The Joy of Sets: Interviews on the Sets of 1980s Genre Movies

The Joy of Sets by Lee Goldberg

Go back in time to the 1980s, and visit the sets of movies like Back to the Future, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and A View To a Kill, where young journalist Lee Goldberg, years before he was a #1 New York Times bestselling author (Lost Hills, True Fiction, etc) and TV writer/producer (MonkDiagnosis Murder, SeaQuest, etc.), interviewed Michael J. Fox, William Friedkin, Wes Craven, Chevy Chase, Robert Zemeckis, Roger Moore, and many other actors, directors, producers and screenwriters.

These informative, fascinating, and trivia-packed interviews offer a revealing look at film-making in the 1980s, while also exploring the long careers of established talents like Kurt Russell and director Fred Schepsi at the top of their game… and introducing newcomers like Johnny Depp and director W.D. Richter, some of whom went on to greatness, and others who disappeared into obscurity.

Lee Goldberg put himself through college by writing freelance articles, primarily about movies, TV and publishing, for publications like Starlog, American FilmCinefantastique, and the San Francisco Chronicle. He didn’t do it just to pay his tuition and support himself… he also saw it as a way to get a graduate school education in all aspects of the entertainment industry… learning lessons he’s still benefiting from today.

The James Bond Films 1962-1989: Interviews with the Actors, Writers and Producers

The inside story on the James Bond movies…from the people who made them.

In the 1980s, long before Lee Goldberg became a #1 New York Times bestselling author and successful TV writer/producer, he paid his UCLA tuition by working as a freelance journalist covering the entertainment industry. His first, big interview was with one of his idols, screenwriter Richard Maibaum, who wrote most of the James Bond movies. That lengthy, controversial, and award-winning interview, first published in the UCLA Daily Bruin and later reprinted in Starlog Magazine, was the beginning of Lee’s extensive 007 coverage.

Over the next few years, his Bond-related interviews for Starlog and other publications included actors Barry Nelson (the first man to play James Bond in TV’s Casino Royale), George Lazenby (the one-time Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton, screenwriters Tom Mankiewicz, Michael Wilson and Lorenzo Semple Jr., and directors John Glen and Peter Hunt. Those interviews and more, quoted for decades in reference books about the Bond films, are now collected for the first time, in their original form, in this entertaining, and unique volume.

This book, the first in a series of Goldberg’s collected Hollywood journalism, isn’t an exhaustive, detailed examination of the Bond films. Instead it’s an intriguing snapshot of filmmaking in the 1980s, a revealing look at the creation of the Bond films…and perhaps also offers a glimpse into Goldberg’s formative years as a writer, and how the lessons learned from his interviews may have shaped his own career as an acclaimed novelist and screenwriter.

“Goldberg’s book is quite a time capsule for James Bond fans, offering glimpses at select films through major creative talents. What it’s not is a front-to-back narrative, so don’t expect that; do expect a little repetition, necessary for piece-by-piece context — these are reprints, after all. Being a sucker for the 007 movies, I regularly buy books about them … only to usually emerge disappointed. That’s not the case with The James Bond Films 1962-1989, thanks to Goldberg’s access, insight and skill, approaching the work as one should: a writer first, a fan second.” —Rod Lott, Flick Attack