Here's Looking at You, Kids!

With her relentless research into the life, work and hidden families of Michael Curtiz, Canadian author Ilona Ryder adds depth of understanding and corrects misconceptions about her grandfather, the director of timeless film classics such as Casablanca, White Christmas, and the Errol Flynn swashbucklers. You don't have to be a movie buff or a film scholar to appreciate hitherto unrevealed personal information about the prolific Warner Brothers workhorse. Curtiz kept much of his private life hidden while at the same time remaining involved, voluntarily and not, with his children and their mothers. Ilona takes you along on her own journey as she traces Curtiz's Hungarian family history, his start in the Hungarian film industry and his European and American careers. Main focal points include the immigrant experience, the trials and triumphs of the women who bore his children and shared his life, and the stories of those children. Her own experiences and discoveries are cleverly woven into the fabric of this family drama. With Here's Looking at You, Kids, Ilona Ryder successfully demonstrates that the man behind the big silver screen production of his own life was more than a tyrant, a language assassin, a womanizer: he was a man who wanted family as much as he needed to make great films.