Download or read book Rat Pack Confidential written by Shawn Levy and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 1999 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first biography of the Rat Pack - Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop et al - the original Swingers. Brilliant and beautifully written story of their rise and fall, and their connections with the Kennedys and the Mafia. They alit in Las Vegas for a month to make a movie and play a historic nightclub gig they called the Summit; they hit Miami, the Utah desert, Palm Springs, Chicago, Atlantic City, Beverly Hills, Hollywood back lots, illegal gambling dens, saloons, yachts, private jets, the White House itself. It was sauce and vinegar and eau de cologne and sour mash whiskey and gin and smoke and perfume and silk and neon and skinny lapels and tail fins and rockets to the sky. It was swinging and sighing and being a sharpie, it was cutting a figure and digging a scene. It was Frank and Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin and Peter Lawford for a while and Joey Bishop when they asked him and Jack Kennedy and Sam Giancana and tables full of cronies and who knew how many broads. It was the ultimate spasm of traditional showbiz - both the last and the most of its kind. It was the Rat Pack. It was beautiful. 'Rat Pack Confidential' - you're never far from a cocktail, a swingin' affair and a fist-fight.
Download or read book Rat Pack Confidential written by and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop. They were the most famous entertainers on the planet and they made the rules. Their world was full of charisma, talent and charm, gambling, private jets, drink, drugs and girls to excess. This was vintage Hollywood. This was showbiz. This was the Rat Pack. Shawn Levy's compelling and atmospheric bestseller has been adapted for the stage for Nottingham Playhouse by Paul Sirett.
Download or read book The Peter Lawford Story written by Patricia Lawford Stewart and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-02-03 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the brother in law to JFK and a member of the Rat Pack, Peter Lawford was one of America's most acclaimed movie stars. Lawford led an extraordinary life. His story, as told by the woman who knew him best, is the always candid, sometimes shocking unveiling of the most intriguing show business personalities and significant political events of our time. Now fully updated and revised for 2014 this is a must read for anyone interested in Hollywood, film, and celebrity gossip. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Download or read book Rat Pack Confidential written by Shaun Levy and published by Oberon Books. This book was released on 2003-09-01 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop. They were the most famous entertainers on the planet and they made the rules. Their world was full of charisma, talent and charm, gambling, private jets, drink, drugs and girls to excess. This was vintage Hollywood. This was showbiz. This was the Rat Pack. Shawn Levy's compelling and atmospheric bestseller has been adapted for the stage for Nottingham Playhouse by Paul Sirett.
Download or read book Ready Steady Go written by Shawn Levy and published by Crown. This book was released on 2003-07-08 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It’s the summer of 1966... The fundamental old ways: chastity, rationality, harmony, sobriety, even democracy: blasted to nothing or crumbling under siege. The city glows. It echoes. It pulses. It bleeds pastel and fuzzy, spicy, paisley and soft. This is how it's always going to be: smashing clothes, brilliant music, easy sex, eternal youth, the eyes of everybody, everyone's first thought, the top of the world, right here, right now: Swinging London. Shawn Levy has a genius for unearthing the secret history of popular culture. The Los Angeles Times called King of Comedy, his biography of Jerry Lewis, "a model of what a celebrity bio ought to be–smart, knowing, insightful, often funny, full of fascinating insiders' stories," and the Boston Globe declared that Rat Pack Confidential "evokes the time in question with the power of a novel, as well as James Ellroy's American Tabloid and better by far than Don DeLillo's Underworld." In Ready, Steady, Go! Levy captures the spirit of the sixties in all its exuberance. A portrait of London from roughly 1961 to 1969, it chronicles the explosion of creativity–in art, music and fashion–and the revolutions–sexual, social and political–that reshaped the world. Levy deftly blends the enthusiasm of a fan, the discerning eye of a social critic and a historian's objectivity as he re-creates the hectic pace and daring experimentation of the times–from the utter transformation of rock 'n' roll by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to the new aesthetics introduced by fashion designers like Mary Quant, haircutters like Vidal Sassoon, photographers like David Bailey, actors like Michael Caine and Terence Stamp and filmmakers like Richard Lester and Nicolas Roeg to the wild clothing shops and cutting-edge clubs that made Carnaby Street and King's Road the hippest thoroughfares in the world. Spiced with the reminiscences of some of the leading icons of that period, their fans and followers, and featuring a photographic gallery of well-known faces and far-out fashions, Ready, Steady, Go! is an irresistible re-creation of a time and place that seemed almost impossibly fun.
Download or read book Martini Man written by William Schoell and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2003-10-10 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martini Man goes beyond the simple caricature of the boozy lounge singer with a penchant for racy humor to reveal the substantive man behind that mask. Although Martin's movie roles receive in-depth attention in this incisive biography, as does his career-defining partnership with Jerry Lewis, details of Dino's personal life also abound, such as how Shierly MacLaine dropped by his house "to tell Dean she was in love with him-even though his wife was in the other room." William Schoell's chronicle is a sympathetic portrait that recreates the life and times of one of America's favorite entertainers.
Download or read book Deconstructing the Rat Pack written by Richard A. Lertzman and published by Bookbaby. This book was released on 2020-12-02 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deconstructing the Rat Pack: Joey, The Mob and the Summit is a new look at the true creation of the group of entertainers that rocked the world. For twenty-eight consecutive nights in February 1960, a dusty town called Las Vegas became the epicenter of the world. All eyes were on the party happening at the Sands Hotel and Casino, the new headquarters for The Chairman of the Board-- Frank Sinatra. In celebration of the Rat Pack's Sixtieth anniversary this book details the meteoric rise of this infamous group. For the first time, this outrageous, explosive tell-all book brings the inside scoop of how The Mob, The Future President and five of the greatest entertainers took the world by storm.
Download or read book King of Comedy written by Shawn Levy and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1996 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of Jerry Lewis, discussing his varied career as a performer, director, fundraiser, and standard-setting comedian, and looking at the private man and the forces that drive him.
Download or read book De Niro written by Shawn Levy and published by Crown. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: REMARKABLE BIOGRAPHY OF AN ICON There’s little debate that Robert De Niro is one of the greatest screen actors of his generation, perhaps of all time--if not, in fact, the greatest. His work, particularly in the first 20 years of his career, is unparalleled. Mean Streets, the Godfather Part II, Taxi Driver, the Deer Hunter, and Raging Bull all dazzled moviegoers and critics alike, displaying a talent the likes of which had rarely--if ever--been seen. De Niro became known for his deep involvement in his characters, assuming that role completely into his own life, resulting in extraordinary, chameleonic performances. Yet little is known about the off-screen De Niro--he is an intensely private man, whose rare public appearances are often marked by inarticulateness and palpable awkwardness. It can be almost painful to watch at times, in powerful contrast to his confident movie personae. In this elegant and compelling biography, bestselling writer Shawn Levy writes of these many De Niros--the characters and the man--seeking to understand the evolution of an actor who once dove deeply into his roles as if to hide his inner nature, and who now seemingly avoids acting challenges, taking roles which make few apparent demands on his overwhelming talent. Following De Niro's roots as the child of artists (his father, the abstract painter Robert De Niro Sr., was widely celebrated) who encouraged him from an early age to be independent of vision and spirit, to his intense schooling as an actor, the rise of his career, his marriages, his life as a father, restauranteur, and businessman, and, of course, his current movie career, Levy has written a biography that reads like a novel about a character whose inner turmoil takes him to heights of artistry. His many friendships with the likes of Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, Harvey Keitel, Shelley Winters, Francis Ford Coppola, among many others, are woven into this extraordinary portrait of DeNiro the man and the artist, also adding a depth of understanding not before seen. Levy has had unprecedented access to De Niro's personal research and production materials, creating a new impression of the effort that went into the actor's legendary performances. The insights gained from DeNiro’s intense working habits shed new perspective on DeNiro’s thinking and portrayals and are wonderful to read. Levy also spoke to De Niro's collaborators and friends to depict De Niro's transition from an ambitious young man to a transfixing and enigmatic artist and cultural figure. Shawn Levy has written a truly engaging, insightful, and entertaining portrait of one of the most wonderful film artists of our time, a book that is worthy of such a great talent.
Download or read book Paul Newman written by Shawn Levy and published by Aurum. This book was released on 2010-09-25 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paul Newman, who died in 2008, achieved superstar status by playing charismatic renegades, broken heroes, and winsome anti-heroes in such classic films as The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Verdict and The Color of Money. And for all the diverse parts he played on the silver screen, Newman occupied nearly as many roles off it. He was a loving husband and family man, a fund raiser, sold his own brand of pasta sauce to make millions for charity, drove racing cars, and much more. Shawn Levy reveals the many sides of this legendary actor in the most comprehensive biography of the star yet published. We see Newman the consummate professional, a stickler for details and a driven worker. In his private life he played the roles of loyal son and brother, supportive husband – married to Joanne Woodward for 50 years – and responsible provider for six children. But Levy shows that Newman and his life were by no means perfect: there was a dalliance with another woman and failings as a father. The death of his only son Scott from a drug overdose in 1978 would haunt Newman for the rest of his life. Ultimately, the author reveals how Newman was able to blend his many roles and become a man of great integrity who was successful at almost everything he tried. It is a fascinating portrait of an extraordinarily gifted man and will leave readers feeling that they have slipped through the security gate and got to know a movie star who was famously guarded about his private life.
Download or read book The Last Playboy written by Shawn Levy and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2006-10-31 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At one gilded moment in history, his fame was so great that he was known the world over by his nickname alone: Rubi. Pop songs were written about him. Women whom he had never met offered to leave their husbands for him. He had an eye for feminine beauty, particularly when it came with great wealth: Barbara Hutton, Doris Duke, Eva Perón, and Zsa Zsa Gabor. But he was a man's man as well, polo player and race-car driver, chumming around with the likes of Joe Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, Oleg Cassini, Aly Khan, and King Farouk. He was also a jewel thief, and an intimate of one of the world's most bloodthirsty dictators. And when he died at the age of fifty-six—wrapping his sports car around a tree in the Bois de Boulogne—a glamorous era of white dinner jackets at El Morocco and celebrity for its own sake died along with him. He was one of a kind, the last of his breed. And in The Last Playboy, author Shawn Levy brings the giddy, hedonistic, and utterly remarkable story of Porfirio Rubirosa to glorious Technicolor life.
Download or read book Sinatra and the Jack Pack written by Michael Sheridan and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Bestseller Frank Sinatra desperately wanted to be part of John F. Kennedy, Jr.’s gang. He had his own famed “Rat Pack,” made up of hard drinking, womanizing individuals like himself—guys like Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Peter Lawford—but the guy “Ol’ Blue Eyes” really wanted to hang with was Lawford’s brother-in-law, the real chairman of the board, John F. Kennedy. In Sinatra and the Jack Pack, Michael Sheridan delves deep into the acclaimed singer’s relationship with the former president. He shares how Sinatra emerged from a working class Italian family and carved out a unique place for himself in American culture, and how Kennedy, also of immigrant stock, came from a privileged background of which the young Frank could only have dreamed. By the time the men met in the 1950s, both were thriving—and both liked the good life. They bonded over their mutual ability to attract beautiful women, male admirers, and adoring acolytes. They also shared a scandalous secret: each had dubious relationships with the mafia. It had promoted Frank’s career and helped Kennedy buy votes. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had, over two decades, compiled detailed and damning dossiers on their activities. From all accounts the friendship thrived. Then, suddenly, in March 1962, Frank was abruptly ejected from JFK’s gang. This unique volume tells why. It will release shortly after a television documentary inspired by the book airs, is filled with a beloved cast of characters, and is the compelling, untold story of a tumultuous relationship between two American icons. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Download or read book Dino written by Nick Tosches and published by Delta. This book was released on 1999-04-13 with total page 658 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From dealing blackjack in the small-time gangster town of Steubenville, Ohio, to carousing with the famous "Rat Pack" in a Hollywood he called home, Dean Martin lived in a grandstand, guttering life of booze, broads, and big money. He rubbed shoulders with the mob, the Kennedys, and Hollywood's biggest stars. He was one of America's favorite entertainers. But no one really knew him. Now Nick Tosches reveals the man behind the image--the dark side of the American dream. It's a wild, illuminating, sometimes shocking tale of sex, ambition, heartaches--and a life lived hard, fast, and without apologies.
Download or read book Dolce Vita Confidential written by Shawn Levy and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2017-11-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A brisk, frothy narrative . . . informative and fun.” —The Wall Street Journal In the dizzying wake of World War II, Rome skyrocketed to prominence as an epicenter of film, fashion, photography, and boldfaced libertinism. Artists, exiles, and a dazzling array of movie talent rushed to Rome for a chance to thrive in this hotbed of excitement. From the photographers who tailed the stars to the legends who secured their place in cinematic fame, Dolce Vita Confidential resurrects the drama that permeated the streets and screens of Rome.
Download or read book The President s Book of Secrets written by David Priess and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every president has had a unique and complicated relationship with the intelligence community. While some have been coolly distant, even adversarial, others have found their intelligence agencies to be among the most valuable instruments of policy and power. Since John F. Kennedy's presidency, this relationship has been distilled into a personalized daily report: a short summary of what the intelligence apparatus considers the most crucial information for the president to know that day about global threats and opportunities. This top–secret document is known as the President's Daily Brief, or, within national security circles, simply “the Book.” Presidents have spent anywhere from a few moments (Richard Nixon) to a healthy part of their day (George W. Bush) consumed by its contents; some (Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush) consider it far and away the most important document they saw on a regular basis while commander in chief. The details of most PDBs are highly classified, and will remain so for many years. But the process by which the intelligence community develops and presents the Book is a fascinating look into the operation of power at the highest levels. David Priess, a former intelligence officer and daily briefer, has interviewed every living president and vice president as well as more than one hundred others intimately involved with the production and delivery of the president's book of secrets. He offers an unprecedented window into the decision making of every president from Kennedy to Obama, with many character–rich stories revealed here for the first time.
Download or read book Rat Pack Confidential written by Shawn Levy and published by Crown. This book was released on 1999-09-17 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time, the full story of what happened when Frank brought his best pals to party in a land called Vegas January 1960. Las Vegas is at its smooth, cool peak. The Strip is a jet-age theme park, and the greatest singer in the history of American popular music summons a group of friends there to make a movie. One is an insouciant singer of Italian songs, ex-partner to the most popular film comedian of the day. One is a short, black, Jewish, one-eyed, singing, dancing wonder. One is an upper-crust British pretty boy turned degenerate B-movie star actor, brother-in-law to an ascendant politician. And one is a stiff-shouldered comic with the quintessential Borscht Belt emcee’s knack for needling one-liners. The architectonically sleek marquee of the Sands Hotel announces their presence simply by listing their names: FRANK SINATRA. DEAN MARTIN. SAMMY DAVIS, JR. PETER LAWFORD. JOEY BISHOP. Around them an entire cast gathers: actors, comics, singers, songwriters, gangsters, politicians, and women, as well as thousands of starstruck everyday folks who fork over pocketfuls of money for the privilege of basking in their presence. They call themselves The Clan. But to an awed world, they are known as The Rat Pack. They had it all. Fame. Gorgeous women. A fabulouse playground of a city and all the money in the world. The backing of fearsome crime lords and the blessing of the President of the United States. But the dark side–over the thin line between pleasure and debauchery, between swinging self-confidence and brutal arrogance–took its toll. In four years, their great ride was over, and showbiz was never the same. Acclaimed Jerry Lewis biographer Shawn Levy has written a dazzling portrait of a time when neon brightness cast sordid shadows. It was Frank’s World, and we just lived in it.
Download or read book The Way It Was written by Eliot Weisman and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A candid and eye-opening inside look at the final decades of Sinatra's life told by his longtime manager and friend, Eliot Weisman. By the time Weisman met Sinatra in 1976, he was already the Voice, a man who held sway over popular music and pop culture for forty years, who had risen to the greatest heights of fame and plumbed the depths of failure, all the while surviving with the trademark swagger that women pined for and men wanted to emulate. Passionate and generous on his best days, sullen and unpredictable on his worst, Sinatra invited Weisman into his inner circle, an honor that the budding celebrity manager never took for granted. Even when he was caught up in a legal net designed to snare Sinatra, Weisman went to prison rather than being coerced into telling prosecutors what they wanted to hear. With Weisman's help, Sinatra orchestrated in his final decades some of the most memorable moments of his career. There was the Duets album, which was Sinatra's top seller, the massive tours, such as Together Again, which featured a short-lived reunion of the Rat Pack--until Dean Martin, having little interest in reliving the glory days, couldn't handle it anymore--and the Ultimate Event Tour, which brought Liza Minelli and Sammy Davis Jr. on board and refreshed the much-needed lining of both their pocketbooks. Weisman also worked with many other acts, including Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, and an ungrateful Don Rickles, whom Weisman helped get out from under the mob's thumb. Over their years together, Weisman became a confidant to the man who trusted few, and he came to know Sinatra's world intimately: his wife, Barbara, who socialized with princesses and presidents and tried to close Sinatra off from his rough and tough friends such as Jilly Rizzo; Nancy Jr., who was closest to her dad; Tina, who aggressively battled for her and her siblings' rights to the Sinatra legacy and was most like her father; and Frank Jr., the child with the most fraught relationship with the legendary entertainer. Ultimately Weisman, who had become the executor of Sinatra's estate, was left alone to navigate the infighting and hatred between those born to the name and the wife who acquired it, when a mystery woman showed up and threatened to throw the family's future into jeopardy. Laden with surprising, moving, and revealing stories, The Way It Was also shows a side of Sinatra few knew. As a lion in winter, he was struggling with the challenges that come with old age, as well as memory loss, depression, and antidepressents. Weisman was by his side through it all, witness to a man who had towering confidence, staggering fearlessness, and a rarely seen vulnerability that became more apparent as his final days approached.
