Actor and director Sidney Poitier offers his reflections about his autobiographical memoir, "This Life". Poitier explains how he never had ambitions to be an actor and yet he stumbled into acting when looking through the clasisfied ads. There's a story about his agent trying to settle a negotiation on Poitier's behalf. Poitier's agent told the others involved that Poitier was offered a film in Hollywood. Believing it was a cheap ploy, the agent was told to tell Poitier to go onto Hollywood, and the rest is history for Sidney Poitier.

Part 2 of celebrated fim critic Pauline Kael discussing her book "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" as well as Laurence Olivier, Sidney Poitier, safe roles, older actors, distortion of women's contributions, and Lillian Hellman's frustrations.

Part 1 of celebrated fim critic Pauline Kael discussing her book "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" as well as business versus creativity, struggles of young filmmakers, humiliations of older actors competing for limited roles, and limiting movies to fit on television screens.

"Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films is Donald Bogle's study of Black actors and the roles they played in movies. Bogle believed it was important for Black people to see Black heroes in movies. Bogle concluded there were too few roles available for Black actors and too many roles were of stereotypes.