Celluloid Heroes
AUTHOR Arnie Bernstein managed to tie together Chicago, the movie industry and direct marketing in his recently published “Hollywood on Lake Michigan.”
Bernstein is no stranger to DM. As a public relations rep for Prairie State College in Chicago Heights, IL, his responsibilities include writing direct marketing pieces for the school’s programs and functions.
The book-part travelogue, city guide and film history-features interviews with several noted Chicagoans, including oral historian Studs Terkel, critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, actor Dennis Franz, and Second City alumni Denise DeClue, Tim Kazurinsky and Harold Ramis. We’re especially proud to note there’s a section devoted to legendary copywriter and DIRECT columnist Herschell Gordon Lewis, who in the ’60s and ’70s directed a series of films (“Blood Feast,” “2,000 Maniacs,” “The Gore-Gore Girls” and others) that earned him the title “The Godfather of Gore” among cult movie fans.
Also highlighted are Chicago sites famous in their own right, such as the Billy Goat Tavern (noted as the inspiration for John Belushi’s “Cheezboorga! Cheezboorga!” sketch) and the Biograph Theater, in front of which bank robber John Dillinger was gunned down in 1934. Of course, there are those sites that played prominent roles in movies, such as the Wrigley Building, from whose clock tower Harold Lloyd dangled in 1923’s “Safety Last.” And any movie centered around reporters or newspapers based in Chicago-such as “I Love Trouble” (1994), “Straight Talk” (1992) and “Continental Divide” (1981)-likely features the Sun-Times Building.
“Hollywood on Lake Michigan” is available from Chicago’s Lake Claremont Press.-RHL
