ABSTRACT
I am my father’s older son and was also one of his many collaborators, editing some of his books and essays along with coauthoring articles and one book, Hollywood’s America: Social and Political Themes in Motion Pictures (Rothman et al., 1996). As a result, my perspective on his work differs from that of others who have written about him. Others, understandably, see an extraordinarily gifted, ambitious, courageous, and prolific scholar and teacher. Those who became his friends also knew him to be a kind and generous man with a superb sense of humor (one of the greatest tellers of jokes never to work a club). Even those with whom my father disagreed—a rather large number of people—generally treated his work with respect and saw him as a worthy adversary.
