In the Moment: My Life As an Actor

Ben Gazzara

Perseus Books Group, Sep 29, 2005 - Biography & Autobiography - 312 pages

For the first time, the acclaimed actor Ben Gazzara (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Anatomy of a Murder, Husbands, Saint Jack) shares his intimate account of more than fifty years in film, theater, and television.

The son of Sicilian immigrants, Ben Gazzara began acting at age sixteen in New York City’s Italian American community. Making the improbable leap to the Actor’s Studio in the 1950s, Gazzara learned his craft alongside stars such as Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe, and went on open-calls and auditions with James Dean. But Elia Kazan turned Gazzara into a star when he hand-selected him to originate the role of Brick in the landmark Broadway production of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Gazzara made the jump to Hollywood with Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of Murder, bringing him national stardom. Nevertheless, Gazzara is most celebrated for the innovative movies he made with John Cassavetes — movies that in the 1970s helped launch today’s independent film movement.

In the Moment takes readers behind-the-scenes and onto the movie sets, revealing how movies were created through an intense collaboration between actors and their director. Gazzara’s more recent films continue to shape the independent film tradition for a new generation.

What people are saying

Review: In the Moment: My Life as an Actor

User Review  - Mike - Goodreads

One of the early students and great stage successes from The Actors Studio when Lee Strasberg was in charge. Talked about turning down movie and tv roles to remain thought of as a serious stage actor ...

Review: In the Moment: My Life as an Actor

User Review  - Steve Coscia - Goodreads

Interesting peek into the "art of acting on stage" from someone who started at the bottom as a boy. Among all the books I've read about Hollywood or stage performers, this is the first book in which ...

About the author

Ben Gazzara has acted in more than 70 feature films and in hundreds of television programs. He has received six Emmy nominations, winning in 2003 in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries category for HBO’s Hysterical Blindness. He has acted in the theater for over 50 years, garnering Tony nominations for his roles in Hughie, Duet, and the 1992 revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Gazzara lives in New York City.

Bibliographic information

• Title: In the Moment: My Life As an Actor
• Author: Ben Gazzara
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Perseus Books Group, 2005
• ISBN: 0786715820, 9780786715824
• Length: 312 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Entertainment & Performing Arts; Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs