Wings and Other Recollections of Early Hollywood: Narrated by Richard Arlen to Maxine Koolish and Edited by Judy Watson - Softcover

Film buffs will be thrilled by this memoir of Hollywood movie star Richard Arlen as told to Maxine Koolish and edited by her daughter, Judy Watson.

The silent World War I film, Wings, set the standard for aviation movies with its realistic sequences and was the first-ever winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture. Arlen played a starring role in this enduring classic and in the Western talkie, The Virginian, another film that forever changed the way movies would be made. Having been center stage during the golden age of film, Dick Arlen provides an unparalleled look inside the world of Hollywood filmmaking in this fascinating book.

“Wings” and Other Recollections of Early Hollywood is based on the collection of photographs, books, letters, manuscripts, tapes, and diaries discovered by Judy Watson among her mother’s things after she died. Maxine Koolish had been by Dick’s side during the thirteen years leading up to his death in 1976. A born chronicler and storyteller, Maxine served as the aging matinee idol’s biographer.

Now, you can share in the exciting experience of film history in the making!

Born in Chicago, Judy Watson has always lived in the realm of creativity and the arts. She studied writing at Arizona State University, and she has written short stories and presented a small narrative history. Her brother was an illustrator in film and TV, and her husband was an award-winning TV cameraman. Her son is presently a writer and executive producer at DreamWorks, while her daughter is a gifted artist and photographer who worked for years in animation.

When her mother left hidden photographs, books, letters, manuscripts, tapes, and diaries to Watson, she knew she needed to make this compelling firsthand look inside the golden age of Hollywood available to the public.

Watson has three grandchildren and currently lives with her two dogs and three cats in Westlake Village, California, where she has been for the past forty-seven years. “Wings” and Other Recollections of Early Hollywood is her first book.