Here’s Looking at You, Kids: Michael Curtiz and His Hidden Families

With her relentless research into the life, work and hidden families of Michael Curtiz, Canadian author Ilona Ryder adds depth of understanding and corrects misconceptions about her grandfather, the director of timeless film classics such as Casablanca, White Christmas, and the Errol Flynn swashbucklers.

You don’t have to be a movie buff or a film scholar to appreciate hitherto unrevealed personal information about the prolific Warner Brothers workhorse. Curtiz kept much of his private life hidden while at the same time  remaining involved, voluntarily and not, with his children and their mothers.

Ilona takes you along on her own journey as she traces Curtiz’s Hungarian family history, his start in the Hungarian film industry and his European and American careers. Main focal points include the immigrant experience, the trials and triumphs of the women who bore his children and shared his life, and the stories of those children. Her own experiences and discoveries are cleverly woven into the fabric of this family drama.

With Here’s Looking at You, Kids, Ilona Ryder successfully demonstrates that the man behind the big silver screen production of his own life was more than a tyrant, a language assassin, a womanizer: he was a man who wanted family as much as he needed to make great films.

What Others Have Said About Here’s Looking at You, Kids by Ilona Ryder

“Ilona Ryder never met her grandfather, the famous film director Michael Curtiz, and her search for him and his legacy is an epic one. Here’s Looking at You, Kids is family memoir at its best.” 

• Caterina Edwards, author of Finding Rosa 

“What emerges from Ryder’s evidence is the portrait of a humane Curtiz that stands in stark contrast to his legendary irascibility towards players and technicians while actually filming. here’s Looking at You, Kids seems likely to prove the final word on Curtiz’s personal life.” 

• Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, reviewed by James Robertson, author of The Casablanca Man 

“If famed Hollywood director Michael Curtiz had married her grandmother Ilona Ryder’s life would probably have been very different. A grandchild’s story straight out of Hollywood.” 

• Chris Zdeb, Edmonton Prime Times 

“Ryder brings the combined sensibilities and skills of detective, memoirist and biographer to this Herculean undertaking. Curtiz is a puzzle wrapped in an enigma and the writer’s careful and compassionate investigation of his professional and personal life and legacy offers much reward for the reader.”

• Jannie Edwards, Edmonton poet, author of Blood Raven, Falling Blues