Download or read book The Films of Joan Crawford written by Lawrence J. Quirk and published by Carol Publishing Corporation. This book was released on 1970 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book My Way of Life written by Joan Crawford and published by Graymalkin Media. This book was released on 2017-02-28 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From “Grand Hotel” to “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?,” Joan Crawford played some of the finest parts Hollywood had to offer, establishing a reputation as the most spectacular diva on the silver screen. Even when the cameras quit rolling, her life never stopped being over-the-top. In My Way of Life, a cult classic since it was first published in the early 1970’s, Crawford shares her secrets. Part memoir, part self-help book, part guide to being fabulous, My Way of Life advises the reader on everything from throwing a small dinner party for eighteen to getting the most out of a marriage. Featuring tips on fashion, makeup, etiquette and everything in between, it is an irresistible look at a bygone era, when movie stars were pure class, and Crawford was at the top of the heap.
Download or read book Mommie Dearest written by and published by Paramount Pictures. This book was released on 1991-01-01 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the tormented and glamorous star, Joan Crawford, struggling to survive in a cutthroat world, succumbing to a rage leading to alcoholism and child abuse.
Download or read book Joan Crawford written by Fred Lawrence Guiles and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meticulously researched, Joan Crawford: The Last Word deals in full with her long movie career and explores in detail her turbulent private life. Respected biographer Fred Lawrence Guiles uses newly discovered sources and recent interviews with many who knew her, and some who loved her, to establish the person behind the carefully crafted screen icon. For most of her adult life she was a Star who dedicated herself entirely to her career. But since her death her luster has been tarnished. Here, at last, is a biography that sets the record straight. In her heyday Joan Crawford was probably the most imitated woman in the world. Magazine covers featured her face, and high school and college girls copied her makeup and clothing. Born Lucille LeSuer in Kansas City, she spent her childhood on the edge of poverty. But an iron will developed in adolescence drove her to New York City and eventual work in a chorus line. Spotted by a Hollywood talent scout, she was soon on her way to the film capital. Four times married (to actors Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Franchot Tone, Philip Terry, and Pepsi-Cola executive Alfred Steele) and driven by a powerful sexuality, Joan Crawford lived her life on the razor’s edge. Yet she was a woman of great generosity who cared deeply for her four adopted children, although her ideas of discipline were colored by her own harsh upbringing. Her professional career spanned more than forty years and included such classics as Grand Hotel, Mildred Pierce, and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Her remarkable progression from silent films to talkies to television exemplified her ability to adapt, chameleonlike, to the ever-changing demands of the industry that in many senses invented her.
Download or read book The Best of Everything written by Rona Jaffe and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2023-03-14 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Sixty years later, Jaffe’s classic still strikes a chord, this time eerily prescient regarding so many of the circumstances surrounding sexual harassment that paved the way toward the #MeToo movement." -Buzzfeed When Rona Jaffe’s superb page-turner was first published in 1958, it changed contemporary fiction forever. Some readers were shocked, but millions more were electrified when they saw themselves reflected in its story of five young employees of a New York publishing company. Almost sixty years later, The Best of Everything remains touchingly—and sometimes hilariously—true to the personal and professional struggles women face in the city. There’s Ivy League Caroline, who dreams of graduating from the typing pool to an editor’s office; naïve country girl April, who within months of hitting town reinvents herself as the woman every man wants on his arm; and Gregg, the free-spirited actress with a secret yearning for domesticity. Jaffe follows their adventures with intelligence, sympathy, and prose as sharp as a paper cut.
Download or read book Joan Crawford written by Lawrence J. Quirk and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2013-04-06 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " Joan Crawford: The Essential Biography explores the life and career of one of Hollywood's great dames. She was a leading film personality for more than fifty years, from her beginnings as a dancer in silent films of the 1920s, to her portrayals of working-class shop girls in the Depression thirties, to her Oscar-winning performances in classic films such as Mildred Pierce. Crawford's legacy has become somewhat tarnished in the wake of her daughter Christina's memoir, Mommie Dearest, which turned her into a national joke. Today, many picture Crawford only as a wire hanger-wielding shrew rather than the personification of Hollywood glamour. This new biography of Crawford sets the record straight, going beyond the gossip to find the truth about the legendary actress. The authors knew Crawford well and conducted scores of interviews with her and many of her friends and co-stars, including Frank Capra, George Cukor, Nicholas Ray, and Sidney Greenstreet. Far from a whitewash -- Crawford was indeed a colorful and difficult character -- Joan Crawford corrects many lies and tells the story of one of Hollywood's most influential stars, complete with on-set anecdotes and other movie lore. Through extensive interviews, in-depth analysis, and evaluation of her films and performances -- both successes and failures -- Lawrence J. Quirk and William Schoell present Crawford's story as both an appreciation and a reevaluation of her extraordinary life and career. Filled with new interviews, Joan Crawford tells the behind-the-scenes story of the Hollywood icon. Lawrence J. Quirk is the author of many books on film, including Bob Hope: The Road Well-Traveled. William Schoell is the author of several entertainment-related books, including Martini Man: The Life of Dean Martin.
Download or read book Joan Crawford written by David Bret and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2009-04-15 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first biography of Joan Crawford to give the full, uncensored story, bestselling author David Bret tells Crawford's rags to riches climb, from working in a Kansas City laundry to collecting an Oscar for her defining role in Mildred Pierce, and on to her devotion to Christian Science and reliance on vodka. He discusses the star's legendary relationship with Clark Gable, her countless love affairs, her marriages -- three of them to gay men -- and her obsession with rough sex. Bret divulges what really happened that led her to disinherit two of her four children, earning her the nickname "Mommie Dearest," as well as how her loathed mother forced Crawford to work as a prostitute, appear in pornographic films, and sleep her way to the top. Bret analyzes Crawford's films, many of which were constructed purely as vehicles where actress and character were often indistinguishable. Overtly generous towards her coterie of gay friends, she was heartless towards her enemies, particularly Bette Davis, her co-star in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, with whom she shared a lifelong feud. Drawing on a wealth of unpublished material and interviews, David Bret presents a unique, fascinating portrait of a single-minded, uncompromising woman.
Download or read book A Portrait of Joan written by Joan Crawford and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2017-01-12 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Hollywood’s greatest stars recalls her fabulous life: at nine, scrubbing floors in a Kansas City school; at twenty, motion picture stardom and marriage to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.; in 1945, the Academy Award for her sensational comeback-triumph in Mildred Pierce; and today, a glamorous “double life” as Hollywood star and corporation executive. Richly illustrated with photographs throughout.
Download or read book Not the Girl Next Door written by Charlotte Chandler and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-12-11 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Charlotte Chandler did so well in her previous biographies, she will again draw on the recorded words of Joan Crawford and those who knew her well to paint a rich portrait of the woman and the star. Joan Crawford was born Lucille LeSueur in Texas in 1908. She became a chorus girl in silent films before finding her voice in Possessed(1931) with Clark Gable. Their affair would continue, on and off screen, for many years. Throughout the thirties, Joan continued to earn critical acclaim for her forte of playing career women who never gave up. Her Oscar-winning film Mildred Piercein 1945 began the long-running feud between Joan and Bette Davis, which reached its height with Whatever Happened to Baby Janein 1962. Joan was married four times including once to Douglas Fairbanks Jr, who spoke extensively to Charlotte Chandler for this book. Following her death, Joan's decision to cut her eldest children out of her will prompted her daughter Christina to write the damning bookMommie Dearest which changed Joan's image forever. Charlotte Chandler spent many hours recording interviews with Joan and also those closest to her. What emerges is a subtle portrait of a complex women and a new insight into the legendary actress.
Download or read book Possessed written by Donald Spoto and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-11-09 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joan Crawford was one of the most incandescent film stars of all time, yet she was also one of the most misunderstood. In this brilliantlyresearched, thoughtful, and intimate biography, bestselling author Donald Spoto goes beyond the popular caricature—the abusive, unstable mother portrayed in her adopted daughter Christina Crawford’s memoir, Mommie Dearest—to give us a three-dimensional portrait of a very human woman, her dazzling career, and her extraordinarily dramatic life and times. Based on new archival information and exclusive interviews, and written with Spoto’s keen eye for detail, Possessed offers a fascinating portrait of a courageous, highly sexed, and ambitious womanwhose strength and drive made her a forerunner in the fledgling film business. From her hardscrabble childhood in Texas to her early days as a dancer in post–World War I New York to her rise to stardom,Spoto traces Crawford’s fifty years of memorable performances in classics like Rain, The Women, Mildred Pierce, and Sudden Fear, which are as startling and vivid today as when they were filmed. In Possessed, Spoto goes behind the myths to examine the rise and fall of the studio system; Crawford’s four marriages; her passionate thirty year, on-and-off-again affair with Clark Gable; her friendships and rivalries with other stars; her powerful desire to become a mother; the truth behind the scathing stories in her daughter Christina’s memoir; and her final years as a widow battling cancer. Spoto explores Crawford’s achievements as an actress, her work with Hollywood’s great directors (Frank Borzage, George Cukor, Otto Preminger) and actors (Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Spencer Tracy, John Barrymore), and later, her role as a highly effective executive on the board of directors of Pepsi-Cola. Illuminating and entertaining, Possessed is the definitive biography of this remarkable woman and true legend of film.
Download or read book Not Too Narrow Not Too Deep written by Richard Sale and published by . This book was released on 1936 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Woman s View written by Jeanine Basinger and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2013-09-04 with total page 806 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now, Voyager, Stella Dallas, Leaver Her to Heaven, Imitation of Life, Mildred Pierce, Gilda…these are only a few of the hundreds of “women’s films” that poured out of Hollywood during the thirties, forties, and fifties. The films were widely disparate in subject, sentiment, and technique, they nonetheless shared one dual purpose: to provide the audience (of women, primarily) with temporary liberation into a screen dream—of romance, sexuality, luxury, suffering, or even wickedness—and then send it home reminded of, reassured by, and resigned to the fact that no matter what else she might do, a woman’s most important job was…to be a woman. Now, with boundless knowledge and infectious enthusiasm, Jeanine Basinger illuminates the various surprising and subversive ways in which women’s films delivered their message. Basinger examines dozens of films, exploring the seemingly intractable contradictions at the convoluted heart of the woman’s genre—among them, the dilemma of the strong and glamorous woman who cedes her power when she feels it threatening her personal happiness, and the self-abnegating woman whose selflessness is not always as “noble” as it appears. Basinger looks at the stars who played these women and helps us understand the qualities—the right off-screen personae, the right on-screen attitudes, the right faces—that made them personify the woman’s film and equipped them to make believable drama or comedy out of the crackpot plots, the conflicting ideas, and the exaggerations of real behavior that characterize these movies. In each of the films the author discusses—whether melodrama, screwball comedy, musical, film noir, western, or biopic—a woman occupies the center of her particular universe. Her story—in its endless variations of rags to riches, boy meets girl, battle of the sexes, mother love, doomed romance—inevitably sends a highly potent mixed message: Yes, you women belong in your “proper place” (that is, content with the Big Three of the women’s film world—men, marriage, and motherhood), but meanwhile, and paradoxically, see what fun, glamour, and power you can enjoy along the way. A Woman’s View deepens our understanding of the times and circumstances and attitudes out of which these movies were created.
Download or read book Studio Affairs written by Vincent Sherman and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a young Jewish boy growing up in Vienna, Georgia, Abe Orovitz could never have predicted the twists and turns his life would take. Many years later, as retired film director with more than thirty movies to his credit, Vincent Sherman is no less surprised when he looks back on that life. In Studio Affairs he retraces his life with candor and enthusiasm. Sherman discusses the details of his three-year relationship with Joan Crawford, his inadvertent connection with the death of Bette Davis's second husband, and his poignant romantic involvement with Rita Hayworth. Providing counterpoint to these liaisons is the love and devotion of Sherman's wife, Hedda, who accepted her husband's occasional infidelities as part and parcel of his career. Studio Affairs provides an inside look at the motion picture industry during the heyday of the studio system by one who worked his way from nearly starving actor and playwright to respected director. In effect, the book serves as a primer on the art of film directing. Sherman quickly developed a reputation of being a consummate rewrite artist, able to take whatever assignment given him and turn it into a first rate motion picture. His skill at reworked scripts led him to bigger and bigger projects, even as the salary set by his long-term contract with Warner Brothers remained below that of most of his colleagues. Though not originally signed to direct, when asked to do so he drew on his experience putting together productions at summer camps across the "borscht circuit" in upstate New York. Like so many talented individuals in Hollywood during the 1950s, Sherman was targeted by the House Un-American Activities Committee, owing in part to his active support of the WPA Theatre project in New York two decades previous. Time spent on the lesser known gray list kept him out of work for several years. Eventually, he again enjoyed some critical success, but after the demise of the studio system life was never quite the same. The quintessential "studio director" ended his career directing for television. Vincent Sherman's path from Georgia to southern California is compelling, and his legendary talent for good storytelling makes the book impossible to put down.
Download or read book Bette Joan written by Shaun Considine and published by Graymalkin Media. This book was released on 2017-01-25 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This joint biography of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford follows Hollywood's most epic rivalry throughout their careers. They only worked together once, in the classic spine-chiller "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane" and their violent hatred of each other as rival sisters was no act. In real life they fought over as many man as they did film roles. The story of these two dueling divas is hilarious, monstrous, and tragic, and Shaun Considine’s account of it is exhaustive, explosive, and unsparing. “Rip-roaring. A definite ten.” - New York Magazine.
Download or read book Films of Joan Crawford written by Lawrence J. Quirk and published by Lyle Stuart. This book was released on 1970-10 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A profile of the actress prefaces plot summaries, reviews, and stills from all her motion pictures
Download or read book The Blind Alley written by Jake Hinkson and published by . This book was released on 2015-03-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Conversations with Classic Film Stars written by James Bawden and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2016-04 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bawden and Miller present an astonishing collection of rare interviews with the greatest celebrities of Hollywood's golden age. Conducted over the course of more than fifty years, they recount intimate conversations with some of the most famous leading men and women of the era. Each interview takes readers behind the scenes with some of cinema's most iconic stars, as the actors convey unforgettable stories.
