When Robert Frank had completed his first two films, he accepted a commission for a photo-book from the New York Times, which became Zero Mostel Reads a Book. In it Frank takes the comic actor Zero Mostel (1915–1977) for hissubject, and depicts him in cartoonish dimensions–bemused, baffled and apoplectic, as he makes his way through an unidentified hardback volume, seated at a table or on a sofa in a large lounge area.