Download or read book My Happy Days in Hollywood written by Garry Marshall and published by Crown Pub. This book was released on 2012 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lighthearted account by the award-winning producer and director of such productions as Laverne & Shirley and Pretty Woman traces his Bronx childhood, role in shaping A-list celebrity careers and personal philosophies about life and entertainment. 60,000 first printing.
Download or read book Happy Days written by Shana Alexander and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-02-17 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed 60 Minutes commentator and true-crime author Shana Alexander turns her journalist’s eye to her own unconventional family—and herself—in this fascinating, moving memoir Shana Alexander spent most of her life trying to figure out her enigmatic parents. Milton Ager was a famous songwriter whose creations included “Ain’t She Sweet” and “Happy Days Are Here Again.” Cecelia Ager was a film critic and Variety columnist. They were a glamorous Jazz Age couple that moved in charmed circles with George and Ira Gershwin, Dorothy Parker, and Jerome Kern. They remained together for fifty-seven years, and yet they lived separate lives. This wise, witty, unflinchingly candid memoir is also a revealing account of Alexander’s own life, from her successful career as a writer and national-news commentator to her troubled marriages and emotionally wrenching love affairs. She shares insights about growing up with a cold, hypercritical mother, her relationship with her younger sister, the suicide of her adopted daughter, and her reconciliation with her parents after a twenty-year estrangement. “I had to do a lot of detective work to uncover the truth about my parents’ lives,” Alexander said. “I knew almost nothing about them as people. But by the end they really did become my best friends.”
Download or read book My Days written by Marion Ross and published by Kensington Books. This book was released on 2018-03-27 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For eleven seasons, she was head of one of America's favorite television households. Now meet the lovable real-life woman behind the Happy Days mom. Before she was affectionately known to millions as “Mrs. C.,” Marion Ross began her career as a Paramount starlet who went on to appear in nearly every major TV series of the 1950s and 1960s—including Love, American Style, in which she donned an apron that would cinch her career. Soon after came the phone call that changed her life . . . In this warm and candid memoir, filled with recollections from the award-winning Happy Days team—from break-out star Henry Winkler to Cunningham “wild child” Erin Moran—Ross shares what it was like to be a starry-eyed young girl with dreams in poor, rural Minnesota, and the resilience it took to make them come true. She recalls her early years in the business, being in the company of such luminaries as Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, yet always feeling the Hollywood outsider—an invisibility that mirrored her own childhood. She reveals the joys of playing a wife and mother on TV, and the struggles of maintaining those roles in real life. But among Ross's most heart-rending recollections are those of finally finding a soulmate—another hope made true beyond her expectations. Featuring producer Garry Marshall's final interview—as well as a touching foreword from her “TV son” Ron Howard, and a conversation with her real-life son and daughter, Marion Ross's inspiring story is also a glowing tribute to all those who fulfilled her dreams—and in turn, gave us some of the happiest days of our own lives.
Download or read book Singing to a Bulldog written by Anson Williams and published by Reader's Digest. This book was released on 2014-11-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Singing to a Bulldog presents the practical and motivational lessons Anson Williams, an accomplished actor, director, singer and producer gleaned from his life experience and words of wisdom from the head janitor at one of his first jobs. Growing up in 1950s California, young Anson William Heimlich showed very little promise. Clumsy, unsure of himself, and made to feel like a failure by his disappointed artist of a dad, Anson started working odd jobs as a teenager to help support his family. His boss at one of these jobs, an aging African-American janitor named Willie, unexpectedly became a mentor—and the lessons he taught young Anson proved to be invaluable throughout his subsequent career as an actor, director, and entrepreneur. In Singing to a Bulldog, Anson Williams (as he came to be known) relates both these lessons and the never-before-revealed stories of the many seminal TV series he has worked on and the famous (and not-so-famous) folks he’s encountered during his 40 years in Hollywood, including: • being directed by Steven Spielberg in his first dramatic role • getting kidnapped by Gerald Ford’s daughter at the White House • subbing for Sammy Davis, Jr., as a headliner with Bill Cosby • being humbled by Sunny, a young volunteer for the Cerebral Palsy National Organization • mentoring Shailene Woodley on the set of The Secret Life of the American Teenager and many more. This compelling read has a cross-generational and broad appeal, combining all the fun of a celebrity memoir with the emotional impact of an inspirational bestseller. With Singing to a Bulldog, Anson Williams brings his gift of storytelling to a new medium in a book that is sure to touch readers’ hearts and lives as profoundly as Willie once touched his.
Download or read book Happy Days Healthy Living written by Cathy Silvers and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2007 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This true tale of a Hollywood childhood, a fairytale role in one of television's all-time most popular shows, and a journey to dynamic and radiant health through a living-foods diet reveals author Cathy Silvers to be as enthusiastic an advocate of healthy living as "Jenny Piccolo" was boy-crazy"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book The Boys written by Ron Howard and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-10-12 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “This extraordinary book is not only a chronicle of Ron’s and Clint’s early careers and their wild adventures, but also a primer on so many topics—how an actor prepares, how to survive as a kid working in Hollywood, and how to be the best parents in the world! The Boys will surprise every reader with its humanity.” — Tom Hanks "I have read dozens of Hollywood memoirs. But The Boys stands alone. A delightful, warm and fascinating story of a good life in show business.” — Malcolm Gladwell Happy Days, The Andy Griffith Show, Gentle Ben—these shows captivated millions of TV viewers in the ’60s and ’70s. Join award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard and audience-favorite actor Clint Howard as they frankly and fondly share their unusual family story of navigating and surviving life as sibling child actors. “What was it like to grow up on TV?” Ron Howard has been asked this question throughout his adult life. in The Boys, he and his younger brother, Clint, examine their childhoods in detail for the first time. For Ron, playing Opie on The Andy Griffith Show and Richie Cunningham on Happy Days offered fame, joy, and opportunity—but also invited stress and bullying. For Clint, a fast start on such programs as Gentle Ben and Star Trek petered out in adolescence, with some tough consequences and lessons. With the perspective of time and success—Ron as a filmmaker, producer, and Hollywood A-lister, Clint as a busy character actor—the Howard brothers delve deep into an upbringing that seemed normal to them yet was anything but. Their Midwestern parents, Rance and Jean, moved to California to pursue their own showbiz dreams. But it was their young sons who found steady employment as actors. Rance put aside his ego and ambition to become Ron and Clint’s teacher, sage, and moral compass. Jean became their loving protector—sometimes over-protector—from the snares and traps of Hollywood. By turns confessional, nostalgic, heartwarming, and harrowing, THE BOYS is a dual narrative that lifts the lid on the Howard brothers’ closely held lives. It’s the journey of a tight four-person family unit that held fast in an unforgiving business and of two brothers who survived “child-actor syndrome” to become fulfilled adults.
Download or read book Who Killed the Fonz written by James Boice and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2020-02-18 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The legendary 1950s-era TV show Happy Days gets reinvented as a gritty, “shamelessly entertaining” (Kirkus Reviews) 1980s noir. Late October, 1984. Prince and Bruce are dominating FM radio. Ron and Nancy are headed back to the White House. And Richard Cunningham? Well, Richard Cunningham is having a really bad Sunday. First, there’s the meeting with his agent. A decade ago, the forty-something Cunningham was one of Hollywood’s hottest screenwriters. But now Tinseltown is no longer interested in his artsy, introspective scripts. They want Terminator cyborgs and exploding Stay Puft Marshmallow men. Then later that same day Richard gets a phone call with even worse news: His best friend from childhood back in Milwaukee is dead. Arthur Fonzarelli. The Fonz. He lost control of his motorcycle while crossing a bridge and plummeted into the water below. Two days of searching and still no body, no trace of his trademark leather jacket, and Richard suspects murder. With the help of his old pals Ralph Malph and Potsie Weber, he sets out to catch the killer. “Readers yearning for simpler times will enjoy this trip down memory lane, which is as comforting as an episode of Happy Days” (Publishers Weekly). Who Killed the Fonz? imagines what happened to the characters of the legendary TV show Happy Days twenty years after the series left off. And while much has changed in the interim—goodbye drive-in movie theaters, hello VCRs—the story centers around the same timeless themes as the show: The meaning of family. The significance of friendship. The importance of community. “Wildly inventive and entertaining” (Booklist), Who Killed the Fonz? is an “irresistible” (New York Newsday) twist on a beloved classic that proves sometimes you can go home again. TM & © 2018 CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved
Download or read book My Mother was Nuts written by Penny Marshall and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2012 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From her humble roots in the Bronx to Laverne and Shirley and her unlikely ascent in Hollywood, the beloved actor and director tells the story of her incredible life.
Download or read book Paparazzi Princess written by Jen Calonita and published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2009-03-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the last season of Family Affair comes to a close, prime-time teen star Kaitlin Burke is no closer to deciding what she wants to do after the show ends. Struggling with career choices and bummed over a ridiculous catfight with her BFF, Liz, Kaitlin is so mixed up she even starts to semi-bond with her archnemesis, Sky. Worst of all, she falls in with two of Hollywood's biggest party fiends when one of them asks her, "Don't you ever do what you want to do?" Shopping sprees and the Tinseltown nightlife seem fun at first, but soon Kaitlin realizes that being a paparazzi princess just might be her downfall. You won't want to miss the fourth book in Jen Calonita's beloved six-book Secrets of My Hollywood Life series.
Download or read book Alien Superstar Book 1 written by Henry Winkler and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A six-eyed teenage alien refugee becomes a Hollywood star in this hilarious series opener by the bestselling authors of the Hank Zipzer series, Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver. When thirteen-year-old Buddy Burger has to flee from his alien planet, he crash lands in an even wilder place: Hollywood, California. But no one is shocked to see a six-eyed alien strolling around the Universal back lot. The tourists just think he’s an actor in a supercool alien costume. And the fancy Hollywood directors take notice too. They cast Buddy in a popular TV show playing (of course) an alien. After a video of his first episode goes viral, he becomes an overnight sensation, and suddenly, his world is filled with adoring fans, rides in glamorous limos, and appearances at all-the-shrimp-you-can-eat red carpet parties! Will Buddy be able to keep his secret when all eyes are on him? Or will the glitz and glam of Hollywood prove too much for this alien superstar? “Alien Superstar has it all . . . action, suspense, and big laughs!” —Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series “Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver keep us laughing while slipping in a lesson for kids—accept everyone as they are, even if they have suction cups for feet. Alien Superstar is a super fun read for middle grades on up.” —Jennifer Garner “A funny interstellar adventure that will have readers watching the cosmos for the second book to arrive.” —SLJ Review "Winkler and Oliver bring their sharply honed sense of comedy and extensive experience in the television industry to Buddy’s antics on the set. . . . This results in an endearingly strange protagonist that will resonate with any kid who has felt like an outsider. A sense of humor and empathy are required for this zany adventure.” —Booklist
Download or read book Call Me Lucky written by Mike Farris and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2012-11-12 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Do you think you could teach Rock Hudson to talk like you do?” The question came from famed Hollywood director George Stevens, and an affirmative answer propelled Bob Hinkle into a fifty-year career in Hollywood as a speech coach, actor, producer, director, and friend to the stars. Along the way, Hinkle helped Rock Hudson, Dennis Hopper, Carroll Baker, and Mercedes McCambridge talk like Texans for the 1956 epic film Giant. He also helped create the character Jett Rink with James Dean, who became a best friend, and he consoled Elizabeth Taylor personally when Dean was killed in a tragic car accident before the film was released. A few years later, Paul Newman asked Hinkle to do for him what he’d done for James Dean. The result was Newman’s powerful portrayal of a Texas no-good in the Academy Award–winning film Hud (1963). Hinkle could—and did—stop by the LBJ Ranch to exchange pleasantries with the president of the United States. He did likewise with Elvis Presley at Graceland. Good friends with Robert Wagner, Hinkle even taught Wagner’s wife Natalie Wood how to throw a rope. He appeared in numerous television series, including Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Dragnet, and Walker, Texas Ranger. On a handshake, he worked as country music legend Marty Robbins’s manager, and he helped Evel Knievel rise to fame. From his birth in Brownfield, Texas, to a family so poor “they could only afford a tumbleweed as a pet,” Hinkle went on to gain acclaim in Hollywood. Through it all, he remained the salty, down-to-earth former rodeo cowboy from West Texas who could talk his way into—or out of—most any situation. More than forty photographs, including rare behind-the-scenes glimpses of the stars Hinkle met and befriended along the way, complement this rousing, never-dull memoir.
Download or read book The Hot One written by Carolyn Murnick and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-08 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Subtitle in pre-publication: A memoir of friendship, sex, and murder in the Hollywood Hills.
Download or read book Happy Days A Musical 90 Minute Version written by Garry Marshall and published by Samuel French, Inc.. This book was released on 2010-10 with total page 91 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Musical Characters: 10 male, 7 female, Cast can be expanded for large groups This abridged, 90-minute version, is perfect for school groups. Goodbye gray skies, hello blue! Happy days are here again with Richie, Potsie, Ralph Malph and the unforgettable "king of cool" Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli. Based on the hit Paramount Pictures television series, Happy Days, A New Musical reintroduces one of America's best loved families, the Cunninghams -- yes, Howard,
Download or read book Make My Day written by J. Hoberman and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2019-07-02 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named a Best Book of the Year by Financial Times "Singular, stylish and slightly intoxicating in its scope." —Rolling Stone Acclaimed media critic J. Hoberman's masterful and majestic exploration of the Reagan years as seen through the unforgettable movies of the era The third book in a brilliant and ambitious trilogy, celebrated cultural and film critic J. Hoberman's Make My Day is a major new work of film and pop culture history. In it he chronicles the Reagan years, from the waning days of the Watergate scandal when disaster films like Earthquake ruled the box office to the nostalgia of feel-good movies like Rocky and Star Wars, and the delirium of the 1984 presidential campaign and beyond. Bookended by the Bicentennial celebrations and the Iran-Contra affair, the period of Reagan's ascendance brought such movie events as Jaws, Apocalypse Now, Blade Runner, Ghostbusters, Blue Velvet, and Back to the Future, as well as the birth of MTV, the Strategic Defense Initiative, and the Second Cold War. An exploration of the synergy between American politics and popular culture, Make My Day is the concluding volume of Hoberman's Found Illusions trilogy; the first volume, The Dream Life, was described by Slate's David Edelstein as "one of the most vital cultural histories I've ever read"; Film Comment called the second, An Army of Phantoms, "utterly compulsive reading." Reagan, a supporting player in Hoberman's previous volumes, here takes center stage as the peer of Indiana Jones and John Rambo, the embodiment of a Hollywood that, even then, no longer existed.
Download or read book My Lucky Stars written by Shirley Maclaine and published by Bantam. This book was released on 1996-11-01 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this touching memoir, Academy Award–winning actress Shirley MacLaine “dishes up revelations and insights galore” (USA Today) about her career in Hollywood. “Robust, ribald stories . . . juicy.”—People In the memoir that made headlines, Shirley MacLaine dazzles us with the subject she knows most intimately: Hollywood, especially about the men and women—her “lucky stars”—who touched and challenged her life. She talks candidly and personally about . . . Her wildly unconventional marriage to Steve Parker “As soon as [we met], I knew my life was to take a new course. . . . Our connection had the shock of destiny to it. . , . There was nothing I could have done to alter or avoid the experience we were intended to have together.” Her friendship with the Rat Pack—especially Frank Sinatra “I was comfortable and friendly being around the guys in the group because I was perceived by most of them as a mascot. I was the only woman they allowed in the house, but that was because there had been a kind of communal decision made that I wasn’t really a girl—I was a pal, maybe even one of the boys.” The movie she made with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis “Dean, not Jerry, was the funny one to me. His humor was subtle, spontaneous—a result of the moment. Jerry’s was brilliant, but usually premeditated.” And much, much more . . .
Download or read book My Hollywood written by Mona Simpson and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-08-03 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wonderfully provocative and appealing novel, from the much-loved author of Anywhere But Here and A Regular Guy, her first in ten years. It tells the story of two women whose lives entwine and unfold behind the glittery surface of Hollywood. Claire, a composer and a new mother, comes to LA so her husband can follow his passion for writing television comedy. Suddenly the marriage—once a genuine 50/50 arrangement—changes, with Paul working long hours and Claire left at home with a baby, William, whom she adores but has no idea how to care for. Lola, a fifty-two-year-old mother of five who is working in America to pay for her own children’s higher education back in the Philippines, becomes their nanny. Lola stabilizes the rocky household and soon other parents try to lure her away. What she sacrifices to stay with Claire and “Williamo” remains her own closely guarded secret. In a novel at turns satirical and heartbreaking, where mothers’ modern ideas are given practical overhauls by nannies, we meet Lola’s vast network of fellow caregivers, each with her own story to tell. We see the upstairs competition for the best nanny and the downstairs competition for the best deal, and are forced to ask whether it is possible to buy love for our children and what that transaction costs us all. We look into two contemporary marriages—one in America and one in the Philippines—and witness their endangerment, despite the best of intentions. My Hollywood is a tender, witty, and resonant novel that provides the profound pleasures readers have come to expect from Mona Simpson, here writing at the height of her powers.
Download or read book Primetime Propaganda written by Ben Shapiro and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-05-31 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Vitally important, devastatingly thorough, and shockingly revealing…. After reading Primetime Propaganda, you’ll never watch TV the same way again.” —Mark Levin Movie critic Michael Medved calls Ben Shapiro, “One of our most refreshing and insightful voices on the popular culture, as well as a conscience for his much-maligned generation.” With Primetime Propaganda, the syndicated columnist and bestselling author of Brainwashed, Porn Generation, and Project President tells the shocking true story of how the most powerful medium of mass communication in human history became a vehicle for spreading the radical agenda of the left side of the political spectrum. Similar to what Bernard Goldberg’s Bias and A Slobbering Love Affair did for the liberal news machine, Shapiro’s Primetime Propaganda is an essential exposé of corrupting media bias, pulling back the curtain on widespread and unrepentant abuses of the Hollywood entertainment industry.