In trying to understand the power of celebrity in modern life, Richard Schickel ranges through every realm of our culture - film, theatre, television, literature, art, the media, pop music, politics - for examples of how celebrity shapes our world and bends our minds. He considers the careers of figures as diverse as John Kennedy and Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe and Dwight Eisenhower, Walter Cronkite and Andy Warhol, among dozens of others. And he reflects on the dangerous, sometimes deadly, political and social consequences of the fascinating, largely unacknowledged relationship between the famous elite and the unfamous majority. In demonstrating how the carefully fostered illusion of intimacy between these two groups has created a devastating confusion between public life and private life, in showing how the play of celebrity symbols has largely replaced the play of ideas in our society, Schickel takes us on a journey to the heart of contemporary darkness - and offers, finally, a chilling warning about the psychopathic consequences of our national obsession with celebrity. " Intimate Strangers is, simply, in my estimation, the single most important book about celebrity." - Neal Gabler. “A fascinating, disturbing book.” ― Library Journal “Cogent...Schickel offers white-hot jeremiad.” ―Melvin Maddocks, Time “ Intimate Strangers is, simply, in my estimation, the single most important book about celebrity.” ―Neal Gabler RICHARD SCHICKEL is a film critic, documentary film-maker and movie historian, who has written over thirty books, among them The Disney Version; D.W. Griffith: An American Life ; Brando: A Life in Our Times ; and a biography of Elia Kazan. His thirty documentaries include Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin ; Woody Allen: A Life in Film ; and Shooting War , which is about combat cameramen in World War II. He has recently completed a documentary about Martin Scorsese and a reconstruction of Samuel Fuller's classic war film, The Big One , was named one of the year's Ten Best Films by the New York Times . He has been reviewing movies for Time since 1972 and writes a monthly column, 'Film on Paper', for the Los Angeles Times Book Review. Used Book in Good Condition