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    Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman
    Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman
    Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman
    Audiobook5 hours

    Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman

    Written by Sam Wasson

    Narrated by Grover Gardner

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Audrey Hepburn is an icon like no other, yet the image many of us have of Audrey—dainty, immaculate—is anything but true to life. Here, for the first time, Sam Wasson presents the woman behind the little black dress that rocked the nation in 1961. The first complete account of the making of Breakfast at Tiffany's, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. reveals little-known facts about the cinema classic: Truman Capote desperately wanted Marilyn Monroe for the leading role; director Blake Edwards filmed multiple endings; Hepburn herself felt very conflicted about balancing the roles of mother and movie star. With a colorful cast of characters including Truman Capote, Edith Head, Givenchy, ""Moon River"" composer Henry Mancini, and, of course, Hepburn herself, Wasson immerses us in the America of the late fifties before Woodstock and birth control, when a not-so-virginal girl by the name of Holly Golightly raised eyebrows across the country, changing fashion, film, and sex for good. Indeed, cultural touchstones like Sex and the City owe a debt of gratitude to Breakfast at Tiffany's.

    In this meticulously researched gem of a book, Wasson delivers us from the penthouses of the Upper East Side to the pools of Beverly Hills, presenting Breakfast at Tiffany's as we have never seen it before—through the eyes of those who made it. Written with delicious prose and considerable wit, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. shines new light on a beloved film and its incomparable star.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJun 26, 2012
    ISBN9780062217271
    Author

    Sam Wasson

    Sam Wasson is the author of seven books on film, including the New York Times bestsellers Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the Dawn of the Modern American Woman; The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood; and Fosse. With Jeanine Basinger, he is the coauthor of Hollywood: The Oral History. He lives in Los Angeles.

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    Reviews for Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.

    4/5

    54 ratings16 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Amazing!!! Learned many new things. The narrator was great and easy to listen to.
    • 4/5
      Really interesting background of a classic.
    • 1/5
      Not nearly as informative, thoughtful or interesting as hoped. Take a pass. I've seen newspaper articles deeper than this.
    • 4/5
      Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M., by Sam Wasson, is a little book with a lot to say.The title tells you where and when shooting began on a silly-yet-pivital romantic comedy — the movie version of Breakfast at Tiffany's — and the book proceeds to put the whole production into the context of its time. Think late-fifties, early sixties. The world was different then. I had forgotten how different.What really interested me, though, was seeing how a story can be reimagined, and why this one had to be.First of all, if you've never read Breakfast at Tiffany's, do it now. Go ahead. Go. The rest of this can wait and I don't want to spoil anything for you ...It's stunning, don't you think, just how good Capote's comic tragedy really is. I just read it again and was astonished once more by how much feeling he was able to pack in so few pages. But the novella — even though it provides most of the dialogue in the film and shows more than it tells — was not well suited for the screen. Not at the time.In Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M., we learn that screenwriter George Axelrod struggled with the adaptation and nearly dispaired. This wasn't the typical Hollywood romance where Rock Hudson tries to bed Doris Day and she holds him off until they're married.The central character, Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn in the movie) is a Manhatten partygirl living off the largess of rich old men. Virginity isn't an issue.That was good because, we're told, Axelrod had been itching to do a truly adult comedy. It was bad because he had the Motion Picture Production Code to worry about.I watched the movie again last night and, while far from perfect, it is fascinating in its own right. Holly comes across as innocent compared to Paul, the male lead, who Axelrod reimagined as not just a struggling writer (as in the book) but one who prostitutes himself to a rich, older, married woman who leaves cash on the dresser when she leaves in the morning.That was OK with Holly and with the censors and it all ends happily.What I'd really like to see is a remake by the Coen Brothers.
    • 4/5
      Quick read. It gives interesting insights into the filming of a much-beloved movie, and I'll be interested to watch the movie now that I have a bit of that background information. Favourite part was when the author spoke about how the movie scene in the film was shot.
    • 4/5
      This was a nice, light read that gives interesting details about the background of Truman Capote and the making of Breakfast at Tiffany's.Audrey Hepburn is one of my favorite actresses and I find it interesting that she kept trying to make Holly a little less scandalous and a little more like Audrey herself. When I think of Holly, I always thought of the fashion and how regal she looks. The one thing that I've never thought about is how independent she is and how she struck out of the idea of what a woman can be and do.If you are a fan of Audrey or the movie, pick up this book.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book, especially Wasson's writing style. This book could have easily gone either too expose, but Wasson weaves episodes surrounding the conception of the film, the careers of the people involved, and the effects the book had into a vivid story that makes for a very enjoyable and easy read. I also liked the feminism that he brings out in Hepburn's transformation from the princess good girl to the sophisticated actress, and the change Holly golightly had on American women.Snack Lit rating: trail mix
    • 4/5
      Great book on the making of the movie, Breakfast at Tiffany's. Very fast read.
    • 4/5
      As breakfast at Tiffany's is one of my favorite movies, and as Audrey Hepburn is still the classiest actress there ever was, I enjoyed the book and the insights. But reader be warned, you have to have seen the movie to really enjoy the book.
    • 4/5
      Commensurate to the movie, not the book, this is a delightful if superficial account of how Breakfast at Tiffany's came into being. The film may very well have ended up as an airhead comedy "Follow that Blonde". Fortunately for Truman Capote's blood pressure, it didn't, thanks largely to the almost accidental combination of wide-ranging talents. The supporting arts (Givenchy, Tiffany's, Mancini) to its central star in Breakfast at Tiffany's contribute mightily to its magic.Naturally, Hollywood turned Truman Capote's ambivalently bleak story into an elegant comedy that mostly airbrushed out the 1950s seedy elements of rural poverty, prostitution and organized crime. It also diverted Capote's signals of a homosexual narrator into a romantic interest. Wasson too brushes over these elements (if I remember correctly, I read in a Walt Whitman biography that then five to ten percent of female New Yorkers worked as prostitutes). He also sidetracks the one glaring misstep of the film, Mickey Rooney's blatant racist portrayal of Holly's Japanese neighbor. After this entrée or amuse-bouche account, perhaps another writer will produce a meatier treatment, this time including parts about Fifth Avenue, the then-New York party scene as well as the historic era of both the movie and the film.
    • 4/5
      Like Truman Capote himself, Wasson finds just the right mix of gossipy Old Hollywood tidbits, haute couture details, and serious drama and cultural analysis. And he puts it all together seamlessly with the style and grace that "Breakfast at Tiffany's" deserves. A great, fun summer read.
    • 2/5
      One of my favorite movies and I know little to nothing about it other than no wanted George Peppard to play Paul. Which makes me sad since I love Hannibal.
      Overall the book was interesting and kept things simple, maybe too simple. I found the writing to be more conjecture and rehashes of other interviews and sources. Not to say there was no research, quite a bit but I don't feel the author did any new digging. So so but it makes want to read the other books.
    • 5/5
      Fifth Avenue, 5 am, is a great little biography of the film Breakfast at Tiffany's. It's short but intriguing, and has such a charming, casual style of narration that it's impossible not to be drawn in. Even if you're not a fan of the film (I have no great love for it, in fact) it's a good peek at that specific era of history - Americana on the cusp of the modern age.
    • 3/5
      This was a good read, but not a great read - it was so highly rated that it ended up in my queue and then picked it up when it was on sale. Perhaps if I had been more interested in Breakfast at Tiffany's I would have appreciated it more. It was a quick read, well researched.
    • 3/5
      The style - titled short sections of a few paragraphs - took a bit of getting used to, but the book seemed well-researched and was really interesting. I enjoyed the way the notes in the back were structured; rather than just listing sources, the author gave a bit of explanation for each.
    • 3/5
      This is one of the fastest reads I have done in a long time and I found it very interesting. I was glad to see that having read the novel I was not wrong in my assumptions of about the real activities of the central characters. ( I find it amusing that people still do not realise the true nature of Holly Golightlys profession as it is quite clear if you read the book. ) As a fan of the film I found the story of how it came to be made interesting and cannot honestly think that the original casting choices would have been any good in the roles.
      I found the information on the hollywood machinations over the making of the film really interesting. And it was not until I read this book that I realised just why the 'little black dress' was such a daring choice for Holly to wear.
      Sam Wessons writing about the film as social commentry of the time was interesting and although the book was not a weighty 'worthy' film book i found it a very interesting and satisfying read.