Stanley and Me

A biography penned by the director’s Man Friday, what we’d call today a personal assistant, I guess. Before taking on that job, Emilio D’Alessandro was a down and out taxi driver who just happened upon the famous director one day when Kubrick was tired of dealing with the regular crew of drivers he had. He asked D’Alessandro if he could be his driver full time. From then on, duties continually increased along with being close to the director, who had very few friends in the film business and mostly kept to his home life. Emilio had a front row seat to the inner workings of some of Kubrick’s finest works. We learn, surprisingly, that Kubrick didn’t much like Paths of Glory. That, despite meeting his wife on the set (Christiane Susanne), who was the actress singing to the troops in the final scene of the movie.

Eventually Emilio became so entwined and Kubrick so co-dependent with Emilio that the director had Emilio and his wife move in with him.

D’Allessandro sets the record straight about Kubrick’s supposed aloofness: instead Kubrick was a kind-hearted guy who opened his home and made an enormous difference in the life of a simple taxi driver. This is not a book that dwells on the movies. It is the story of a friendship between two guys who met by chance and went on to count on each other for a lifetime until Kubrick finally dies, ending a lifetime of artistry and going out mostly misunderstood except to his family. And Emilio.