From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, this is The Treatment.

Welcome to the treatment, which can also hear at KCRW.com.

Dracula, Zorro, Sherlock Holmes, Claire Quilty,

William Sperley, Richard Nixon,

the award-winning actor Frank Langella's play larger-than-life figures.

Many of them, including his chief of staff in the film Dave,

are iconic or have relationships to icon.

He's now an author, and his book,

dropped names, details his interactions with icons Names, Details His Interactions,

icons from Jackie Onises to Norse Church, Noel Coward to Tony Perkins,

Raul Julia to Robert Mitchum, John F. Kennedy to John Gilgood. He's in New York. Frank,

thank you so much for doing this. My pleasure, Elvis. Nice to be with you.

One of the things I want to talk to you about the book is, is it feels in the way,

like it's structured almost as if it could be a one-man show, you know, anecdotes,

you're going from one to another and building to kind of a climax with the Kazan, I feel like.

Well, it'll never be, that's for sure. I loved writing it, but the notion of sitting on a stage in New York with my shoes off,

you know, and telling anecdotes is like, just go by the book.

I couldn't. There's so many great roles to play.

Myself would be the least among them as far as I'm concerned.

What I found fascinating about that is each of these anecdotes, each of these stories

about these icons that you spend time with, does work in its own way as kind of a dramatic

anecdote.

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