Dropped Names: Famous Men and Women As I Knew Them

“This uncommonly eloquent book is enjoyable for the panoply of great names who turn up. . . . A natural raconteur, [Mr. Langella] seems to fit precisely Henry James’s famous description of the novelist as one ‘on whom nothing is lost.’ ” —Charles Isherwood, New York Times

Rita Hayworth dancing by candlelight; Elizabeth Taylor tenderly wrapping him in her Pashmina scarf; streaking for Sir Laurence Olivier in a drafty English castle; terrifying a dozing Jackie Onassis;...