Bruce Davis, say the notices, is finally ready to publish his monumental history of Hollywood’s film Academy. Twelve years in the making; part memoir, part chronicle; the book—The Academy and the Award: The Coming of Age of Oscar and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—is due this fall from Brandeis University Press.
A former executive director of the Academy, Davis has been wading through hitherto private files since his retirement in 2011.
Order now. Galleys are available to the media on request.But if only he had waited a little longer. There seems to be another chapter brewing, and it should be a good one.Though I’ve never known Davis especially well—in my experience, he isn’t the type to waste time on idle gossip with reporters—our occasional dealings were always a delight.
He is smart, thoughtful, direct and generally inclined to answer questions thoroughly when he answers at all. Once, my Los Angeles Times colleague Jim Bates and I dropped in to ask Davis what the Academy planned to do with a $100 million-plus nest egg we had spotted on its balance sheet.
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