With a career that began in the late 1950s, Joan kept mementos over the course of her entire working life, and Joan Rivers Confidential is a compilation of never-before-seen personal archives. Assembled by her daughter Melissa with Scott Currie, the book contains scripts and monologues, letters from famous friends, exchanges with fans, rare photographs, as well as classic and never-before-heard jokes—many simply scribbled on everything from hotel stationery to airplane boarding passes. Touching on subjects from her 50 years in show business (The Tonight Show, Las Vegas, Elizabeth Taylor, Heidi Abromowitz, the red carpet, and Fashion Police), this is a revelatory and humor-filled insider look at the popular, multitalented comedian.

    Sinister and sexy, it forged a new icon: the tough, independent, take-no-guff dame. Determined, desirable, dangerous when cornered, she could handle trouble -- or deal out some of her own.If you thought these women were something special onscreen, wait till you meet the genuine articles. In "Dark City Dames, acclaimed film historian Eddie Muller profiles six women who made a lasting impression in this cinematic terrain -- from veteran "bad girls" Audrey Totter, Marie Windsor, and Jane Greer to unexpected genre fixtures Evelyn Keyes, Coleen Gray, and Ann Savage. The book surveys the lives of these formidable women during the height of their careers circa 1950, as they balanced love and career, struggled against typecasting, and sought fulfillment in a ruthless business. Their personal stories -- teeming with larger-than-life characters like Howard Hughes, L.B. Mayer, Robert Mitchum, Otto Preminger, and John Huston -- offer an illuminating counterpoint to their movies, such as "Out of the Past, Detour, The Lady in the Lake, and "The Killing. Then "Dark City Dames revisits each one of these women today, fifty years on, to witness their hard-won -- and triumphant -- survival. On every page their own voices ring through, reflecting on their lives with as much passion, pain, intelligence, energy, and humor as any movie script."Dark City Dames re-creates the excitement and glamour of a group of gifted performers who lived out their youthful fantasies -- and, along the way, remade the image of the American woman.

    For one thing, he was blessed with extraordinary talent. Those who played alongside and watched him in the Manchester United youth team in the early 1990s insist he was as good as Ryan Giggs - possibly even better. Giggs, who played on the opposite wing, says he is inclined to agree.Doherty was also an eccentric - by football standards, at least. When his colleagues went to Old Trafford to watch the first team on Saturday afternoons, he preferred to take the bus into Manchester to go busking. He wore second-hand clothes, worshipped Bob Dylan, read about theology and French existentialism and wrote songs and poems. One team-mate says "it was like having Bob Dylan in a No 7 shirt".On his 17th birthday, Doherty was offered a five-year contract - unprecedented for a United youngster at that time - and told by Alex Ferguson that he was destined for stardom. But what followed over the next decade is a tale so mysterious, so shocking, so unusual, so amusing but ultimately so tragic, that you are left wondering how on earth it has been untold for so long.The stories of Doherty's contemporaries, that group of Manchester United youngsters who became known as the "Class of '92", are well known. Giggs ended up as the most decorated player in United's history; David Beckham became the most recognisable footballer on the planet; Gary Neville, Paul Scholes and others are household names. The story you don't know is about the player who, having had the world at his feet, died the day before his 27th birthday following an accident in a canal in Holland.

    

    Holland present a fascinating look at America’s most popular radio host. You’ll discover how the brutal murder of his father shaped Paul Harvey’s life and career; how a high school teacher helped launch him in radio; the truth behind his brief and controversial career in the Air Force; why he was arrested for breaking into a secure research laboratory during the Cold War; why he proposed to his wife, “Angel,” on their very first date—and why it took her a year to say yes; the important role of faith in his life; and how his immeasurable contributions to broadcast history transformed American culture.

    From the pink satin "Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” gown, to the pleated white dress from The Seven Year Itch to the revealing nude sheath worn to sing "Happy Birthday” to JFK, Marilyn created endless unforgettable looks. Before they were household names, she wore Ferragamo pumps, carried Gucci bags and wore the designs of Oleg Cassini, Norman Norell, Emilio Pucci, and Jean Louis. In an era of Peter Pan collars, poodle skirts, and repressed sexuality, Marilyn’s sexy style and ability to spot up-and-coming designers made her a fashion visionary. Marilyn in Fashion traces the evolution of her style, from wholesome sweetness early in her career, to sex kitten looks in the 1950s, to elegant sophistication in the last years of her life. The text details the designers of her ensembles, where she wore them, and their influence on fashion. Behind-the-scenes stories reveal how the star often worked closely with designers to create looks befitting the Marilyn Monroe image. Illustrated with hundreds of rare and never-before-published photos, Marilyn in Fashion fabulously traces the style evolution of the ultimate Hollywood icon.

    Over sixty years later, this novel, which was an immediate bestseller when published in 1942, is still selling. The child of German American parents, Betty Smith was born and raised in the immigrant slums of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Forced to go to work at the age of fourteen, she never graduated from high school, but she achieved success as a playwright and novelist, writing four bestsellers over the course of her career. She married three times, was divorced twice, lived for many years with her lover, attended and taught graduate-level courses, raised two daughters, and supported her family during the Depression. While her writing focused on Brooklyn, she lived and worked for most of her adult life in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This is the first published biography of Betty Smith. Valerie Raleigh Yow has a PhD in history from the University of Wisconsin. She has published two previous academic books and a biography of North Carolina novelist Bernice Kelly Harris (Louisiana State University Press, 1999) and is a psychotherapist in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

    Brando discusses many topics including acting, women, Native Americans and corporate America.

    Relates the life of the secretly gay Hollywood director who guided to stardom such legendary actresses as Garbo, Bergman, Garland, and Hepburn.

    It is fiercely compelling" EDMUND DE WAAL, author of The Hare with the Amber Eyes A poet's memoir of his mother that flows backwards through time, and through a tumultuous period of European history - a tender and yet unsparing autobiographical journey. In July 1975, George Szirtes' mother, Magda, died in an ambulance, on her way to hospital after attempting to take her own life. She was fifty-one years old. This memoir is an attempt to make sense of what came before, to re-construct who Magda Szirtes really was. The Photographer at Sixteen moves from her death, spooling backwards through her years as a mother, through sickness and exile in England, the family's flight from Hungary in 1956, her time in two concentration camps, her girlhood as an ambitious photographer and her vanished family in Transylvania.The woman who emerges, fleetingly, fragmentarily - with her absolutism, her contradictions, her beauty - is utterly captivating. What were the terrors and obsessions that drove her? The Photographer at Sixteen reveals a life that is at Magda Szirtes from the depths of the end to the comparable safety of the photographer's studio where she first appears as a small child. It is a book born of curiosity, guilt and love.

    Yet few have addressed his contribution in the darkest hour of the civil rights movement. Telling the untold story of his historic Boston Garden concert of 1968, The Hardest Working Man also captures the magnificent achievements that made Brown a revolutionary icon of American popular culture. Acclaimed journalist James Sullivan begins his stirring account by depicting the racially charged climate of Boston in the hours after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death. Brown’s concert was slated for cancellation as police geared up for mass retaliation. After Brown butted heads with the mayor, the show was allowed to go on—and his emotional, electric performance was broadcast live on local television. Though rioting erupted in more than a hundred U.S. cities that night, Boston remained quiet. Not only bringing to life that transforming show, James Sullivan also charts Brown’s incredible rise from poverty to self-made millionaire and the pivotal voice behind the signature anthem “Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud,” making The Hardest Working Man a tribute to an unforgettable concert and a rousing biography of a revolutionary musician.

     Born in Paris to American parents in 1881, she suffered a traumatic childhood after her father shot her mother's lover dead. Educated in America, she returned to Europe, where she captivated and inspired some of the greatest literary and artistic names of the Belle Époque. Marcel Proust wrote of her 'I never saw a girl with such beauty, such magnificent intelligence, such goodness and charm.' Berenson considered marrying her, Rodin and Monet befriended her, Boldini painted her and Epstein sculpted her. She inspired love from diverse Dukes and Princes, and the interest of women such as Comtesse Greffulhe and Gertrude Stein.It wasn't until she was 40 that she achieved the wish she had held since the age of 14 to marry the 9th Duke of Marlborough. Divorced from fellow American Consuelo Vanderbilt in 1921 she became his second wife. Now her circle included Lady Ottoline Morrell, Lytton Strachey and Winston Churchill, who described her as 'a strange, glittering being'. But life at Blenheim was not a success. When the Duke evicted her in 1933, the only remaining signs of Gladys were two sphinxes bearing her features on the west terraces and mysterious blue eyes in the grand portico.Gladys became a recluse. The wax injections she'd had to straighten her nose when she was 22 had by now ravaged her beauty. She was to spend her last 15 years in the psycho-geriatric ward of a mental hospital. There she was discovered by a young Hugo Vickers, who visited her for two years - intrigued and compelled to unmask the truth of her mysterious life.In his fascinating and revealing biography, drawing on Gladys's personal archive and his own research all over Europe and America, Hugo Vickers uncovers a beguiling, clever, independent woman who was the brightest star of her age. He once asked her, 'Where is Gladys Deacon?' She answered him slowly: 'Gladys Deacon? ... She never existed.'

    In a span of less than twenty years, her talent graced a dozen classics, including Miracle on 34th Street, The Searchers, Rebel Without a Cause, Splendor in the Grass, West Side Story, and Gypsy, earning her three Oscar nominations and two Golden Globes. Few actresses in Hollywood history have carved out careers as diverse and rich as Natalie Wood's, and few have touched as many hearts in a tragically short lifetime.Natalie Wood: Reflections on a Legendary Life boldly redefines Natalie not by her tragic death, but by her extraordinary life. This is the first family-authorized photographic study of Natalie Wood, and the first book to examine her glamorous film career as well as her private off-screen life as a wife and mother. Highlights include a special section on the making of West Side Story, a foreword by her husband Robert Wagner, a family album with never-before-seen snapshots captioned by daughter Courtney Wagner, an unpublished article written by Natalie in her own words, and an afterword by friend and costar Robert Redford. Natalie Wood: Reflections on a Legendary Life will change the way the world remembers a Hollywood legend.

     There is no big league pitcher who is more respected for his skill than David Cone. In his stellar career Cone has won multiple championships andcountless professional accolades. Along the way, the perennial all-star has had to adjust to five different ballclubs, recover from a career-threatening arm aneurysm, cope with the lofty expectations that are standard for the games highest paid players, and overcome a humbling three-month, eight-game losing streak in the summer of 2000. Cone granted exclusive and unlimited access to baseballs most respected writer Roger Angell of the New Yorker. The result is just what baseball fans everywhere would expect from Angell: an extraordinary inside account of a superstar.

    Like his teammates and rivals, he trained for countless hours, sacrificing his body and potential career for a chance at fleeting glory without fortune or fame. His only goal: to win Nationals and go down in Ultimate history as one of the greatest athletes no one has ever heard of.With humor and raw honesty, Gessner explores what it means to devote one's life to something that many consider ridiculous. Today, Ultimate is played by millions, but in the 1980s, it was an obscure sport with a (mostly) undeserved stoner reputation. Its early heroes were as scrappy as the sport they loved, driven by fierce competition, intense rivalries, epic parties, and the noble ideals of the Spirit of the Game. Ultimate Glory is a portrait of the artist as a young ruffian. Gessner shares the field and his seemingly insane obsession with a cast of closely knit, larger-than-life characters. As his sport grows up, so does he, and eventually he gives up chasing flying discs to pursue a career as a writer. But he never forgets his love for this misunderstood sport and the rare sense of purpose he attained as a member of its priesthood.