Why Me? First, Account for Me
Adventures in the Music and Film Trade
Published on 30. April 2026
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-1-917458-94-8 (ISBN)
Description
Why Me? First, Account for Me, are the memoirs of famed film director Tony Palmer. His vast filmography of over one hundred films ranges from early works with The Beatles, Cream, Rory Gallagher, Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa, to the famous portraits with and about Walton, Britten, Stravinsky, Maria Callas, Andre Previn, John Osborne, Leonard Cohen, Margot Fonteyn, Renee Fleming and Menuhin. His 7 hour 45 minutes film on Wagner, starring Richard Burton, Laurence Olivier and Vanessa Redgrave, was described by the Los Angeles Times as "one of the most beautiful films ever made".
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
468 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-917458-94-8 (9781917458948)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Tony Palmer is a British film director, writer, and critic renowned for over 100 films on music and culture. Educated at Lowestoft Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge, he began at the BBC's Monitor alongside Ken Russell. His pioneering documentaries range from All My Loving (1968), capturing the rock revolution, to portraits of Leonard Cohen, Frank Zappa, Maria Callas, Britten, Wagner, and Shostakovich. Blending performance, history, and politics, Palmer's films reveal music as a mirror of society. Winner of more than 40 international prizes, he remains a defining figure in cultural documentary filmmaking.