Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It


Mae West - 1959
    Witty and honest, she remained in control of her life, her career and her many, many loves.

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.

Hope for Film: From the Frontline of the Independent Cinema Revolutions


Ted Hope - 2014
    Ted Hope, whose films have garnered 12 Oscar nominations, draws from his own personal experiences working on the early films of Ang Lee, Eddie Burns, Hal Hartley, Michel Gondry, Nicole Holofcener, Todd Solondz and other indie mavericks, relating those decisions that brought him success as well as the occasional failure.Whether navigating negotiations with Harvey Weinstein over final cuts or clashing with high-powered CAA agents over their clients, Hope offers behind-the-scenes stories from the wild and often heated world of low-budget cinema—where art and commerce collide. As mediator between these two opposing interests, Hope offers his unique perspective on how to make movies while keeping your integrity intact and how to create a sustainable business enterprise out of that art while staying true to yourself. Against a backdrop of seismic changes in the indie-film industry, from corporate co-option to the rise of social media, Hope for Film provides not only an entertaining and intimate ride through the ups and downs of the business of art-house movies over the last 25 years, but also hope for its future.

Marilyn


Gloria Steinem - 1986
    16 pages of full-color photos.

Film Flam: Essays on Hollywood


Larry McMurtry - 1987
    His experiences and thoughts on screenwriting, adapting novels, adapting one's own novels (a bad idea), and on the craft itself contain more useful information than a pile of how-to manuals. As in his novels, McMurtry is by turns witty, acerbic, and thoughtful; the pieces are surprisingly stylish in that the bulk of them (17 out of 21) were spun off on monthly deadlines (for American Film magazine, in 1975-77), and McMurtry admittedly can't remember writing most of them. A fine collection, from a fine writer.No Clue: Or Learning to Write for the Movies. --The Hired Pen. --The Deadline Syndrome. --The Telephone Booth Screenwriter. --The Fun of It All. --All the President's Men, Seven Beauties, History, Innocence, Guilt, Redemption, and the Star System. --The Screenplay as Non-Book: A Consideration. --Pencils West: Or a Theory for the Shoot-'Em Up. --"Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" and the Movie-Less Novelists. --O Ragged Time Knit Up Thy Ravell'd Sleave. --The Situation in Criticism: Reviewers, Critics, Professors. --Character, the Tube, and the Death of Movies. --The Disappearance of Love. --Woody Allen, Keith Carradine, Lily Tomlin, and the Disappearance of Grace. --The Last Picture Shows. --The Seasons of L.A.. --The Last Movie Column. --The Last Picture Show: A Last Word. --Approaching Cheyenne ... Leaving Lumet. Oh, Pshaw!. --Movie-Tripping: My Own Rotten Film Festival. --A Walk in Pasadena with Di-Annie and Mary Alice

Monkey Business: The Lives and Legends of The Marx Brothers


Simon Louvish - 2000
    From Groucho Marx's first warblings with the singing Leroy Trio, this book brings to life the vanished world of America's wild and boisterous variety circuits, leading to the Marx Brothers' Broadway successes, and their alliance with New York's theatrical lions, George S. Kaufman and the 'Algonquin Round Table'.Never-before-published scripts, well-minted Marxian dialogue, and much madness and mayham feature in this tale of the Brothers' battles with Hollywood, their films, their loves and marriages, and the story of the forgotten brother Gummo.

Charlie Chaplin: A Life From Beginning to End


Hourly History - 2017
     Charlie Chaplin is most famously known for his “tramp” character—the homeless hobo that can be seen hopping from trains and lining up in the soup kitchens of the Great Depression. At a time when the whole world was struggling from economic meltdown, Charlie Chaplin made “destitute” a term of endearment. We may laugh when we see Charlie Chaplin so broke that he has to boil his shoes and eat them, but during the worst parts of the economic collapse of the 1920s and 1930s, some people had to do just that. So, at the time, even though many would laugh at the crazy tramp’s antics, they could also relate and identify with them. And the fact that Charlie Chaplin’s tramp character could be completely broke with his pockets turned out, sitting in a gutter with the rain pouring down, yet still be happy, gave people quite a bit of encouragement. People thought that if the homeless, wandering tramp portrayed in Chaplin’s films could get through such rough times and be alright, maybe they could too. Inside you will read about... ✓ From the Poorhouse to the Stage ✓ Coming to America ✓ Unhappily Married ✓ The Silent Film Hush Money ✓ He Doesn’t Talkie ✓ Socialist Leanings ✓ Exile from the United States And much more! As goofy as some of Chaplin’s slapstick comedic moments are in his films, it was the way he just kept trundling along, even in the face of great adversity, that empowered so many. It was this tantalizing glimpse of hope, more than anything else, that kept them coming back for more.

Include Me Out: My Life from Goldwyn to Broadway


Farley Granger - 2007
    Granger describes how he learned his craft as he went on to star in a number of films, giving an insider's view of working with Hitchcock on Strangers on a Train and Rope, Luchino Visconti on Senso, and Nick Ray on They Live by Night.He is eloquent about his bisexuality and tells of affairs with Patricia Neal, Arthur Laurents, Shelley Winters, Leonard Bernstein and Ava Gardner and his involvement with Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, and Tyrone Power.Granger recreates his legendary struggle to break his contract with Goldwyn. He had to buy his way out to work on Broadway. He describes the early days of live television and working with Julie Harris, Christopher Plummer, Helen Hayes, and Claire Bloom. He captures the thrill of acting on the stage with Janice Rule, June Havoc, Larry Hagman, Barbara Cook, and the National Repertory Theatre, where his determination paid off with an OBIE for his work in Tally & Son.Granger's delightful and elegant memoir captures the extravangance of Hollywood's Golden Age-and provides colorful portraits of many of its major players.

I, Fatty


Jerry Stahl - 2004
    Fatty tells his own story of success, addiction, and a precipitous fall from grace after being framed for a brutal crime-a national media scandal that set the precedent for those so familiar today.

Glenn Ford: A Life


Peter Ford - 2011
    Yet the man who could be accessible and charming on screen retreated to a deeply private world he created behind closed doors.    Glenn Ford: A Life chronicles the volatile life, relationships, and career of the renowned actor, beginning with his move from Canada to California and his initial discovery of theater. It follows Ford’s career in diverse media—from film to television to radio—and shows how Ford shifted effortlessly between genres, playing major roles in dramas, noir, westerns, and romances.     This biography by Glenn Ford’s son, Peter Ford, offers an intimate view of a star’s private and public life. Included are exclusive interviews with family, friends, and professional associates, and snippets from the Ford family collection of diaries, letters, audiotapes, unpublished interviews, and rare candid photos. This biography tells a cautionary tale of Glenn Ford’s relentless infidelities and long, slow fade-out, but it also embraces his talent-driven career. The result is an authentic Hollywood story that isn’t afraid to reveal the truth.Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the Public Library Reviewers

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.

The Other Side of the Moon: The Life of David Niven


Sheridan Morley - 1985
    The result is a picture which both supports and contradicts the charming vagabond persona depicted in Niven’s own bestselling memoirs.While millions throughout his life were enchanted by Niven’s happy-go-lucky charisma and world-class anecdotage, he was in many respects a private figure, haunted by a fear of failure, and a victim of several key tragedies in his personal life. Morley’s biography is a warm, appreciative but perceptive account which captures both sides of one of Hollywood’s most enduringly lovable figures.‘A compassionate account that goes past the blithe persona … yet, there is much humor—the actor’s and his biographer’s—in this notable book’ Publishers Weekly‘Head and shoulders above the average showbiz biography … He understands many of Niven’s deeper feelings’ John Mortimer, Sunday Times‘A well-told story … the darker side as well as the mask of a complex and perhaps desperate character. He was a life-enhancer off-screen as well as on’ The Times‘Shrewd and pleasing; shows how dark Niven’s moon could be’ Alexander Walker, Evening Standard

Harpo Speaks!


Harpo Marx - 1961
    Despite only a year and a half of schooling, Harpo, or perhaps his collaborator, is the best writer of the Marx Brother. Highly recommended." -Library Journal "A funny, affectionate and unpretentious autobiography done with a sharply professional assist from Rowland Barber." -New York Times Book Review

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.

Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination


Neal Gabler - 2006
    We see the visionary, whose desire for escape honed an innate sense of what people wanted to see on the screen and, when combined with iron determination and obsessive perfectionism, led him to the reinvention of animation. It was Disney, first with Mickey Mouse and then with his feature films - most notably Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi - who transformed animation from a novelty based on movement to an art form that presented an illusion of life.We see him reimagine the amusement park with Disneyland, prompting critics to coin the word Disneyfication to describe the process by which reality can be modified to fit one's personal desires. At the same time, he provided a new way to connect with American history through his live-action films and purveyed a view of the country so coherent that even today one can speak meaningfully of "Walt Disney's America." We see how the True-Life Adventure nature documentaries he produced helped create the environmental movement by sensitizing the general public to issues of conservation. And we see how he reshaped the entertainment industry by building a synergistic empire that combined film, television, theme parks, music, book publishing, and merchandise in a way that was unprecedented and was later widely imitated.Gabler also reveals a wounded, lonely, and often disappointed man, who, despite worldwide success, was plagued with financial problems much of his life, suffered a nervous breakdown, and at times retreated into pitiable seclusion in his workshop making model trains. Gabler explores accusations that Disney was a red-baiter, an anti-Semite, an embittered alcoholic. But whatever the characterizations of Disney's personal life, he appealed to the nation by demonstrating the power of wish fulfillment and the triumph of the American imagination. Walt Disney showed how one could impose one's will on the world.This is a masterly biography, a revelation of both the work and the man - of both the remarkable accomplishment and the hidden life.