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Action!: A Novel
What do you do when your oldest friend, Steve McQueen, pulls out his Smith & Wesson and blows your defenseless dining-room chair to smithereens? Or when your hottest client, sex goddess Romy Schneider, demands you leave your wife for her? Those are just a couple of the dilemmas faced by AJ Jastrow, the fictional protagonist of Action! , Robert Cort’s page-turning saga about a legendary Hollywood family.
When we first meet AJ in 1948, a few weeks shy of his thirteenth birthday, he ranks as minor Hollywood royalty—Dad is the movie industry’s most prominent attorney, Mom is a retired actress whose uncle is Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount. But this year will prove to be the end of the movie industry’s Golden Age and the beginning of exile for the Jastrow family.
When AJ returns to Tinseltown after a decade’s absence, he realizes that fulfilling his father’s legacy of creating a movie empire will prove a life’s work. Along the way, AJ’s soldiers-in-arms include the Machiavellian producer Ray Stark, who teaches him how to win at Monopoly and studio politics; Wall Street genius Charlie Bluhdorn, who coaxes AJ to fly under the radar on a secret mission; AJ’s wife, Stephanie, who reminds him that a conscience isn’t a luxury; and his daughter and protégée, Jessica, who refuses to leave his side despite irresistible temptation.
His enemies are studio president Paul Herzog, who seeks to destroy the son as he did the father; the wily agent Mike Ovitz, who intuits the weaknesses of any rival; AJ’s mother, Hollywood’s wealthiest woman, who cannot abide disloyalty; and AJ’s son, Ricky, an actor of uncommon ability, who holds a devastating grudge against his dad.
By blending and transforming fact into fiction, by introducing real characters to fictional ones, Robert Cort gives the reader an inside account of Hollywood’s path (and drift) from the end of World War II to the present. And utilizing his insider’s knowledge, gained as one of the town’s premier producers, he provides an intimate chronicle of how movies are really made, how producers work, and how the industry has evolved, often at the cost of its collective soul. Provocative and vastly entertaining, Action! is popular fiction at its best, a story that is both enlightening and great fun to read.
When we first meet AJ in 1948, a few weeks shy of his thirteenth birthday, he ranks as minor Hollywood royalty—Dad is the movie industry’s most prominent attorney, Mom is a retired actress whose uncle is Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount. But this year will prove to be the end of the movie industry’s Golden Age and the beginning of exile for the Jastrow family.
When AJ returns to Tinseltown after a decade’s absence, he realizes that fulfilling his father’s legacy of creating a movie empire will prove a life’s work. Along the way, AJ’s soldiers-in-arms include the Machiavellian producer Ray Stark, who teaches him how to win at Monopoly and studio politics; Wall Street genius Charlie Bluhdorn, who coaxes AJ to fly under the radar on a secret mission; AJ’s wife, Stephanie, who reminds him that a conscience isn’t a luxury; and his daughter and protégée, Jessica, who refuses to leave his side despite irresistible temptation.
His enemies are studio president Paul Herzog, who seeks to destroy the son as he did the father; the wily agent Mike Ovitz, who intuits the weaknesses of any rival; AJ’s mother, Hollywood’s wealthiest woman, who cannot abide disloyalty; and AJ’s son, Ricky, an actor of uncommon ability, who holds a devastating grudge against his dad.
By blending and transforming fact into fiction, by introducing real characters to fictional ones, Robert Cort gives the reader an inside account of Hollywood’s path (and drift) from the end of World War II to the present. And utilizing his insider’s knowledge, gained as one of the town’s premier producers, he provides an intimate chronicle of how movies are really made, how producers work, and how the industry has evolved, often at the cost of its collective soul. Provocative and vastly entertaining, Action! is popular fiction at its best, a story that is both enlightening and great fun to read.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
2 people are currently reading
19 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 21, 2015
I was so excited to read this book. I've been a huge fan of Robert Cort and his movies for years.
What I liked:
- the real-life stars, executives and directors appearing as themselves in this story
- gritty details of the history of the movie industry
- AJ, the character
- the ending
What I hated:
- Ricky/Richard (AJ's son)'s whiny personality and his pettiness towards his dad
- it got long-winded about 2/3 of the way through
For the first half of the book, it was a 5 star book. I was captivated by the story-line and the characters. But in the last third of the book, I hated it. Nothing seemed to go right for AJ and Ricky was a prick I hated with a fiery passion. It quickly turned into a -10. I was very disappointed.
If you want to read a book on how the movie industry operated from the 1950's through the 1990's, pick up this book.
What I liked:
- the real-life stars, executives and directors appearing as themselves in this story
- gritty details of the history of the movie industry
- AJ, the character
- the ending
What I hated:
- Ricky/Richard (AJ's son)'s whiny personality and his pettiness towards his dad
- it got long-winded about 2/3 of the way through
For the first half of the book, it was a 5 star book. I was captivated by the story-line and the characters. But in the last third of the book, I hated it. Nothing seemed to go right for AJ and Ricky was a prick I hated with a fiery passion. It quickly turned into a -10. I was very disappointed.
If you want to read a book on how the movie industry operated from the 1950's through the 1990's, pick up this book.
January 29, 2017
Written with an insider's knowledge this is a smart and engrossing inter-generational family drama with a cutthroat Hollywood movie business backdrop. It's a fascinating insight into movie business power politics with many a scabrous tale of real life movie characters cleverly interweaved with their fictional counterparts.
October 30, 2017
If you are a Hollywood movie buff, or a interested in the history of the movie biz during the last half of the 20th century, you'll enjoy this book. I'm neither, although I enjoy a good film as much as the next guy.
I felt the story was a little too "name-droppy"-- real actors, directors, producers, etc., included in the story more for their marquee value than anything else.
No particular era is studied in depth, so it doesn't replace a good historical work about the movie industry, but for those who are well-versed in movie lore, this might be a fun trip down memory lane.
I found it a bit confusing, not being sure of who/what was real or made up, so I always felt like I was either missing something or behind the curve.
Not a gripping page turner, more a saga of one family that flourished over three generations in Hollywood. A qualified yes, but only if you're a big time movie buff and like to read everything written about Hollywood.
I felt the story was a little too "name-droppy"-- real actors, directors, producers, etc., included in the story more for their marquee value than anything else.
No particular era is studied in depth, so it doesn't replace a good historical work about the movie industry, but for those who are well-versed in movie lore, this might be a fun trip down memory lane.
I found it a bit confusing, not being sure of who/what was real or made up, so I always felt like I was either missing something or behind the curve.
Not a gripping page turner, more a saga of one family that flourished over three generations in Hollywood. A qualified yes, but only if you're a big time movie buff and like to read everything written about Hollywood.
May 18, 2007
I was going into an interview with the author, so I figured I would read his book first. It actually ended up being a really interesting look at the history of hollywood through the eyes of a fictional hollywood power family.
Every section is a year during a different decade. It starts with the father and how he was working in film right when TV was coming out. Then it skips ahead to his son and the son's family in Hollywood up to the present day. They do everything - even make a fictional movie about Lincoln with Michael Douglas as the star. All around them are real hollywood legends that you personally get to know. You also get to put in context the advancement of technology and how it has affected the film industry over time and what should have been learned from it.
Though it can start slow - hang in there because it gets really good.
Every section is a year during a different decade. It starts with the father and how he was working in film right when TV was coming out. Then it skips ahead to his son and the son's family in Hollywood up to the present day. They do everything - even make a fictional movie about Lincoln with Michael Douglas as the star. All around them are real hollywood legends that you personally get to know. You also get to put in context the advancement of technology and how it has affected the film industry over time and what should have been learned from it.
Though it can start slow - hang in there because it gets really good.
October 7, 2007
Well I should preface this by saying that I only read the first 2 chapters of this book. I realized in reading those chapters that even though i like movies i do not like to read about the movie business. It appears that a lot of this book is about the biz which i'm not interested in. So the reason for the 1 star is just because it's just not my topic of interest..
November 13, 2010
I could not really get into this book. I read the first couple of chapter and was not interested enough to keep going.
Read
March 5, 2012Fun stuff.
November 25, 2013
I kept trying to like this, but it's a terrible writing style.
July 15, 2016
Interesting take on making movies in Hollywood, but overall not much else. I had this as an audiobook and it was ok to listen to while walking and working out.
October 4, 2011
I was rather disappointed.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews