Read Mad as Hell: The Making of Network and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies Online
Authors: Dave Itzkoff
the closure of a troubled clothing store and antiques emporium: Jack Martin, “Pity Poor Old Faye: Nobody Wants to Buy Her Antiques,”
New York Post,
Sept. 21, 1979.
“I really like things to be done right … I’m like Joan in that way”: Peter Lester, “Faye Dunaway Surfaces with Sympathy for Joan Crawford Despite a Harrowing Movie Portrayal,”
People,
Oct. 5, 1981.
“Dunaway starts neatly at each corner of the set in every scene”:
Variety
review of
Mommie Dearest
,
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117793196?refcatid=31&printerfriendly=true
.
“These scenes have been in the finished motion picture since it was released”: CP, Box 96, Folder 4.
“I feel almost totally alienated from what’s going on today”: Ronald L. Davis, “Interview with Paddy Chayefsky,” Ronald L. Davis Oral History Collection, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX.
“This one has everything: sex, violence, comedy, thrills, tenderness”: Richard Corliss, “Cinema: Invasion of the Mind Snatcher,”
Time
, Dec. 29, 1980.
“it is at least dependably—even exhilaratingly—bizarre”: Janet Maslin, “Screen: Ken Russell’s ‘Altered States,’”
New York Times
, Dec. 25, 1980.
a historical drama about Alger Hiss: CP, Box 182, Folder 11. The drama would not have included Hiss, who was still alive at the time, due to concerns about defamation of character and invasion of privacy. But Whittaker Chambers would have appeared in the play, as would a fictional lover of Chambers’s, called “Mr. X.”
Some friends said this was not his natural hair: Considine,
Mad as Hell
, pp. 393–95.
On July 4 he was admitted for treatment: CP, Box 166, Folder 12.
“They weren’t delusional or hallucinatory”: Author interview with Dan Chayefsky. Mar. 1, 2013.
“I tried. I really tried”: Considine,
Mad as Hell
, p. 396.
“I once read his palm when I was young”: Author interview with Dan Chayefsky, Mar. 1, 2013.
“Our family has never taken death all that seriously”: CP, Box 182, Folder 8.
Chayefsky’s funeral service was held on August 4: Herbert Mitgang, “Chayefsky Praised for Passion in Exposing Life’s Injustices,”
New York Times,
Aug. 5, 1981.
“Paddy and I had a deal”: Author interview with James L. Brooks, Nov. 9, 2012; and Martin Gottfried,
All His Jazz: The Life and Death of Bob Fosse
(New York: Bantam Books, 1990), pp. 405–6.
“I just hope the world lasts that long”: John Brady, “We Were Writing for Criers, Not for Laughers,”
American Film
, Dec. 1981.
8. It’s All Going to Happen
“There will be soothsayers soon”: Brady,
Craft of the Screenwriter
, p. 69.
“This tube is the most awesome goddam force in the whole godless world!”: Chayefsky,
The Screenplays Vol. II
, p. 183.
“No predictor of the future—not even Orwell”: Author interview with Aaron Sorkin, May 2, 2011.
“Chayefsky’s warning was made to people who knew everything he said was true”: Author interview with Peggy Noonan, Mar. 12, 2013.
“I have seen everything in that movie come true”: Author interview with Keith Olbermann, Nov. 8, 2012.
First came the 1986 maneuvering by the sibling corporate titans: “Business People: Corporate Newsmakers of 1986; Tisch’s Regimen Built Trimmer CBS,”
New York Times
, Dec. 26, 1986.
when CBS fired 215 employees from its news department: Peter J. Boyer, “CBS’s Tisch Responds,”
New York Times
, Mar. 10, 1987.
“thirty million dollars bought you maybe sixty Walter Cronkites”: Author interview with Keith Olbermann, Nov. 8, 2012.
his “urbane small talk” with Samuel Goldwyn, Eva Gabor, and Groucho Marx on
Person to Person
: “Edward R. Murrow, Broadcaster and Ex-Chief of U.S.I.A., Dies,”
New York Times
, Apr. 28, 1965.
“we’ve got to shout these truths in which we believe from the rooftops”: Chris Matthews, “And That’s the Way It Was: ‘Cronkite,’ a Biography by Douglas Brinkley,”
New York Times
, July 6, 2012.
“we are not above climbing over the rubble each week to take an entertainment-size paycheck”: Don Hewitt,
Tell Me a Story: Fifty Years and 60 Minutes in Television
(New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), p. 168.
abolished its long-standing Fairness Doctrine: Robert D. Hershey Jr., “F.C.C. Votes Down Fairness Doctrine in a 4–0 Decision,”
New York Times
, Aug. 5, 1987.
“It was everyone’s basic understanding … that the information business was a
business
”: Author interview with Bill Wolff, Dec. 27, 2012.
“There’s a segment of the viewing population which likes to either have their opinion validated”: Author interview with Anderson Cooper, Nov. 13, 2012. Among broadcast journalists, Anderson Cooper has unique connections to
Network
: his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, was married to Sidney Lumet from 1956 to 1963; the couple dated again briefly after the death of Wyatt Emory Cooper, Anderson Cooper’s father, in 1978. Vanderbilt and Cooper are also cousins of Beatrice Straight.
“If I’m mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, I’m going to say that”: Author interview with Bill O’Reilly, Dec. 12, 2012.
Glenn Beck … has claimed Howard Beale as an influence: Brian Stelter and Bill Carter, “Fox News’s Mad, Apocalyptic, Tearful Rising Star,”
New York Times
, Mar. 29, 2009.
“I thought, wow, none of those stories end well”: Author interview with Stephen Colbert, May 12, 2011.
“it was three white, middle-aged guys saying what the news was”: Author interview with Anderson Cooper, Nov. 13, 2012.
“I don’t know what diversity there is”: Author interview with Gwen Ifill, Dec. 18, 2012.
At the end of 2012, each of the three network programs:
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2012/12/04/world-news-slashes-total-viewing-gap-by-with-nbc-nightly-news-by-double-digits/160248/
.
numbers that the cable competition simply cannot touch:
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/the-top-cable-news-programs-in-november-2012-were_b156891
.
“We ran
Countdown
several times on NBC”: Author interview with Keith Olbermann, Nov. 8, 2012.
“There is still a tremendous appetite for straight, sober information”: Author interview with Bill Wolff, Dec. 27, 2012.
“Chayefsky is chiding the audience”: Author interview with Bill O’Reilly, Dec. 12, 2012.
“He looks like Liberace, in capes and everything”: Author interview with Anderson Cooper, Nov. 13, 2012.
“It wasn’t easy back in the seventies, and it’s certainly not easy now”: Author interview with Oliver Stone, Nov. 19, 2012.
“Could I imagine a great movie getting made today? Yeah”: Author interview with James L. Brooks, Nov. 9, 2012.
“society was still really informed by that perspective on the world”: Author interview with Ben Affleck, Jan. 21, 2013.
“we’re not nearly as important as we think we are”: Author interview with Bill Wolff, Dec. 27, 2012.
“the same award that was given to Paddy Chayefsky thirty-five years ago”: Aaron Sorkin, Academy Awards speech, Feb. 27, 2011,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VP5mFHl_lY
.
“You wish Chayefsky could come back to life long enough to write
The Internet
”: Author interview with Aaron Sorkin, May 2, 2011.
“You can’t build for the future with nice, polite people”: Logan,
Movie Stars, Real People, and Me
, p. 125.
Index
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
ABC
ABC News
Evening News
Academy Awards
Finch and
Network
and
Redgrave and
Action News
Addy, Wesley
Advocate
Affleck, Ben
After the Fall
(Miller)
Alfred, William
Ali, Muhammad
Allen, Irwin
Allen, Jay Presson
Allen, Woody
All the President’s Men
Altered States
Chayefsky novel and
Chayefsky’s disputes with Russell and
screenplay pseudonym and
written
Altman, Robert
Alves, Joe
Americanization of Emily, The
(Chayefsky screenplay)
Amjen Entertainment
Anderson, Maxwell
Anderson Cooper
Anderson Tapes, The
Andrews, Dana
Anti-Defamation League
anti-Semitism
Arafat, Yasir
Argo
Arledge, Roone
Arlen, Michael J.
Ashby, Hal
Ashley, Ted
Assault on Precinct
As Young as You Feel
(Chayefsky screenplay)
Atlantic Monthly
Avildsen, John G.
Bachelor Party, The
(Chayefsky screenplay)
written as teleplay
Bananas
Barnes, Clive
Barrett, Christopher.
See
Finch, Christopher
Bassey, Shirley
Beale, Howard (character)
Bradbury on
Chayefsky on
critics on
Finch on
influence of
Beatty, Ned
Beatty, Warren
Beck, Glenn
Begelman, David
Behn, Noel
Belafonte, Harry
Bellow, Saul
Bergen, Candice
Berle, Milton
Berman, Ingmar
Bernstein, William
Birnbaum, Agnes
Blacks, The
(Genet)
Blossom, Roberts
Bogdanovich, Peter
Bolen, Lin
Bonanza
Bonnie and Clyde
Borgnine, Ernest
Born on the Fourth of July
Born Yesterday
Bradbury, Ray
Brando, Marlon
Brecht, Bertolt
Bridge on the River Kwai, The
Brinkley, David
Broadcast News
Broken Trail
Brooks, James L.
Brooks, Mel
Brown, Blair
Bruce, Lenny
Brynner, Yul
Buckley, William F., Jr.
Buffalo Bill and the Indians
Burghardt, Arthur
Burnett, Carol
Burstyn, Ellen
cable television
Canby, Vincent
Capra, Frank
Carlin, George
Carnegie Deli
Carpenter, John
Carrie
Carson, Johnny
Carter, Jimmy
Castaneda, Carlos
“Catch My Boy on Sunday” (Chayefsky teleplay)
“Catered Affair, The” (Chayefsky teleplay)
CBS
Network
TV debut on
CBS News
Evening News
firings
CFTO-TV (Toronto)
Champ, The
Chancellor, John
Chapin, Kay
Chayefsky, Dan (son)
Chayefsky, Gussie (mother)
Chayefsky, Harry (father)
Chayefsky, Sidney Aaron “Paddy”
Academy Awards and
Academy Awards for
Network
and
Academy Award won by Redgrave and
on alienation
Altered States
and
Americanization of Emily
and
anger and
appearance of
control demanded by
criticisms of
Network
and
Cronkite and
death of
death of Finch and
depression and
drive to make
Network
and
Dunaway and
early life and career of
early TV satire idea of, and
Imposters
film critics awards and
on film industry
film industry of today and
financial problems of
Finch’s portrait of
Finch’s son and
Fosse and
Gideon
and
Goddess
and
Golden Globe Awards and
Gottfried partnership and
Great American Hoax
and
Habakkuk Conspiracy
and
heart attack of
Holden on
Hospital
and
interviews of
Jewish identity and
Latent Heterosexual
and
Lieberman lawsuit vs.
on love
Lumet and
“Mad as hell” speech and
marriage and family life of
Marty
and
NBC TV pitches and
Network
as magnum opus of
Network
as revenge by
Network
cast and director and
Network
contract and
Network
credits and
Network
dialogue written by
Network
novelization and
Network
outline and treatment by
Network
promotion and
Network
rehearsals and
Network
research and
Network
script embargoed by
Network
shooting and
Nixon letter and
office of
“Paddy” nickname and
Paint Your Wagon
and
Passion of Josef D.
and
personality of
Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse
and
press and
price of self-expression and
projects declined by, post-
Network
prophetic nature of
Network
and
Put Them All Together
and
Reds
treatment and