New book offers inside look into Hollywood's Golden Age

NEW YORK (WABC) -- It's considered the golden age of Hollywood, when stars like Katharine Hepburn, Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Stewart drew audiences to the movies.

Now, we're getting an insider's look through a new book. And few are better qualified to give us inside information than its authors, who spent decades making documentaries. And like the stars they interviewed, their work has stood the test of time.

Icon may be a word thrown around too often, but it surely applies to those who came before their cameras.

"The timing was perfect," director David Heeley said. "These people were still around. They were still able to tell their story, and nobody else was doing it."

And Heeley and producer Joan Kramer have earned the right to call their book "In the Company of Legends."

"They were willing to show us the real person, the real people," Kramer said. "That they weren't just icons."

On the pages, the great movie stars come to life.

"Lauren Bacall was a really nice person once you got past her anxieties," Kramer said. "And she covered those anxieties by being very difficult."

Kramer had a knack for getting reluctant stars like Sinatra to talk.

"There was an aura, we felt, of a bit of danger," Kramer said.

Their 1985 program about Spencer Tracy for PBS was hosted by Hepburn, the love of his life.

"You think of words like integrity when you think of Katharine Hepburn," Heeley said. "That was her image, but that was the real person."