age.

  The final section focuses on how “The Graduate” became a transformative force in Hollywood filmmaking, but here Gray’s discussion tends to ramble. Despite this weakness, though, the book as a whole offers a fascinating look at how this movie tells a timeless story: that life is always about making choices.

  Amy Henderson is historian emerita of the National Portrait Gallery. She writes frequently on media and culture.

  Seduced by Mrs. Robinson
  How “The Graduate” Became the Touchstone of a Generation

  By Beverly Gray

  Algonquin. 304 pp. $24.95

  We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

• NPR
  https://www.npr.org/2017/11/09/563133727/author-beverly-gray-looks-back-on-50-years-of-the-graduate-in-her-latest-book
  Word count: 1253

  QUOTE:
  The Graduate," aside from being a very entertaining movie, came out at a time when young people like you and me I think were starting to wonder what was going on in our world. We had the usual anxieties about leaving college, but we also had a lot of other things to think about like, for example, the Vietnam War, which was becoming a bigger and bigger facet in the life of every young man in particular and every girl who loved every young man because graduate school deferments were being eliminated. So there was a lot of stress and strain there. We were also a generation that had lost a president who most of us were very fond of - a handsome, young president. So we were a very nervous bunch.

  Author Beverly Gray Looks Back On 50 Years Of 'The Graduate' In Her Latest Book
  4:55

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  Transcript

  November 9, 20174:49 PM ET
  Heard on All Things Considered

  NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Hollywood writer Beverly Gray about her new book, Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How The Graduate Became the Touchstone of a Generation. The book offers behind-the-scene details of the 1967 film, The Graduate and looks at its lasting impact on the industry.

  ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

  Whether you saw the movie five years ago or 50 years ago, it doesn't take much to evoke "The Graduate."

  (SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE GRADUATE")

  WALTER BROOKE: (As Mr. McGuire) Just one word.

  DUSTIN HOFFMAN: (As Ben Braddock) Yes, sir.

  BROOKE: (As Mr. McGuire) Are you listening?

  HOFFMAN: (As Ben Braddock) Yes, I am.

  BROOKE: (As Mr. McGuire) Plastics.

  HOFFMAN: (As Ben Braddock) Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me.

  ANNE BANCROFT: (As Mrs. Robinson, laughter).

  HOFFMAN: (As Ben Braddock) Elaine, Elaine, Elaine...

  (SOUNDBITE OF SIMON AND GARFUNKEL SONG, "MRS. ROBINSON")

  SIEGEL: Advice to the new college graduate Benjamin Braddock, the moment that he's seduced by his parents' friend and the moment Ben gets the girl. It has been 50 years since "The Graduate" hit movie theaters.

  (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MRS. ROBINSON")

  SIMON AND GARFUNKEL: (Vocalizing).

  SIEGEL: Entertainment writer Beverly Gray has written a new book called "Seduced By Mrs. Robinson: How 'The Graduate' Became The Touchstone Of A Generation." And she joins us from NPR West. Welcome to the program.

  BEVERLY GRAY: I'm very happy to be here.

  SIEGEL: You and I are of an age where we went to the movie theater to see "The Graduate." I was a senior in college, and I remember that night very clearly. It was a terrific movie, but I'm still wrestling with the idea that it was a touchstone for my generation. It wasn't as politically subversive as "Dr. Strangelove." It wasn't an epic like "Lawrence Of Arabia." Why is it a touchstone for our generation?

  GRAY: "The Graduate," aside from being a very entertaining movie, came out at a time when young people like you and me I think were starting to wonder what was going on in our world. We had the usual anxieties about leaving college, but we also had a lot of other things to think about like, for example, the Vietnam War, which was becoming a bigger and bigger facet in the life of every young man in particular and every girl who loved every young man because graduate school deferments were being eliminated. So there was a lot of stress and strain there. We were also a generation that had lost a president who most of us were very fond of - a handsome, young president. So we were a very nervous bunch.

  SIEGEL: You write this about how the movie "The Graduate" helped transform Hollywood. You write, (reading) it contributed to the downfall of the antiquated studio system by showing that major commercial success was possible without reliance on the Hollywood studios' vast web of resources. By conveying a frank sexuality and revealing that beds could be used for something other than sleeping, it hastened the demise of prim, romantic comedies in the Doris Day mold - changed American movies.

  GRAY: This was made outside of the studio system. It was made by a young director, Mike Nichols, very early in his directing career who was influenced by some of the great movies that were coming out of Europe in that era. So a lot of the elaborate camera moves and all of the self-consciousness of the filmmaking which was so exuberant and so much fun - those were things that Hollywood wasn't doing. Hollywood was known for, in its heyday, as having an invisible style where you didn't really pay attention to what the camera was doing. You just watched the movie and were sucked into the story. Mike Nichols was flashy.

  And of course by today's sexual standards, it's very, very tame. There's a teeny, teeny bit of nudity by Anne Bancroft's stand-in. Most of the time in these bedroom scenes, people are very covered up, which is mild for our day. But I think it's also thematically appropriate. These are covered-up people. These are people who may have sexual congress with one another but don't really communicate with one another. They're not having intercourse in any meaningful way, and that's part of the point of the story.

  SIEGEL: There's a lot of blurring of personal alienation and political developments of that time, which - I think more in hindsight than they were then. But I guess that was a time when we got a lot of generation gap writing at that very moment.

  GRAY: Yeah, absolutely. One thing that interests me - there had been generation stuff at the movies previously, but it was usually young men jumping on motorbikes and riding off into the distance. And of course we still continued to have that in films like "Easy Rider."

  But this was - the reason I think so many of us identified was this is the polite, well-educated, middle-class kid who wants to do well but is still stuck realizing that his parents' world is not the world he wants. And he's not about to be rude or unpleasant about it, but he's got to get out. And Benjamin Braddock of course gets out in the most unusual of ways.

  (SOUNDBITE OF SIMON AND GARFUNKEL SONG, "MRS. ROBINSON")

  SIEGEL: That's Beverly Gray. Her new book is called "Seduced By Mrs. Robinson: How 'The Graduate' Became The Touchstone Of A Generation." Beverly Gray, thanks a lot.

  GRAY: My pleasure.

  (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MRS. ROBINSON")

  SIMON AND GARFUNKEL: (Singing) And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson. Jesus loves you more than you will know.

  Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

  NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

• USA Today
  https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2017/12/05/seduced-mrs-robinson-dustin-hoffman-book-review-beverly-gray/919554001/
  Word count: 859

  New book: Why 'The Graduate' still ruffles our feathers, 50 years later
  Andrea Mandell, USA TODAY Published 12:05 p.m. ET Dec. 5, 2017 | Updated 5:45 p.m. ET Dec. 5, 2017
  636479998421075849-Seduced-by-Mrs-Robinson-.jpg

  (Photo: Algonquin Books)

  It was the sexy suburban affair that broke box office records and sent its cast to the Oscars.

  In Seduced by Mrs. Robinson (Algonquin, 245 pp., ★★★ out of four), Beverly Gray’s new in-depth look at The Graduate, fans can take a deep dive into how the 1967 film about an unlikely May-December affair has etched itself into our collective memory for the past 50 years.

  In an early passage, Gray cannily pinpoints why Benjamin Braddock (played by Dustin Hoffman), a lethargic and malleable 21-year-old whose apathy has no apparent source, took root in ticket-buying Baby Boomers.

  “We too — those of my generation — didn’t much want to face a life built on the bedrock of our elders’ choices,” Gray writes. “In Benjamin we found a hero willing to turn his back on the kind of bright, upper-middle-class future we weren’t sure we wanted.”
  Dustin Hoffman in a scene from 'The Graduate.'

  Dustin Hoffman in a scene from 'The Graduate.' (Photo: New Line Home Video)

  Though occasionally hampered by a lengthy rehashing of the film’s plot, which has Benjamin ultimately falling for Mrs. Robinson's beautiful daughter, Elaine (Katharine Ross), Seduced by Mrs. Robinson offers a fascinating discussion on the bedroom tale's origins — the movie was based on Charles Webb's 1963 novel. Gray looks at how the book was marketed (Mrs. Robinson was discounted completely) as well as messy early incarnations of the movie script.

  She makes hay of the casting brouhaha that surrounded the then-scandalous film, directed by Mike Nichols. Doris Day was first pursued for the role of Mrs. Robinson, with an interest in subverting her wholesome image. And Robert Redford, who’d been directed by Nichols in the Broadway comedy Barefoot in the Park, was originally considered for Benjamin (though Nichols found him to be too attractive for the part).

  Although Webb's novel had no physical description of Benjamin, it was widely assumed he'd be chiseled and WASPy in appearance. Nichols fought to cast the short, more homely Hoffman against type, and Gray recalls a spate of nasty commentary about the up-and-coming actor's looks when the film was released.

  (Though it’s only glancingly mentioned, Hollywood's never-ending ageism was also on full display: Anne Bancroft was 35 when she was cast as the predatory aging housewife. Hoffman was nearly 30.)

  Those looking for on-set gossip will have to hunt. Aside from rumors of Hoffman’s on-set mood swings — and his purported interest in Bancroft’s body double — the tabloid temperature is set to low. (More recently, Hoffman has come under a media glare after two women accused him sexual harassment, alleging decades-old incidents.)
  Author Beverly Gray

  Author Beverly Gray (Photo: Mikel Healy)

  Fans who admire Nichols’ long career will be reminded of his turbulent personal history, particularly the director's arrival in New York at age 7 with his brother from Berlin.

  Often academic in tone, Seduced by Mrs. Robinson aims to secure The Graduate its proper place in the Hollywood canon. Gray pays special attention to the “sadness beneath the comedic surface” of a film that hit theaters during a period of social unrest, the Vietnam war and growing protests.

  The author recalls the iconic last scene with wedding runaways Hoffman and Ross, the latter clad in a diaphanous white gown.

  During what was written as a joyous scene, Nichols “barked” at his actors, who were ill at ease, she writes. Later, watching the dailies, the director found the true ending of his tale etched on his stars' faces: glazed smiles undercut by the terror of the unknown.

  As Gray calls it, it's a scene that marked “the end of the happy ending, a recognition of the fact that all’s not necessarily well that ends well.”
  Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft in a scene from 'The

  Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft in a scene from 'The Graduate.' (Photo: Embassy Pictures)

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• Pop Matters
  https://www.popmatters.com/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-the-graduate-2533199502.html
  Word count: 1165

  QUOTE:
  The persuasive power of Seduced by Mrs. Robinson lies not in proffering a singular interpretation of its meaning but rather in the open-ended way it encourages readers to give in to the scope of the film's meaningfulness. Not only will this book compel readers to go back to The Graduate—it ought to keep them coming back to any future film books by Beverly Gray.

  What We Talk About When We Talk About 'The Graduate'
  Megan Volpert
  16 Feb 2018

  The persuasive power of Seduced by Mrs. Robinson lies not in proffering a singular interpretation of its meaning but rather in the open-ended way it encourages readers to give in to the scope of the film's meaningfulness.
  Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How "The Graduate" Became the Touchstone of a Generation
  Beverly Gray

  Algonquin

  Nov 2017
  Other

  Is there anyone left who hasn't seen Mike Nichols' The Graduate? Is there even anyone left who hasn't seen it a dozen times? Even in a younger generation that may not care much for classic films, it remains an iconic reference point in our modern world. When it debuted in 1967, The Graduate offered many things that were straightforwardly brand new. The impact of these was immediate and proved eventually to be timeless. Thousands upon thousands of words have been written about the movie, from its first reviews to its place in varying legacies of everyone who worked on it, to retrospective reappraisals of its contemporary cultural currency.

  Beverly Gray, who spent a decade in the film industry as Roger Corman's story editor and who also wrote a book about Ron Howard, bravely and personably endeavors in Seduced by Mrs. Robinson to collect the many disparate strands of thinking about The Graduate into one complete guide to—as the subtitle says—"How The Graduate Became the Touchstone of a Generation". That it is a touchstone is indisputable; to attempt a catalog of all its ways and means of becoming so is rather a tricky feat that Gray tackles with the gusto of a lifelong fan with blessedly strong analytical chops. It's fair to say Seduced by Mrs. Robinson is definitive—not because it settles into one clear and cohesive definition of the touchstone, but rather because it resists this impulse in favor of the more challenging task of defining the complete scope of what we talk about when we talk about The Graduate. She succeeds in distributing equal consideration among all the needed things and uses her 300 pages wisely.

  The book is divided into three sections: "Making the Movie", "The Screening Room", and "After the Lights Came Up". Each has a very different task that in total ends up showcasing Gray's well-roundedness as a cineaste. The first section has seven chapters, each of which focuses on how the film made it to the silver screen. Instead of getting bogged down in industry lingo, Gray offers a highly readable and even suspenseful story of what happened. There was Charles Webb's novel, then Larry Turman buying up an option to film it for a mere thousand bucks. Gray interviews Turman directly and his quotations show a producer trying hard to remain forthcoming while he is himself still grappling with the weight of the results. Then there's the weak screenplay by Calder Willingham and the eventually killer screenplay by Buck Henry, followed by the terror of casting Dustin Hoffman and the potential anti-Semitic response to his character constantly lurking there. In discussing the shoot and post-production, Gray gives ample consideration to film editor Sean O'Steen, who was perhaps the most on-set and hands-on editor of his day. Finally, the movie is released.

  In the second section, Gray shifts gears to an analysis of the film itself. Across just 70 pages, she provides what is easily the most complete and accessible reading of cinematography in The Graduate available today. Once again dispensing with much of the jargon, she articulates all the ways that certain shots, angles, lighting, lenses and so on are used to make meaning for Nichols' vision of the story. One need not go back and watch the film first; all the necessary detail is there, and even readers with a weak memory of the scenes will find instant refreshment in Gray's descriptive capacity. She's also solid on the symbolism of costuming, locations, and soundtrack. Whatever one's favorite bits, there's meaningful and evocative consideration here of its contribution to the total work of art. Her analysis will be useful for those in the film industry, but it's compact enough to interest critics and historians, and certainly, her style is approachable enough for budding high school film students with little knowledge and big dreams.

  After all, The Graduate unquestionably did for independent filmmakers what The Ramones did for punk bands—it launched a thousand of them. The third section of the book casts a wide net in Gray's examination of this impact. She moves from the film's awards, to its fans, through its references in subsequent works of art with naturally a focus on other movies, to why there has never been a sequel, to what became of each of the film's main collaborators, and ends on an appreciation of the film's place in popular culture as a touchstone overall. It's not only about how Hoffman became famous, and many directors cite the film as an influence. It's about the full and ambivalent weight of The Graduate and how our consideration of it changes as we age. Most of us whooped and hollered for the young couple's escape when we were ourselves fresh-faced graduates. Later, when most of us ended up with a job (possibly in plastics) at middle age, it's easier to catch the whiff of suburban malaise permeating every scene and damping the happy ending we once championed.

  Gray concludes that the movie's "persuasive power lies not in its ideology but rather in the open-ended way it encourages its fans to resist the status quo" (244). She gets it, and it's plain to see by the ease of her prose and the strictness with which she keeps to that bigger mission. The persuasive power of Seduced by Mrs. Robinson lies not in proffering a singular interpretation of its meaning but rather in the open-ended way it encourages readers to give in to the scope of the film's meaningfulness. Not only will this book compel readers to go back to The Graduate—it ought to keep them coming back to any future film books by Beverly Gray.

  Rating:
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  The Making of "The Graduate" | Vanity Fair ›
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  the graduate beverly gray dustin hoffman mike nichols buck henry anne bancroft comedy drama film criticism sean o'steen seduced by mrs. robinson how "the graduate" became the touchstone of a generation

• Shelf-Awareness
  http://shelf-awareness.com/readers-issue.html?issue=666#m11652
  Word count: 295

  educed by Mrs. Robinson: How The Graduate Became the Touchstone of a Generation
  by Beverly Gray

  Was 1967's surprise hit The Graduate a middlebrow male fantasy or a shrewd comical exposé of a culture wrecked by materialism? Was it a purveyor of gratuitous "anti-adult sentiments" or a sympathetic salute to a generation whose parents had left them adrift? When the film--reductively, about a recent college graduate who has an affair with an older married woman--first appeared, not all critics were kind to it. But history has been, and rightly so, according to Beverly Gray's Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How The Graduate Became the Touchstone of a Generation.

  The analysis is split into three chunks, separated by relevant black-and-white photos and reproductions: a look at how The Graduate came to exist, an almost scene-by-scene dissection of the movie and an exploration of its enduring multigenerational appeal. Gray, a film industry veteran and the author of books on directors Ron Howard and Roger Corman, is an especially sharp chronicler of the movie's social context and influence. Among the aftereffects that she notes is what critic J. Hoberman called the "Jew Wave," or the sudden ubiquity of ethnic-looking male leads: before the risky casting of dark, protuberant-nosed, then-unknown Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, leading men were supposed to look like Robert Redford.

  In addition to supplying insights from the movie's key players and some non-marquee-name observers, Gray offers her own reflections, and their inclusion seems justified. As Gray, speaking for her generation, puts it, "The film had in some mysterious, intimate manner become a part of ourselves." --Nell Beram, freelance writer and author

  Discover: Here's to you, Beverly Gray, for your completely baked appraisal of The Graduate.

• Out of the Past
  http://www.outofthepastblog.com/2017/11/graduate-book.html
  Word count: 927

  Friday, November 3, 2017
  Seduced by Mrs. Robinson by Beverly Gray

  Seduced by Mrs. Robinson
  How The Graduate Became the Touchstone of a Generation
  by Beverly Gray
  Algonquin Books
  304 pages
  November 2017

  Amazon - Barnes and Noble - Powells

  No movie studio would touch it. Producer Lawrence Turman had shopped around Charles Webb's quirky novel The Graduate without much success. It wasn't until larger-than-life film promoter and producer Joseph E. Levine decided to finance the project that it moved forward. Turman brought on director Mike Nichols who had just completed Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and the project began to take form. Dustin Hoffman, a relative newcomer, was considered an odd choice. They tried to get Robert Redford on board but he just didn't understand the character. Little did anyone know that Hoffman would be the perfect candidate for the title role and that his character would resonate so profoundly with young people for decades to come.

  "The Graduate lasts party because it has something for everyone: the restless youth; the disappointed elder; the cinephile who values artistic innovation." - Beverly Gray

  The Graduate had everything going against it yet everything going for it at the same time. It triumphed because of many factors. It spoke to a generation that was coming-of-age during the Vietnam War and unsure about their future. The Graduate's Benjamin was their hero; one who was willing to say no to plastics and imagine a different life for himself. Audiences cheered on because he represented themselves. And there was more. Simon & Garfunkel's music, the visual artistry, the performances by the cast, the brilliant work by the screenwriter, director, producer, and the rest of the crew. It all melded together to make one beautiful movie.

  Behind the scenes of The Graduate

  "The turbulent year 1967 turned out to be a high-watermark for new American cinema." - Beverly Gray

  Releasing on the 50th anniversary of the film, author Beverly Gray's new book Seduced by Mrs. Robinson explores every aspect of The Graduate's history from its birth as Charles Webb's novel, to the production of the film and the aftermath of its legacy. Gray did extensive interviews with producer Lawrence Turman and also talked with other important figures in the making of the film including the star Dustin Hoffman and screenwriter Buck Henry. Readers can tell this is a passion project because of how much time and effort has gone into exploring every facets of this very important film. Gray inserts herself in the narrative. As a young woman coming-of-age in Los Angeles, when The Graduate released she was part of that generation that the film resonated so strongly with. The book is not only about the journey of the film but also her journey in discovering it's impact on our culture.

  "This is as close to The Catcher in the Rye as anything I've found." - Mike Nichols

  As someone who reads a lot of film books, it's rare that I find a book so brilliantly written. Gray has a fantastic voice. Her writing style is approachable and as a former story editor for Roger Corman she has a knack for storytelling. Gray offers a lot of interesting insights and information about the film that will give readers a new appreciation for this classic.

  There are lots of nuggets of trivia to be taken away. Doris Day turned down the role because it offended her values. Anne Bancroft was dressed in animal prints and put in jungle-like settings (poolside with tropical plants) to visually convey her character. This was inspired by Nichols' reading of Henry James The Beast in the Jungle. Haskell Wexler lacked the enthusiasm to the film's cinematographer and was replaced by Robert Surtees. And those are just a few bits of information. The book is chock full of them.

  I learned more than I ever needed to know about The Graduate. I was quite shocked to see how big of a deal Dustin Hoffman's appearance was at the time and how everyone made rather rude comments about his nose. I've always thought he was a rather good looking guy. On my first viewing of The Graduate the impact of the story was completely lost on me. Over time I've learned to appreciate it more and Gray's book definitely made me understand the film's importance.

  I have two quibbles with the book. One is that there is absolutely no mention of storyboard artist Harold Michelson who contributed significantly to the visual style of the movie. He's not even listed in the "Roll Credits" section in the backmatter. I know the author disputes just how involved Michelson was in the movie but I was surprised he was skipped over completely. The second is that there is one 60 page section of the book completely devoted to scene-by-scene plot description. I wasn't sure this was necessary. However, this reads fairly quickly and there are some insights and interesting observations embedded that can make it worth your while if you don't mind a refresher of the movie.

  I had the pleasure of meeting Beverly Gray at the 2017 TCM Classic Film Festival. You can watch my interview with her here.

  Thank you to Algonquin Books for sending me a copy of this book for review!

  GIVEAWAY

  UPDATE: Congrats to Sal the winner of the giveaway. Thanks to everyone who participated!

• Hasty Book List
  https://www.hastybooklist.com/home/2017/8/15/seduced-by-mrs-robinson
  Word count: 1338

  Seduced by Mrs. Robinson
  Nonfiction
  Book Review - Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How "The Graduate" Became the Touchstone of a Generation by Beverly Gray
  Reading Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How The Graduate Became the Touchstone of a Generation by Beverly Gray at home

  Reading Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How The Graduate Became the Touchstone of a Generation by Beverly Gray at home

  It's been a LONG time since I've seen The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, and Katharine Ross. So reading Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How "The Graduate" Became the Touchstone of a Generation by Beverly Gray really brought back all the memories of the first time I saw this iconic film. While I was reading the book I felt like I needed to watch the book before reading it and then again after reading it...but it isn't available to watch for free and it isn't available to rent (online)! You can only buy it via iTunes and I wasn't that dedicated to watching the movie again.

  The Graduate was released December 22, 1967 - so we are coming up on its 50th anniversary! This is the perfect time for Beverly Gray's book to come out (which will be available November 7, 2017 - you can pre-order your copy today and be among the first to relive the glory of this film!) This book dives into the lives of each of the three main actors, discusses the producer and the director, the screenwriter, and more. We learn a lot about the behind-the-scenes happenings that came together to create a movie that touches multiple generations.
  Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How "The Graduate" Became the Touchstone of a Generation by Beverly Gray

  Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How "The Graduate" Became the Touchstone of a Generation by Beverly Gray

  There is a lot of talk about Dustin Hoffman not being attractive enough for this role (wha??) I mean A LOT. Apparently Dustin Hoffman didn't feel he had the right looks for the role and he was kinda shy and awkward about it. Looking back (and yes, hindsight is always 20/20) I think we can all agree he made that film. Also, let's talk about Ann Bancroft who, by the way, is only 6 years older than Dustin Hoffman yet, still played the role of "cougar" rather convincingly. And speaking of Cougars, did you notice the use of animal print in Ann Bancroft's wardrobe for this film? Obviously my favorite part of the book was discussing the wardrobe selection and I love the not-so-subtle touches in this film.

  I'm excited for you all to read this book when it comes out in November. I learned so much about the movie, the behind-the-scenes, and how this super unorthodox movie made it into the hearts and homes of the young and young-at-heart back in 1967 and still today.
  Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How "The Graduate" Became the Touchstone of a Generation
  $16.48
  By Beverly Gray

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  book addict, book, book list, book club, bookshelf, book worm, book blogger, book lover, books, book review, book shelf, hastybooklist, reading, reading group, reading list, reading is fun, reader, read, for the love of reading, goodreads
  This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive compensation if you make a purchase using this link. Thank you for supporting this blog and the books I recommend! I may have received a book for free in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.
  Ashley Hasty
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