This candid portrait of one of the greatest stars of all time tells the story behind the making of an American icon, uncovering new details about the man behind the legend, with in-depth commentary from his closest friends and family, including his cousin and executor of his estate, Marcus Winslow and his best friend and roommate, William Bast. Loaded with features that chronicle his life and times, this book is a must have for fans of the man, the movie star--the legend.

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    We seemed to be suspended effortlessly in the air, but in reality, our wings were beating very, very fast." - Mae Murray "It is worse than folly for persons to imagine that this business is an easy road to money, to contentment, or to that strange quality called happiness." - Bebe Daniels "A girl should realize that a career on the screen demands everything, promising nothing." - Helen Ferguson In Dangerous Curves Atop Hollywood Heels, author Michael G. Ankerich examines the lives, careers, and disappointments of 15 silent film actresses, who, despite the odds against them and warnings to stay in their hometowns, came to Hollywood to make names for themselves in the movies. On the screen, these young hopefuls became Agnes Ayres, Olive Borden, Grace Darmond, Elinor Fair, Juanita Hansen, Wanda Hawley, Natalie Joyce, Barbara La Marr, Martha Mansfield, Mae Murray, Mary Nolan, Marie Prevost, Lucille Ricksen, Eve Southern, and Alberta Vaughn. Dangerous Curves follows the precarious routes these young ladies took in their quest for fame and uncovers how some of the top actresses of the silent screen were used, abused, and discarded. Many, unable to let go of the spotlight after it had singed their very souls, came to a stop on that dead-end street, referred to by actress Anna Q. Nilsson as, Hollywood's Heartbreak Lane. Pieced together using contemporary interviews the actresses gave, conversations with friends, relatives, and co-workers, and exhaustive research through scrapbooks, archives, and public records, Dangerous Curves offers an honest, yet compassionate, look at some of the brightest luminaries of the silent screen. The book is illustrated with over 150 photographs.

    Split Image insightfully and comprehensively documents the life of Anthony Perkins, who was forced to act the part of a sexy ladies' man while privately struggling with his own homosexuality. Years of careful research and more than 300 interviews with prominent Hollywood figures went into this insightful book. of photos.

    S. senator. Her uncle was a U. S. congressman. Her father was Speaker of the House. Although born to privilege in Alabama and groomed in a convent school, Tallulah Bankhead resolved not to be just another southern belle. Quickly she rose to the top and became an acclaimed actress of London's West End and on the Broadway stage. She originated the starring roles of Regina Giddens in Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes" and Sabina in Thornton Wilder's "The Skin of Our Teeth." Her Broadway performances brought her to the notice of Hollywood, and in 1944 she won a New York Film Critics Circle Award for her leading role in Alfred Hitchcock's "Lifeboat." Yet her flamboyant public personality may be the most fully realized and memorable character Bankhead ever played on stage, screen, radio, or television. Tallulah was famous for her snappy repartee, candid quotes, and scandalous lifestyle. Overfond of Kentucky bourbon and wild parties, she was a lady baritone who called everybody "Dahling." In her autobiography, first published in 1952 and a New York Times bestseller for twenty-six weeks, Bankhead's literary voice is as lively and forthright as her public persona. She details her childhood and adolescence, discusses her dedication to the theater, and presents amusing anecdotes about her life in Hollywood, New York, and London. Along with a searing defense of her lifestyle and rambunctious habits, she provides a fiercely opinionated, wildly funny account of the American stage at a time when the movies were beginning to cast theater into eclipse. This is not only a memoir of an independent woman but also an insider look at American entertainment during a golden age. Tallulah Bankhead (1902-1968) headlined NBC's "The Big Show," a ninety-minute weekly radio extravaganza that aired from 1950 to 1952. In 1965 she appeared in her last movie, a British film titled "Fanatic" ("Die, Die, My Darling!" in U. S. release).

    With a worldly generosity, LaGuardia knowingly and sensitively explores a famous man haunted by same-sexuality. His writing fearlessly penetrates the dark areas of the human psyche. (Many unpublished photographs).

    A beautifully written memoir, candid and definitive, that tells the story of Bast's five year relationship with the charismatic actor and American legend--James Dean.

    Lincoln, The Lady Eve, 12 Angry Men, On Golden Pond—helped define "American" in the twentieth century. He worked with movie masters from Ford and Sturges to Hitchcock and Leone. He was a Broadway legend. He fought in World War II and was loved the world over.Yet much of his life was rage and struggle. Why did Fonda marry five times—tempestuously to actress Margaret Sullavan, tragically to heiress Frances Brokaw, mother of Jane and Peter? Was he a man of integrity, worthy of the heroes he played, or the harsh father his children describe, the iceman who went onstage hours after his wife killed herself? Why did suicide shadow his life and art? What memories troubled him so?McKinney's Fonda is dark, complex, fascinating, and a product of glamour and acclaim, early losses and Midwestern demons—a man haunted by what he'd seen, and by who he was.

    A woman who played children, wide-eyed and gamine. Skipping around in frills and cute curls. That’s how most people remember Mary Pickford. In reality, as Eileen Whitfield makes clear, Mary Pickford is a towering figure in movie history.Born in Toronto in 1892, Pickford began acting as a child, helping support her family after her father’s accidental death. She switched from stage to film at age 17, joining D.W. Griffith’s Biograph company, and became almost unimaginably popular. This allowed her to develop her own production company at Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players, and in 1919 she co-founded (along with D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, and her husband Douglas Fairbanks) United Artists, seizing not only creative control but also the marketing and distribution of her films.Eileen Whitfield recreates Pickford’s life in meticulously researched detail, from her trying days in turn-of-the-century Toronto to her reign as mistress of Pickfair, the legendary Los Angeles estate at which she and Fairbanks entertained the world’s elite, to her sadly moving demise. Along the way, Whitfield explores the intricate psychology that tied Pickford to her mother throughout her life, and analyzes Pickford’s brilliant innovations in the art of film acting; her profound influence on the movie business (paving the way for such powerful Hollywood women as Jodie Foster and Whoopi Goldberg); and her role in the history of fame (she was the object of a mass adoration that prefigured today’s cult of celebrity).Eight years in the making, Pickford: The Woman Who Made Hollywood is definitive biography. It brings Pickford to life as a complex knot of contradictions and establishes her as a ground-breaking genius, casting new light on one of the influential – and least understood – artists in the history of popular culture.Pickford was the subject of lengthy, appreciative features in The New Yorker and Film Comment, and was the basis of two television documentaries: on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Life and Times” and on the History Channel.

    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.

    Following its subject from the moody Oklahoma teenager to the Method-trained star to the eccentric recluse of his later years, Marlon Brando offers a penetrating look at the actor's evolving persona: the volcanic Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, the sensitive rebel in The Wild Ones, the iconic Don Corleone in The Godfather. Bosworth probes Brando's alcoholic parents' influence on his acting, his decades of psychoanalysis, and his tumultuous personal relationships. Here, from rebellious unknown to reluctant idol to falling star, is the complex charismatic genius who changed the face of acting.

    Rich in gossip, it is also an eyewitness report of Hollywood in transition. In the summer of 1924, Valeria Belletti and her friend Irma visited California, but instead of returning home to New York, the twenty-six-year-old Valeria decided to stay in Los Angeles. She moved into the YWCA, landed a job as Samuel Goldwyn's personal and social secretary and proceeded to trip over history in the making. As she recounts in her dozens of letters to Irma, Valeria Belletti encountered every type of Hollywood player in the course of her working day: moguls, directors, stars, writers, and hopeful extras. She shares news about Valentino's affairs, Sam Goldwyn's bootlegger, the development of the “talkies,” her own role in helping to cast Gary Cooper in his first major part and much more—often in hilarious detail. She writes of her living and working conditions, her active social life, and her hopes for the future—all the everyday concerns of a young working woman during the jazz age. Alternating sophistication with naiveté, Valeria’s letters intimately document a personal journey while giving us a unique portrait of a fascinating era.

    Smith Goes to Washington, Shane, and other classic films was, as the subtitle aptly puts it, "the actress nobody knew." Jean Arthur (1900-91) kept her personal life private, disdained the Hollywood publicity machine, and was called "difficult" because of her perfectionism and remoteness from costars on the movie set. John Oller, a lawyer, tracked down kinsfolk and friends never before interviewed to capture the elusive personality of a free spirit best embodied in her favorite role, Peter Pan. Arthur herself might have appreciated his warm, respectful portrait."...[An] insightful, painstakingly researched analysis of Arthur's life and career raises the curtain on the complex, conflicted person behind the screen persona...Captures the special shine of a unique star who turned out to be a genuine eccentric." -Chicago Tribune

    Beginning with his early days in Brooklyn and his college years in Texas, where he dreamed of becoming an actor, this book follows his career as one of the earliest members of the famed Actors Studio and as a Tony Award winner for his work on Broadway. Wallach has worked with such stars as Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Marilyn Monroe, Gregory Peck, and Henry Fonda, and his many movies include The Magnificent Seven, How the West Was Won, the iconic The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and, most recently, Mystic River. For more than fifty years Eli Wallach has held a special place in film and theater, and in a tale rich with anecdotes, wit, and remarkable insight he recounts his magical life in a world unlike any other.

    Private correspondence, long-secret FBI files, and troves of unpublished documents reveal a chain of lesbian affairs that moved from the theater world of New York, through the heights of chic society, to embed itself in the power structure of the movie business. The Girls serves up a rich stew of film, politics, sexuality, psychology, and stardom.