The Big Goodbye Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood

Chinatown is the Holy Grail of 1970s cinema. Here for the first time is the incredible true story of its making. In Sam Wasson's telling, it becomes the defining story of its most colorful characters. Here is Jack Nicholson embarking on his great, doomed love affair with Anjelica Huston. Here is director Roman Polanski, returning to Los Angeles, where the seeds of his own self-destruction are quickly planted. Here too is Robert Towne's fabled script, widely considered the greatest original screenplay ever written. Wasson for the first time peels off layers of myth to provide the true account of its creation. Looming over the story of this classic movie is the imminent eclipse of the '70s filmmaker-friendly studios as they gave way to the corporate Hollywood we know today.

About the Author

Sam Wasson studied film at Wesleyan University and at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He is the author of the bestseller Fifth Avenue, 5A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's and the Dawn of the Modern Woman. He is also the author of the definitive biography of dancer-choreographer-filmmaker Bob Fosse. He currently teaches film at Emerson College in Los Angeles.