Lights, Camera, Action!

1995 marks the anniversary of 100 years of cinema. This book throws a spotlight on the stars and explains why the cinema has always needed them. It describes the days when Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford were the most famous people on earth, through the Golden Age of Hollywood when stars like Clark Gable and Bette Davie dominated the screens, to today, when a handful of superstars like Arnold Schwarzeneggar and Tom Cruise can demand an up to $15 million a picture. The book uncovers how sex has been a part of films from the earliest times - whether in the fully clothed 1920s, with the smouldering passion of Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, or the more explicit 1990s, with the readiness of sex symbols like Sharon Stone and Sylvester Stallone to reveal all. The book also opens up cinema's box of magic tricks illustrating the work of special-effects pioneers like Ray Harryhausen, and introducing the amazing computer images of Industrial Light and Magic, the company George Lucas founded to produce the special-effects of his "Star Wars" trilogy.