Book picks similar to
Barbara La Marr: The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful for Hollywood by Sherri Snyder
biography
old-hollywood
film
movies
Steps in Time
Fred Astaire - 1959
He pays special attention to his celebrated partnership with Ginger Rogers, with whom he produced such classics as Top Hat, Flying Down to Rio, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, and countless others.
The Hollywood Book of Scandals: The Shoking, Often Disgraceful Deeds and Affairs of More Than 100 American Movie and TV Idols
James Robert Parish - 2004
Add a famous Hollywood star or two to the mix and the nation is hooked. The Hollywood Book of Scandals provides the full account of 32 big, provocative scandals--complete with all the sexy, scintillating, and often shocking details. Written by veteran show business chronicler James Robert Parish, this book dishes the full dirt on:Bob Crane's mysterious deathElizabeth Taylor's seduction of Eddie FisherRobert Mitchum's arrest for drug possessionJudy Garland's public meltdownErrol Flynn's trial for statutory rapeWinona Ryder's shoplifting trialMore than 100 black-and-white celebrity photos offer readers a close-up look at the leading players in these sordid dramas.
RG3: The Promise
Dave Sheinin - 2013
He seemed pointed toward stardom, but would it be in basketball, his true favorite, or maybe in track, where he qualified for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials as a hurdler? As for playing football, the only sport that really mattered in Griffin’s small Texas town, first he had to overcome his mother’s objections to the violence and danger—which he did by making a “Pinkie Promise” with her that no one would catch him. Eventually, he began to realize that all of his remarkable talents—unrivaled speed, pinpoint accuracy, exceptional intelligence, single-minded drive—combined into a potent force that few quarterbacks could rival. What followed seemed almost destined: a football scholarship to Baylor University, three exceptional seasons capped by winning the Heisman Trophy, and the 2012 draft—where Griffin, as the second overall pick, became the franchise quarterback for one of the oldest and most storied football teams in the country.In RG3: The Promise, Washington Post reporter Dave Sheinin provides an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at Griffin’s first year in the NFL, from his record-breaking first game to the frightening knee injury that ended the Redskins’ playoff hopes. An award-winning journalist himself, Sheinin has reported on Griffin’s rookie season every step of the way, and now has written a unique, intimate look inside the transformation of one of the NFL’s brightest young stars.
All About All About Eve: The Complete Behind-the-Scenes Story of the Bitchiest Film Ever Made!
Sam Staggs - 2000
Its old-fashioned, larger-than-life stars--including Bette Davis, Marilyn Monroe, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, and Celeste Holm--found their best roles in Eve and its sophisticated dialogue has entered the lexicon.But there's much more to know about All About Eve. Sam Staggs has written the definitive account of the making of this fascinating movie and its enormous incluence on both film and popular culture. Staggs reveals everything about the movie--from the famous European actress Margo Channing was based on to the hot-blooded romance on-set between Bette Davis and costar Gary Merrill, from the jump-start the movie gave Marilyn Monroe's career to the capstone it put on director Joseph L. Mankeiwicz's.All About "All About Eve" is not only full of rich detail about the movie, the director, and the stars, but also about the audience who loved it when it came out and adore it to this day.
By Myself and Then Some
Lauren Bacall - 2005
Their romance on and off screen made them Hollywood's most celebrated couple and together they produced some of the most electric scenes in movie history. But when Bogart died of cancer in 1957, Bacall had to find a way of living beyond the fairytale and ironic way she had evolved. In a time of post war communism, Hollywood blacklisting and revolutionary politics she moved with the legends: Hemingway, the Oliviers, Katharine Hepburn, Bobby Kennedy, an engagement to Frank Sinatra and a second turbulent marriage to Jason Robards. Now at 80, BY MYSELF AND THEN SOME brings her story up to date including her recent films and Broadway runs, fond memories of her children and many close lifelong friendships, not least the greatest love of her life, Humphrey Bogart.
Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man
Mick LaSalle - 2002
Dangerous Men takes a close look at the images of manhood during this pre-Code era, which coincided with an interesting time for men-the culmination of a generation-long transformation in the masculine ideal. By the late twenties, the tumult of a new century had made the nineteenth century's notion of the ideal man seem like a repressed stuffed shirt, a deluded optimist. The smiling, confident hero of just a few years before fell out of favor, and the new heroes who emerged were gangsters, opportunists, sleazy businessmen, shifty lawyers, shell-shocked soldiers-men whose existence threatened the status quo. In this book, LaSalle highlights such household names as James Cagney, Clark Gable, Edward G. Robinson, Maurice Chevalier, Spencer Tracy, and Gary Cooper, along with lesser-known ones such as Richard Barthelmess, Lee Tracy, Robert Montgomery, and the magnificent Warren William. Together they represent a vision of manhood more exuberant and contentious-and more humane-than anything that has followed on the American screen.
Legend: The Life and Death of Marilyn Monroe
Fred Lawrence Guiles - 1984
Los Angeles Times
Streisand: Her Life
James Spada - 1995
Based on hundreds of interviews with Barbra’s family and associates, and unprecedented behind-the-scenes information, this is the definitive Streisand biography.
To Be a Lady: Story of Catherine Cookson
Cliff Goodwin - 1994
It is a fascinating study of determination and courage, pain and triumph over tragedy. From the beginning of her life in a crowded terrace in Tyneside to her days as a best-selling writer able to offer thousands to charity as a Dame of the British Empire, Catherine Cookson’s own story is as extraordinary as any of her novels. It is hard to think of any writer, living or dead, who has produced — and continued to produce — such overwhelmingly popular fiction as Catherine Cookson. Between June, 1950, and the end of 1993, ninety million copies of her novels, children’s books and personal recollections had been sold worldwide. An average of 5,800 every day — 241 books every single hour. Cookson novels have been adapted into award winning television films. Musicals and plays based on her books have sold out within days and ran for weeks. Goodwin explores the intriguing, and at times distressing, life of the celebrated writer, Catherine Cookson and the novels that were inspired by her early experiences in Tyneside. Praise for the author: ‘Even Catherine Cookson couldn't have written a novel with as much drama as her own life story ... the full saga has not been told until now.’ - TODAY ‘As riveting as any of her famous novels.’ - SUNDAY EXPRESS ‘Cliff Goodwin has written a book which is hard to put down and which leaves you in greater admiration of its intriguing and enigmatic subject ... amazing and compulsive as any of her bestsellers.’ - NEWCASTLE JOURNAL ‘A cracking story ... essential for her fans, and a good read for everyone.’ - MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS Cliff Goodwin was born in London in 1950. He was educated in Slough, Berkshire, and joined the town's weekly newspaper as a trainee journalist in 1968. Since then he has worked as a reporter, feature writer and sub-editor for various newspapers and magazines. His coverage of the 1988 Lockerbie air crash earned him a regional press award. A regular freelance writer — he has published features in more than 200 newspapers and magazines worldwide — Cliff Goodwin has also worked as a radio producer and in public relations. In 1993, after 25 years in journalism, he decided it was time to concentrate on full-time writing. Endeavour Press is the UK’s leading independent publisher of digital books.
Robert Mitchum: "Baby I Don't Care"
Lee Server - 2001
Allison; Cape Fear; The Longest Day; Farewell, My Lovely; and The Winds of War. Mitchum's powerful presence and simmering violence combined with hard-boiled humor and existential detachment to create a new style in movie acting: the screen's first hipster antihero-before Brando, James Dean, Elvis, or Eastwood-the inventor of big-screen cool.Robert Mitchum: "Baby, I Don't Care" is the first complete biography of Mitchum, and a book as big, colorful, and controversial as the star himself. Exhaustively researched, it makes use of thousands of rare documents from around the world and nearly two hundred in-depth interviews with Mitchum's family, friends, and associates (many going on record for the first time ever) ranging over his seventy-nine years of hard living. Written with great style, and vividly detailed, this is an intimate, comprehensive portrait of an amazing life, comic, tragic, daring, and outrageous.
With A Feather On My Nose
Billie Burke - 1949
This is the life story of an actress, a beautiful redheaded actress who lived and played in a glittering era now gone but fondly remembered. Although she attained moments of great fame and happiness, she never knew security. Like her father, the well-known clown, she went through life with a feather on her nose.—Print Ed.
Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait
Kendra Bean - 2013
For more than thirty years, her name alone sold out theaters and cinemas the world over, and she inspired many of the greatest visionaries of her time: Laurence Olivier loved her; Winston Churchill praised her; Christian Dior dressed her.Through both an in-depth narrative and a stunning array of photos, Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait presents the personal story of one of the most celebrated women of the twentieth century, an engrossing tale of success, struggles, and triumphs. It chronicles Leigh’s journey from her birth in India to prominence in British film, winning the most-coveted role in Hollywood history, her celebrated love affair with Laurence Olivier, through to her untimely death at age fifty-three in 1967.Author Kendra Bean is the first Vivien Leigh biographer to delve into the Laurence Olivier Archives, where an invaluable collection of personal letters and documents ranging from interview transcripts to film contracts to medical records shed new insight on Leigh’s story. Illustrated by hundreds of rare and never-before-published images, including those by Leigh’s "official" photographer, Angus McBean, Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait is the first illustrated biography to closely examine the fascinating, troubled, and often misunderstood life of Vivien Leigh: the woman, the actress, the legend.
In the Company of Legends
Joan Kramer - 2015
These were recognized as high-quality, definitive film portraits, which revitalized the genre and made it a mainstay of television programming.This is their insiders’ view of the famous and the powerful: Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, Johnny Carson, Frank Sinatra, Lew Wasserman, Ronald Reagan, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Jane Fonda, Richard Dreyfuss, Audrey Hepburn, and Bette Davis, among others. Kramer and Heeley’s behind the scenes stories of the productions and the personalities involved are amusing, sometimes moving, often revealing, and have never been told before.
If This Was Happiness: A Biography of Rita Hayworth
Barbara Leaming - 1989
But the reality behind the fantasy was a harsh one. Sexually abused by her father as a young girl, Rita constantly searched for a man to save her, marrying five times. At the age of forty-two, Alzheimer's disease began to ravage her mind, cutting short her career at its peak. A haunting and sympathetic tribute to the talented but insecure beauty who was created, and ultimately destroyed, by the movies.From the Paperback edition.
Stanwyck
Axel Madsen - 1994
He examines her Dickensian childhood, her violent first marriage, her painful estrangement from her son, and the troubled sexual dynamics of her marriage to Robert Taylor.