Book picks similar to
Uncommon Knowledge by Judy Lewis


biography
non-fiction
memoir
old-hollywood

Enchantment: The Life of Audrey Hepburn


Donald Spoto - 2006
    Over the course of her extraordinary life and career, Audrey Hepburn captured hearts around the world and created a public image that stands as one of the most recognizable and beloved in recent memory. But despite her international fame and her tireless efforts on behalf of UNICEF, Audrey was also known for her intense privacy. With unprecedented access to studio archives, friends and colleagues who knew and loved Audrey, bestselling author Donald Spoto provides an intimate and moving account of this beautiful, elusive and talented woman. Tracing her astonishing rise to stardom, from her harrowing childhood in Nazi-controlled Holland during World War II to her years as a struggling ballet dancer in London and her Tony Award-winning Broadway debut in "Gigi," Spoto illuminates the origins of Audrey's tenacious spirit and fiercely passionate nature. She would go on to star in some of the most popular movies of the twentieth century, including" Roman Holiday," "Sabrina," "Funny Face," " The Nun's Story," "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "My Fair Lady." A friend and inspiration to renowned designer Hubert de Givenchy, Audrey emerged as a fashion icon as well as a film legend, her influence on women's fashion virtually unparalleled to this day. But behind the glamorous public persona, Audrey Hepburn was both a different and a deeper person and a woman who craved love and affection. Donald Spoto offers remarkable insights into her professional and personal relationships with her two husbands, and with celebrities such as Gregory Peck, William Holden, Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper, Robert Anderson, Cary Grant, Peter O'Toole, Albert Finney and Ben Gazzara. The turbulent romances of her youth, her profound sympathy for the plight of hungry children, and the thrills and terrors of motherhood prepared Audrey for the final chapter in her life, as she devoted herself entirely to the charity efforts of an organization that had once come to her rescue at the end of the war: UNICEF. Donald Spoto has written a poignant, funny and deeply moving biography of an unforgettable woman. At last, "Enchantment" reveals the private Audrey Hepburn--and invites readers to fall in love with her all over again. "She was as funny as she was beautiful. She was a magical combination of high chic and high spirits." --Gregory Peck "In spite of her fragile appearance, she's like steel." --Cary Grant "Audrey was known for something which has disappeared, and that is elegance, grace and manners . . . God kissed her on the cheek, and there she was." --Billy Wilder "There is not a woman alive who does not dream of looking like Audrey Hepburn." --Hubert de Givenchy "Her magnetism was so extraordinary that everyone wanted to be close to her. It was as if she placed a glass barrier between herself and the world. You couldn't get behind it easily. It made her remarkably attractive." --Stanley Donen "She has authentic charm. Most people simply have nice manners." --Alfred Lunt

Me: Stories of My Life


Katharine Hepburn - 1991
    Now Miss Hepburn breaks her long-kept silence about her private life in this absorbing and provocative memoir.A NEW YORK TIMES Notable Book of the YearA Book-of-the-Month-Club Main Selection

As I Am


Patricia Neal - 1988
    Her long-awaited autobiography casts Neal in her greatest role--as the indomitable heroine of her own incredible real-life story.

Doris Day: Her Own Story


A.E. Hotchner - 1975
    This unusual collaboration in the form of an autobiography brings together a highly skilled professional writer and the film superstar who never enjoyed being thought of as Miss Goody Two-shoes. For the first time, Doris Day tells the story behind the headlines of her private life- three marriages, real and rumored affairs, and professional triumphs countered by personal tragedies. At thirteen Doris was in a car hit by a train, and for a while she expected to be crippled for life. At sixteen she was earning her living on the road signing with bands. At seventeen she married a man who turned out to be a psychopathic sadist. She talks of many other things she never told anyone before, and her book is as compelling as it is honest. Mr. Hotchner, the author of Papa Hemingway: A Personal Memoir, has enriched her story with candid interviews with her son, Terry Melcher; her mother, her friends, and many of the people she has worked with including Bob Hope, James Garner, and Jack Lemmon. In this perceptive book, "the girl next door" turns out to be an inspiring woman of unique courage and strength.

Mary Pickford: America's Sweetheart


Scott Eyman - 1990
    Illustrated.

Little Girl Lost


Drew Barrymore - 1990
    At ten she took up marijuana, and by twelve she began snorting cocaine. Here is her gripping, heart-wrenching story--a story of a childhood gone awry and a young woman battling to restore order to her chaotic life.

Platinum Girl: The Life and Legends of Jean Harlow


Eve Golden - 1991
    Born into the pleasant middle-class world of Kansas City, Missouri, in 1911, Harlow (nee Harlean Carpenter) was the daughter of a solid, if dull, dentist, whose wife had unfulfilled aspirations to a career in films. The family was hardly prepared for what came next. Jean became a bride at sixteen, was separated at eighteen, a film goddess at twenty, a wife again at twenty-one, and a widow within a few months of the wedding. Her husband, top MGM executive Paul Bern, committed suicide (it was widely and mistakenly believed) out of despair over impotence.Bern's suicide threatened to plunge Jean Harlow into a scandal that might have ended her career. But, driven by her irresistible sparkle, glamour, and sensuality, the young star's fortunes continued to skyrocket in unforgettable films like Red Dust, Dinner at Eight, Bombshell, Reckless, China Seas, and Libeled Lady as she appeared with the likes of Clark Gable, John and Lionel Barrymore, Mary Astor, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, Rosalind Russell, Spencer Tracy, and William Powell.She married a third time in 1933, was divorced a year later, only to become engaged to her sometime costar William Powell. Noting that the extremely well-paid Blonde Bombshell was perpetually on the ragged edge of bankruptcy, Powell hired a private detective to investigate Harlow's stepfather, Marino Bello, who - it turned out - had long been defrauding her. Despite this and the on-again, off-again engagement to Powell, Harlow seemed unstoppable. Then, in the midst of filming Saratoga in 1937, the twenty-six-year-old Platinum Girl succumbed to kidney failure.In this, the first biography of Harlow since Irving Shulman's sensationalistic and often inaccurate 1964 book, Eve Golden explores the woman behind the legends and the scandals. The world evoked here is at once glamorous, nostalgic, poignant, and tragic. Yet, in its way, the brief life of Jean Harlow is a story of success, of a triumphal struggle with Hollywood and the consequences of rapid fame. Golden's deeply researched narrative is lavishly illustrated with rare film stills, posters, and exclusive photographs from family archives. Harlow emerges not as an oversexed mannequin, but as a vulnerable, hard-working, and tremendously likable woman who molded herself into a remarkable actress. This is an important book about one of Hollywood's most extraordinary personalities.

Natalie: A Memoir by Her Sister


Lana Wood - 1984
    Here is the book that only Natalie Wood's sister could have written - a warm but unflichingly candid account of a great star's passionate love affairs, violent fights, stormy marriages, bitter divorces and her controversial death by drowning at the age of 43.

A Twist of Lemmon: A Tribute to My Father


Christopher Lemmon - 2006
    A two-time Academy Award winner, he appeared in dozens of memorable films, including such classics as Some Like It Hot, Mister Roberts, The Odd Couple, Grumpy Old Men, Missing, The Apartment, and The China Syndrome. On-screen, he came across as a kind of "everyman"—audiences loved him because they felt they knew him, because he was on of them. In A Twist of Lemmon, Chris Lemmon shares family tales, intimate father-son conversations, and anecdotes from and about his dad. The result is a vivid and enchanting portrait of a less-than-perfect father who in some ways assumed a greater reality for his fans than he did for his son. Chris writes about the difficulty of growing up in a broken home, the treasured time spent with his father, and the friendship that evolved as they came to share their passions for both music and golf. This very personal portrait provides new insight into a man who charmed millions with his rascal's smile and his very human vulnerability. When Jack Lemmon died in 2001, the world lost one of its favorite actors, but Chris Lemmon lost the man he had admired above all others. A Twist of Lemmon is his warm and moving and often very funny celebration of his larger-than-life father. Joining Chris in his tribute are a number of the people who worked with Jack Lemmon over thy years, including actor Kevin Spacey. In his foreword, Spacey writes, "He was a credit to his profession because he was a man whose humanity was bigger than his talent. And when you think for a moment about the size and depth of that talent, then you begin to understand how seriously he took his role as a human being." In this first book of its kind written about Jack Lemmon, that "human being" comes fully alive—as an actor, a father, and a best friend. It is a heartwarming and discerning look at a true American legend.

'Tis Herself


Maureen O'Hara - 2004
    I'm Maureen O'Hara and this is my life story.-- From Chapter One of 'Tis HerselfIn language that is blunt, straightforward, and totally lacking in artifice, Maureen O'Hara, one of the greatest and most enduring stars of Hollywood's "Golden Era," for the first time tells the story of how she succeeded in the world's most competitive business.Known for her remarkable beauty and her fiery screen persona, Maureen O'Hara came to Hollywood when she was still a teenager, taken there by her mentor, the great actor Charles Laughton. Almost immediately she clashed with the men who ran the movie business -- the moguls who treated actors like chattel, the directors who viewed every actress as a potential bedmate.Determined to hold her own and to remain true to herself, she fought for roles that she wanted and resisted the advances of some of Hollywood's most powerful and attractive men. It was in the great director John Ford that she first found someone willing to give her a chance to prove herself as an important actress. Beginning with the Academy Award-winning How Green Was My Valley, she went on to make five films with Ford and through him first met the great John Wayne, with whom she also made five films.In O'Hara, Ford had found his ideal Irish heroine, a role that achieved its greatest realization in The Quiet Man. And in O'Hara, John Wayne found his ideal leading lady, for she was perhaps the only actress who could hold her own when on screen with "The Duke." Ford, however, was not without his quirks, and his relationship with his favorite actress became more and more complex and ultimately deeply troubled. The on-screen relationship between Wayne and O'Hara, on the other hand, was transformed into a close friendship built on mutual respect, creating a bond that endured until his death.Writing with complete frankness, O'Hara talks for the first time about these remarkable men, about their great strengths and their very human failings. She writes as well about many of the other actors and actresses -- Lucille Ball, Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn, John Candy, Natalie Wood, to name a few -- with whom she worked, but ultimately it is about herself that she is most revealing. With great candor and a mixture of pride and regret, she reflects on just how this young girl from Ireland made it to America and onto movie screens all around the world. There were missteps, of course -- a troubled and deeply destructive marriage, a willingness to trust too readily in others -- but there were triumphs and great happiness as well, including her marriage to the aviation pioneer Brigadier General Charles F. Blair, who tragically died in a mysterious plane crash ten years after their marriage.Throughout, 'Tis Herself is informed by the warmth and charm and intelligence that defined Maureen O'Hara's performances in some sixty films, from The Hunchback of Notre Dame to Miracle on 34th Street to The Parent Trap to McLintock! to Only the Lonely. 'Tis Herself is Maureen O'Hara's story as only she can tell it, the tale of an Irish lass who believed in herself with the strength and determination to make her own dreams come true.

Dear Cary: My Life with Cary Grant


Dyan Cannon - 2011
    When they began living together, she was 25; he was 58. Three years later, they married, but within a year and a half, she left him, amidst reports of loud arguments and spanking episodes. Their divorce, finalized in 1968, was a major news splash even in that pre-TMZ, pre-internet era. Grant died in 1986, but Cannon has continued to wrestle with the details, the rights, and the wrongs of their relationship. Dear Cary is a memoir that celebrates and scrutinizes the great love of her life.

Lucky Me: My Life With--and Without--My Mom, Shirley MacLaine


Sachi Parker - 2013
    Yet—as her daughter Sachi Parker can attest—growing up with the movie star was far from picture perfect.The only child of MacLaine and her husband of thirty years, Steve Parker, Sachi’s surreal childhood began when she was sent to Japan at the age of two—though her mother would sometimes claim Sachi was six—to live with her mercurial father and his mistress. She divides her time being raised by a Japanese governess and going back and forth to L.A. to be with her mother, hamming it up on movie sets, in photo shoots, and Hollywood parties, even winning—and then abruptly losing—the role of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. As she gets older and attends boarding school in England and Switzerland, becomes a Qantas stewardess, and becomes involved in a series of abusive relationships she tries to unravel the mysteries of her childhood and her parents’ unconventional marriage.Including twenty never-before-seen personal photos, Lucky Me is a fascinating look at Hollywood and what it takes to succeed there, the incredible ambition of Shilrey MacLaine and the fallout it had on her only child, as well as a woman’s attempt to understand and connect with her extremely complicated parents.

Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland


Gerald Clarke - 2000
    The girl with the pigtails, the symbol of innocence in The Wizard of Oz. The brightest star of the Hollywood musical and an entertainer of almost magical power. The woman of a half-dozen comebacks, a hundred heartbreaks, and thousands of headlines. Yet much of what has been written about her is either inaccurate or incomplete, and the Garland the world thought it knew was merely a sketch for the astonishing woman Gerald Clarke portrays in Get Happy. Here, more than thirty years after her death, is the real Judy.

My Husband, My Friend: A Memoir


Neile Adams McQueen - 1986
    MY HUSBAND, MY FRIENDTHE REAL STEVE McQUEEN - FROM ABANDONED CHILD TO GLITTERINGSUPERSTAR TO HAUNTED MAN....Now his wife of 15 and a half years, Neile, who rodethe dazzling Hollywood roller coaster with him, revealsA Steve McQueen no one knew – his good side,his crazy side, his dark side....

Good Stuff: A Reminiscence of My Father, Cary Grant


Jennifer Grant - 2011
    Almost half a century after Cary Grant’s retirement from the screen, he remains the quintessential romantic comic movie star. He stopped making movies when his daughter was born so that he could be with her and raise her, which is just what he did. Good Stuff is an enchanting portrait of the profound and loving relationship between a daughter and her father, who just happens to be one of America’s most iconic male movie stars.Cary Grant’s own personal childhood archives were burned in World War I, and he took painstaking care to ensure that his daughter would have an accurate record of her early life. In Good Stuff, Jennifer Grant writes of their life together through her high school and college years until Grant’s death at the age of eighty-two. Cary Grant had a happy way of living, and he gave that to his daughter. He invented the phrase “good stuff” to mean happiness. For the last twenty years of his life, his daughter experienced the full vital passion of her father’s heart, and she now—delightfully—gives us a taste of it. She writes of the lessons he taught her; of the love he showed her; of his childhood as well as her own . . . Here are letters, notes, and funny cards written from father to daughter and those written from her to him . . . as well as bits of conversation between them (Cary Grant kept a tape recorder going for most of their time together).She writes of their life at 9966 Beverly Grove Drive, living in a farmhouse in the midst of Beverly Hills, playing, laughing, dining, and dancing through the thick and thin of Jennifer's growing up; the years of his work, his travels, his friendships with “old Hollywood royalty” (the Sinatras, the Pecks, the Poitiers, et al.) and with just plain-old royalty (the Rainiers) . . . We see Grant the playful dad; Grant the clown, sharing his gifts of laughter through his warm spirit; Grant teaching his daughter about life, about love, about boys, about manners and money, about acting and living.Cary Grant was given the indefinable incandescence of charm. He was a pip . . . Good Stuff captures his special quality. It gives us the magic of a father’s devotion (and goofball-ness) as it reveals a daughter’s special odyssey and education of loving, and being loved, by a dad who was Cary Grant.