Download or read book Mickey Rooney Was Right written by D.W. Paone and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2010-03-02 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mickey Rooney Was Right is D.W. Paone’s autobiography with the emphasis on his quest to achieve success as both a writer and assistant cameraman in the entertainment industry. However, no matter how hard he tried, and he tried very hard, long-term success in both these aspects of the industry continued to elude him. While he had the opportunity to work on Law & Order and a handful of other high-profile jobs, and even sold a joke to Jay Leno, his career was a roller coaster ride of highs and lows in a fickle industry with no rhyme or reason. This book is for anyone who has attempted, or even considered a career in the entertainment industry, or followed a dream even when logic and those around him said to stop.
Download or read book The Life and Times of Mickey Rooney written by Richard A. Lertzman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A definitive biography of the iconic actor and Hollywood legend Mickey Rooney (1920-2014) and his extravagant, sometimes tawdry life, drawing on exclusive interviews, and with those who knew him best, including his heretofore unknown mistress of sixty years. “I lived like a rock star,” said Mickey Rooney. “I had all I ever wanted, from Lana Turner and Joan Crawford to every starlet in Hollywood, and then some. They were mine to have. Ava [Gardner] was the best. I screwed up my life. I pissed away millions. I was #1, the biggest star in the world.” Mickey Rooney began his career almost a century ago as a one-year-old performer in burlesque and stamped his mark in vaudeville, silent films, talking films, Broadway, and television. He acted in his final motion picture just weeks before he died at age ninety-three. He was an iconic presence in movies, the poster boy for American youth in the idyllic small-town 1930s. Yet, by World War II, Mickey Rooney had become frozen in time. A perpetual teenager in an aging body, he was an anachronism by the time he hit his forties. His child-star status haunted him as the gilded safety net of Hollywood fell away, and he was forced to find support anywhere he could, including affairs with beautiful women, multiple marriages, alcohol, and drugs. In The Life and Times of Mickey Rooney, authors Richard A. Lertzman and William J. Birnes present Mickey’s nearly century-long career within the context of America's changing entertainment and social landscape. They chronicle his life story using little-known interviews with the star himself, his children, his former coauthor Roger Kahn, collaborator Arthur Marx, and costar Margaret O’Brien. This Old Hollywood biography presents Mickey Rooney from every angle, revealing the man Laurence Olivier once dubbed “the best there has ever been.”
Download or read book The Essential Mickey Rooney written by James L. Neibaur and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-04-16 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mickey Rooney is a cinematic icon whose career lasted from the silent era into the twenty-first century. From the shorts he made as Mickey McGuire to supporting roles in such films as Night at the Museum, Rooney had more than 300 film appearances to his credit. Mickey Rooney was not just a movie star, he was the most popular film performer for several years in a row in the 1930s. In addition to his four Academy Award nominations, Rooney received two special Oscars, including an honorary award for his variety of memorable performances spanning several decades. In The Essential Mickey Rooney, James L. Neibaur examines more than sixty feature films in which the actor appeared, from starring roles in Boys Town, Babes in Arms, and The Human Comedy to acclaimed supporting performances in The Bold and the Brave and The Black Stallion. In addition to familiar works like the Andy Hardy comedies or musicals opposite Judy Garland, lesser known films like Quicksand and Drive a Crooked Road are discussed as examples of the masterful performances he offered again and again. An actor of rare talent and unrestrained exuberance, Rooney appeared so often on film that it probably is impossible to view every performance of his career—one that lasted longer than any other actor in Hollywood. While minor roles are not discussed here, all of his vintage works are, making The Essential Mickey Rooney an indispensable resource for anyone wanting to learn more about the best work of this film icon.
Download or read book The Life and Times of Mickey Rooney written by William J. Birnes and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A definitive biography of the iconic actor and Hollywood legend Mickey Rooney (1920-2014) and his extravagant, sometimes tawdry life, drawing on never-before-seen excerpts from Rooney's diary and exclusive interviews with Mickey, and with those who knew him best, including his heretofore unknown mistress of sixty years"--
Download or read book The Star Machine written by Jeanine Basinger and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-01-06 with total page 610 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER'S 100 GREATEST FILM BOOKS OF ALL TIME • From one of our most distinguished film scholars, comes a rich, penetrating, amusing book about the golden age of movies and how the studios worked to manufacture stars. With revelatory insights and delightful asides, Jeanine Basinger shows us how the studio “star machine” worked when it worked, how it failed when it didn't, and how irrelevant it could sometimes be. She gives us case studies focusing on big stars groomed into the system: the “awesomely beautiful” (and disillusioned) Tyrone Power; the seductive, disobedient Lana Turner; and a dazzling cast of others. She anatomizes their careers, showing how their fame happened, and what happened to them as a result. Deeply engrossing, full of energy, wit, and wisdom, The Star Machine is destined to become an classic of the film canon.
Download or read book Hollywood Left and Right written by Steven J. Ross and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-06 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Hollywood Left and Right, Steven J. Ross tells a story that has escaped public attention: the emergence of Hollywood as a vital center of political life and the important role that movie stars have played in shaping the course of American politics. Ever since the film industry relocated to Hollywood early in the twentieth century, it has had an outsized influence on American politics. Through compelling larger-than-life figures in American cinema--Charlie Chaplin, Louis B. Mayer, Edward G. Robinson, George Murphy, Ronald Reagan, Harry Belafonte, Jane Fonda, Charlton Heston, Warren Beatty, and Arnold Schwarzenegger--Hollywood Left and Right reveals how the film industry's engagement in politics has been longer, deeper, and more varied than most people would imagine. As shown in alternating chapters, the Left and the Right each gained ascendancy in Tinseltown at different times. From Chaplin, whose movies almost always displayed his leftist convictions, to Schwarzenegger's nearly seamless transition from action blockbusters to the California governor's mansion, Steven J. Ross traces the intersection of Hollywood and political activism from the early twentieth century to the present. Hollywood Left and Right challenges the commonly held belief that Hollywood has always been a bastion of liberalism. The real story, as Ross shows in this passionate and entertaining work, is far more complicated. First, Hollywood has a longer history of conservatism than liberalism. Second, and most surprising, while the Hollywood Left was usually more vocal and visible, the Right had a greater impact on American political life, capturing a senate seat (Murphy), a governorship (Schwarzenegger), and the ultimate achievement, the Presidency (Reagan).
Download or read book Straighten Up and Fly Right written by Will Friedwald and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-03 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most popular and memorable American musicians of the 20th century, Nat King Cole (1919-65) is remembered today as both a pianist and a singer, a feat rarely accomplished in the world of popular music. Now, in this complete life and times biography, author Will Friedwald offers a new take on this fascinating musician, framing him first as a bandleader and then as a star. In Cole's early phase, Friedwald explains, his primary task of keeping his trio going was just as much of a focus for him as his own playing and singing, always a collective or group performance. In the second act, Cole's collaborators were more likely to be arranger-conductors like Nelson Riddle and Gordon Jenkins, rather than his sidemen on bass and guitar. In the first act, his sidemen were equals, in the second phase, his collaborators were tasked exclusively with putting the focus on him, making him sound good, while being largely invisible themselves. Friedwald brings his full musical knowledge to bear in putting the man in the work, demonstrating how this duality appears over and over again in Cole's life and career: jazz vs. pop, solo vs. trio, piano vs. voice, wife number one (Nadine) vs. wife number two (Maria), the good songs vs. the less-than-good songs, the rhythm numbers vs. the ballads, the funny songs and novelties vs. the "serious" songs of love and loss, Cole as an advocate for the Great American Songbook vs. Cole the intrepid explorer of other options: world music, rhythm & blues, country & western. Cole was different from his contemporaries in other ways; for roughly ten years after the war, the majority of hitmakers on the pop charts were veterans of the big band experience, from Sinatra on down.
Download or read book The Cosmic Lady Was Right written by Marshall Motz and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2009-09-28 with total page 557 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No ordinary memoir, this book aspires to be more than a mere exercise in narcissism. A street person in a zany California beach town at the end of the author's days provides the theme: planet Earth is the Galaxy Lunatic Training Asylum upon which each of us has been planted with one purpose, namely to rise from the stupidity and the darkness around us into the light, to regain in fact our sanity. Mama Earth is really tired of it all, the Lady opines, and recommends a journey inward. Taking a literary look back at his life, he sees she was right. In a series of poignant vignettes, it becomes clear that he and the whole country have been progressively descending into hopeless lunacy. Ah but theres more; there's an agend here. It seems its all been a macho ego trip---the whole of human history in fact---an unfortunate male mistake, a mere prelude to the new paradigm, the return of the goddess---meaning the spiritual androgyny that Jesus talks about in the Gospel of Thomas. We need to restore the balance between male and female. In a hilarious final chapter set in the aforementioned California city, it all comes together: Mama Earth, the Goddess Sophia and the Cosmic Lady, who is vindicated in an eschatological grand finale. She was right all along.
Download or read book It s What s Inside the Lines That Counts written by Fay Vincent and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-03-16 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It’s What’s Inside the Lines That Counts brings together ballplayers, managers, an umpire, and the first head of the players’ union to describe the momentous changes to the game that took place in the 1970s and 1980s. Former MLB commissioner Fay Vincent draws from his ongoing oral history of the game to celebrate the era that spans the Miracle Mets through free agency to Cal Ripken’s historic consecutive-games streak. Willie McCovey remembers meeting the Giants’ other Willie and the powerful impact that Willie Mays had on him. He expresses pride that the Giants chose to honor him at their ballpark with McCovey Cove. Teammate Juan Marichal, one of baseball’s Latino pioneers, recalls encountering racism for the first time in America. He recounts fortuitously overhearing a conversation among Latino ballplayers before a Giants-Pirates game that provided him with crucial information about Roberto Clemente. Managers Dick Williams and Earl Weaver assess their Hall of Fame careers. Williams remembers his contentious relationship with Charlie Finley and explains why he never managed for George Stein-brenner. Earl Weaver says he has changed, that umpires were "fantastic people," and that he shouldn’t have gotten thrown out of so many ballgames. Read it here for yourself. Tom Seaver, one of the dominant pitchers of his era, shares a funny incident from his first All-Star game, when he was young and looked even younger, and discloses the important piece of baseball wisdom that Gil Hodges gave him early in his career that has guided him ever since. Don Baylor recalls playing with a variety of teammates and teams, including the remarkable experience of playing in three consecutive World Series with three different teams, going from the 1986 Red Sox that came so close to winning the Series to the 1987 Minnesota Twins team that actually did it. Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith, "the Wizard of Oz," tells the story of how he began his signature back flip and offers insights into how he was able to pull off some of the most spectacular defensive plays in baseball history. Baseball’s Iron Man Cal Ripken remembers the high expectations that came with being the son of a baseball manager and explains why the "Orioles way" was more than just a slogan for him. Bruce Froemming, MLB’s longest-serving umpire, reveals the rules behind the fine art of allowing managers and coaches to have their say and still maintain absolute control over the game. And Marvin Miller, one of the most important figures in the history of the game, explains the origins and intentions of baseball’s players’ union and why he is so proud of what it has achieved. No fan of the game will want to pass up this illustrated, fascinating remembrance of two decades when baseball changed forever.
Download or read book Mickey Rooney written by James A. MacEachern and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mickey Rooney was one of Hollywood's most prolific and long-lived stars, with film credits spanning the silent and CGI eras. Despite his Broadway acclaim and gift for character acting, he is remembered mainly for his comedies and tumultuous personal life. Most biographies have focused on these, neglecting his long and varied career, which was marked by sharp declines and meteoric comebacks. Drawing on interviews with coworkers, this book reveals Rooney as a skilled actor who settled for less in an industry that relegated him to lesser roles, and built a body of work admired by audiences and actors alike.
Download or read book Selected Amazon Reviews written by Kevin Killian and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2024-11-26 with total page 705 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A book-length selection from Kevin Killian's legendary corpus of more than two thousand product reviews posted on Amazon.com. An enchanting roll of duct tape. Love Actually on Blu-ray Disc. The Toaster Oven Cookbook, The Biography of Stevie Nicks, and an anthology of poets who died of AIDS. In this only book-length selection from his legendary corpus of more than two thousand product reviews posted on Amazon.com, sagacious shopper Kevin Killian holds forth on these household essentials and many, many, many others. The beloved author of more than a dozen volumes of innovative poetry, fiction, drama, and scholarship, Killian was for decades a charismatic participant in San Francisco’s New Narrative writing circle. From 2003–2019, he was also one of Amazon’s most prolific reviewers, rising to rarefied “Top 100” and “Hall of Fame” status on the site. Alternately hilarious and heartfelt, Killian’s commentaries consider an incredible variety of items, each review a literary escapade hidden in plain sight amongst the retailer’s endless pages of user-generated content. Selected Amazon Reviews at last gathers an appropriately wide swath of this material between two covers, revealing the project to be a unified whole and always more than a lark. Some for “verified purchases,” others for products enjoyed in theory, Killian’s reviews draw on the influential strategies of New Narrative, his unrivaled fandom for both elevated and popular culture, and the fine art of fabulation. Many of them are ingeniously funny—flash-fictional riffs on the commodity as talismanic object, written by a cast of personas worthy of Pessoa. And many others are serious, even scholarly—earnest tributes to contemporaries, and to small-press books that may not have received attention elsewhere, offered with exemplary attention. All of Killian’s reviews subvert the Amazon platform, queering it to his own play with language, identity, genre, critique. Killian’s prose is a consistent pleasure throughout Selected Amazon Reviews, brimming with wit, lyricism, and true affection. As the Hall of Famer himself reflected on this form-of-his-own-invention shortly before his untimely passing in 2019: “They’re reviews of a sort, but they also seem like novels. They’re poems. They’re essays about life. I get a lot of my kinks out there, on Amazon.”
Download or read book From Dead Ends to Cold Warriors written by Peter W.Y. Lee and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-12 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After World War II, studies examining youth culture on the silver screen start with James Dean. But the angst that Dean symbolized—anxieties over parents, the “Establishment,” and the expectations of future citizen-soldiers—long predated Rebels without a Cause. Historians have largely overlooked how the Great Depression and World War II impacted and shaped the Cold War, and youth contributed to the national ideologies of family and freedom. From Dead Ends to Cold Warriors explores this gap by connecting facets of boyhood as represented in American film from the 1930s to the postwar years. From the Andy Hardy series to pictures such as The Search, Intruder in the Dust, and The Gunfighter, boy characters addressed larger concerns over the dysfunctional family unit, militarism, the “race question,” and the international scene as the Korean War began. Navigating the political, social, and economic milieus inside and outside of Hollywood, Peter W.Y. Lee demonstrates that continuities from the 1930s influenced the unique postwar moment, coalescing into anticommunism and the Cold War.
Download or read book Shirley Temple Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-01-20 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures. *Includes the child stars' quotes about their own lives and careers. *Includes bibliographies for further reading. Shirley Temple remains the most famous child star of all time, but even this designation fails to reflect the magnitude of her popularity during the era in which she worked. While it is true that she was not the first child actor to reach Hollywood fame, she was the first - and to this day, perhaps the only - star who rose to the very pinnacle of the Hollywood elite before she even turned 10 years old. For this reason, it is no exaggeration to view Shirley as the progenitor for all of the child actors that succeeded her. Moreover, her cultural importance constitutes an even more important barometer through which to measure her overall significance. Not only was Shirley a film star, but she had a monumental impact on a generation of children who grew up during the Great Depression, with her plucky optimism emotionally uplifting an American public struggling both financially and emotionally. She was not only a young actress but also a brand name, someone who offered fathers and mothers hope for their children to achieve the same success as the famous child star. Yet, for all of Shirley Temple's fame, it is no doubt surprising to many that her actual films received scant critical acclaim. Her films were never mentioned on critical "best of" lists, nor did they regularly appear on the list of nominees for the Academy Awards. In many ways, Judy Garland's rise to fame seems almost predestined. Not only was she a national sensation at a young age, but her parents and sisters were all vaudeville entertainers. On top of that, Garland's parents owned and operated a movie theater, making it all the easier to draw the conclusion that singing and acting were simply professions which she was born into by virtue of her pedigree. Judy's early childhood quickly demonstrated that she had a gifted voice that developed well beyond its years and seemingly did not require any formal training in order to achieve success; her first performance before a public audience came when she was still a toddler, and she would continue to act up until her death, never pausing for more than a few months at a time. That Garland was able to secure starring roles almost immediately after signing a contract with MGM in 1935 only corroborates the belief that Garland was practically born with the ability to succeed in show business and the motion picture industry. Of course, Garland might be known today based more on her demise than anything else, and there's no denying that one of the most fascinating (and tragic) aspects of her life story is the manner in which her downward spiral occurred with the same rapid progression as her meteoric ascent. Garland died in 1969 at the age of 47, but she had lost control over her life years earlier and was actually fortunate to live as long as she did. Alongside Shirley Temple and Judy Garland, with whom he acted in a series of films, Mickey Rooney was one of America's most beloved child stars during the 1930s. Rooney had already made his mark in A Family Affair (1937), but he was the face of the incredibly successful Andy Hardy series, which produced several box office hits and featured Rooney in 13 movies, several alongside Judy Garland, who shot to fame as a teen in The Wizard of Oz. At the same time, the fact that the peak of his success came when he was so young has helped obscure the fact that he has acted in 10 different decades. Rooney is one of the only actors still alive who worked in the silent film era, yet he recently appeared in 2012's Last Will and Embezzlement. In the process, Rooney has been awarded a Juvenile Academy Award, an Honorary Academy Award, two Golden Globes and an Emmy Award.
Download or read book Get Happy written by Gerald Clarke and published by Delta. This book was released on 2009-11-11 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: She lived at full throttle on stage, screen, and in real life, with highs that made history and lows that finally brought down the curtain at age forty-seven. Judy Garland died over thirty years ago, but no biography has so completely captured her spirit -- and demons -- until now. From her tumultuous early years as a child performer to her tragic last days, Gerald Clarke reveals the authentic Judy in a biography rich in new detail and unprecedented revelations. Based on hundreds of interviews and drawing on her own unfinished -- and unpublished -- autobiography, Get Happy presents the real Judy Garland in all her flawed glory. With the same skill, style, and storytelling flair that made his bestselling Capote a landmark literary biography, Gerald Clarke sorts through the secrets and the scandals, the legends and the lies, to create a portrait of Judy Garland as candid as it is compassionate. Here are her early years, during which her parents sowed the seeds of heartbreak and self-destruction that would plague her for decades ... the golden age of Hollywood, brought into sharp focus with cinematic urgency, from the hidden private lives of the movie world's biggest stars to the cold-eyed businessmen who controlled the machine ... and a parade of brilliant and gifted men -- lovers and artists, impresarios and crooks -- who helped her reach so many creative pinnacles yet left her hopeless and alone after each seemingly inevitable fall. Here, then, is Judy Garland in all her magic and despair: the woman, the star, the legend, in a riveting saga of tragedy, resurrection, and genius.
Download or read book In Such Good Company written by Carol Burnett and published by Crown. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this New York Times bestseller, comedy legend Carol Burnett tells the hilarious behind-the-scenes story of her iconic weekly variety series, The Carol Burnett Show. In In Such Good Company, Carol Burnett pulls back the curtain on the twenty-five-time Emmy-Award winning show that made television history, and she reminisces about the outrageously funny and tender moments that made working on the series as much fun as watching it. Carol delves into little-known stories of the guests, sketches and improvisations that made The Carol Burnett Show legendary, as well as some favorite tales too good not to relive again. While writing this book, Carol rewatched all 276 episodes and screen-grabbed her favorite video stills from the archives to illustrate the chemistry of the actors and the improvisational magic that made the show so successful. Putting the spotlight on everyone from her costars to the impressive list of guest stars, Carol crafts a lively portrait of the talent and creativity that went into every episode. With characteristic wit and incomparable comic timing, she details hiring Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Lyle Waggoner, and Tim Conway; shares anecdotes about guest stars and close friends, including Lucille Ball, Roddy Mcdowell, Jim Nabors, Bernadette Peters, Betty Grable, Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gorme, Gloria Swanson, Rita Hayworth, and Betty White; and gives her take on her favorite sketches and the unpredictable moments that took both the cast and viewers by surprise. This book is Carol's love letter to a golden era in television history through the lens of her brilliant show. Get the best seat in the house for "eleven years of laughter, mayhem, and fun in the sandbox."
Download or read book New York State Appellate Division written by and published by . This book was released on with total page 1256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book When Prophecy Still Had a Voice written by Arthur W. Biddle and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "These letters of two poets and solitaries betray a giddy delight in wordplay, unconstrained by rules of grammar or conventions of spelling. Puns, portmanteaus, and inside jokes abound. The thiry-year exchange began when Merton dashed off a note on June 17, 1938, after spending a week with Lax's family. The final epistle in their correspondence was written by Lax on December 8, 1968. Merton died in Bangkok five days later and never received it." "Arthur Biddle spent nearly ten years collecting every letter known to exist between Merton and Lax, a total of 346, two-thirds of which have never been published. Biddle provides chronologies of their lives and, through unobtrusive notes, places events and people in context within the letters. This volume also includes the text of a rare interview with Lax."--BOOK JACKET.
