Download or read book The First King of Hollywood written by Tracey Goessel and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 655 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theatre Library Association's Wall Award Finalist Silent film superstar Douglas Fairbanks was an absolute charmer. Irrepressibly vivacious, he spent his life leaping over and into things, from his early Broadway successes to his marriage to the great screen actress Mary Pickford to the way he made Hollywood his very own town. The inventor of the swashbuckler, he wasn't only an actor—he all but directed and produced his movies, and in founding United Artists with Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith, he challenged the studio system. But listing his accomplishments is one thing and telling his story another. Tracey Goessel has made the latter her life's work, and with exclusive access to Fairbanks's love letters to Pickford, she brilliantly illuminates how Fairbanks conquered not just the entertainment world but the heart of perhaps the most famous woman in the world at the time. When Mary Pickford died, she was an alcoholic, self-imprisoned in her mansion, nearly alone, and largely forgotten. But she left behind a small box; in it, worn and refolded, were her letters from Douglas Fairbanks. Pickford and Fairbanks had ruled Hollywood as its first king and queen for a glorious decade. But the letters began long before, when they were both married to others, when revealing the affair would have caused a great scandal. Now these letters form the centerpiece of the first truly definitive biography of Hollywood's first king, the man who did his own stunts and built his own studio and formed a company that allowed artists to distribute their own works outside the studio system. But Goessel's research uncovered more: that Fairbanks's first film appearance was two years earlier than had been assumed; that his stories of how he got into theater, and then into films, were fabricated; that the Pickford-Fairbanks Studios had a specially constructed underground trench so that Fairbanks could jog in the nude; that Fairbanks himself insisted racist references be removed from his films' intertitles; and the true cause of Fairbanks's death. Fairbanks was the top male star of his generation, the maker of some of the greatest films of his era: The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, The Mark of Zorro. He was fun, witty, engaging, creative, athletic, and a force to be reckoned with. He shaped our idea of the Hollywood hero, and Hollywood has never been the same since. His story, like his movies, is full of passion, bravado, romance, and desire. Here at last is his definitive biography, based on extensive and brand-new research into every aspect of his career, and written with fine understanding, wit, and verve.
Download or read book King Baggot written by Sally A. Dumaux and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2010-04-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: King Baggot began in films in 1909, was a major star from 1910 to 1916, and gained renown as a director in the 1920s and as a character actor in the 1930s and 1940s. But most notably, he was the first publicized leading man in America. In his two-reel Shadows--this was a first in film history--he played ten different characters and also directed. He founded the Screen Club, the first and most prestigious club strictly for film personnel, and became a star in England with Ivanhoe and in France with Absinthe. As a director, he worked on Kissed, in which Marie Prevost had her first starring role. He also directed The Home Maker, a social drama that daringly explored role reversal between a husband and wife, and Tumbleweeds, now considered a classic among westerns. This work is a biography from early childhood until his death in 1948. And it is a filmography documenting every known film in which he took part: cast and production credits, release date, length, Library of Congress registration number, places where the film can be found today, and other information.
Download or read book Hollywood s Stephen King written by Tony Magistrale and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2003-11-22 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tony Magistrale explores many of the movie versions of Stephen King's works and provides important insights into both the films and the fiction on which they are based.
Download or read book When Hollywood Had a King written by Connie Bruck and published by Random House. This book was released on 2003-06-03 with total page 732 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In When Hollywood Had a King, the distinguished journalist Connie Bruck tells the sweeping story of MCA and its brilliant leader, a man who transformed the entertainment industry— businessman, politician, tactician, and visionary Lew Wasserman. The Music Corporation of America was founded in Chicago in 1924 by Dr. Jules Stein, an ophthalmologist with a gift for booking bands. Twelve years later, Stein moved his operations west to Beverly Hills and hired Lew Wasserman. From his meager beginnings as a movie-theater usher in Cleveland, Wasserman ultimately ascended to the post of president of MCA, and the company became the most powerful force in Hollywood, regarded with a mixture of fear and awe. In his signature black suit and black knit tie, Was-serman took Hollywood by storm. He shifted the balance of power from the studios—which had seven-year contractual strangleholds on the stars—to the talent, who became profit partners. When an antitrust suit forced MCA’s evolution from talent agency to film- and television-production company, it was Wasserman who parlayed the control of a wide variety of entertainment and media products into a new type of Hollywood power base. There was only Washington left to conquer, and conquer it Wasserman did, quietly brokering alliances with Democratic and Republican administrations alike. That Wasserman’s reach extended from the underworld to the White House only added to his mystique. Among his friends were Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa, mob lawyer Sidney Korshak, and gangster Moe Dalitz—along with Presidents Johnson, Clinton, and especially Reagan, who enjoyed a particularly close and mutually beneficial relationship with Wasserman. He was equally intimate with Hollywood royalty, from Bette Davis and Jimmy Stewart to Steven Spielberg, who began his career at MCA and once described Wasserman’s eyeglasses as looking like two giant movie screens. The history of MCA is really the history of a revolution. Lew Wasserman ushered in the Hollywood we know today. He is the link between the old-school moguls with their ironclad studio contracts and the new industry defined by multimedia conglomerates, power agents, multimillionaire actors, and profit sharing. In the hands of Connie Bruck, the story of Lew Wasserman’s rise to power takes on an almost Shakespearean scope. When Hollywood Had a King reveals the industry’s greatest untold story: how a stealthy, enterprising power broker became, for a time, Tinseltown’s absolute monarch.
Download or read book Lion of Hollywood written by Scott Eyman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-06-23 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lion of Hollywood is the definitive biography of Louis B. Mayer, the chief of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer—MGM—the biggest and most successful film studio of Hollywood’s Golden Age. An immigrant from tsarist Russia, Mayer began in the film business as an exhibitor but soon migrated to where the action and the power were—Hollywood. Through sheer force of energy and foresight, he turned his own modest studio into MGM, where he became the most powerful man in Hollywood, bending the film business to his will. He made great films, including the fabulous MGM musicals, and he made great stars: Garbo, Gable, Garland, and dozens of others. Through the enormously successful Andy Hardy series, Mayer purveyed family values to America. At the same time, he used his influence to place a federal judge on the bench, pay off local officials, cover up his stars’ indiscretions and, on occasion, arrange marriages for gay stars. Mayer rose from his impoverished childhood to become at one time the highest-paid executive in America. Despite his power and money, Mayer suffered some significant losses. He had two daughters: Irene, who married David O. Selznick, and Edie, who married producer William Goetz. He would eventually fall out with Edie and divorce his wife, Margaret, ending his life alienated from most of his family. His chief assistant, Irving Thalberg, was his closest business partner, but they quarreled frequently, and Thalberg’s early death left Mayer without his most trusted associate. As Mayer grew older, his politics became increasingly reactionary, and he found himself politically isolated within Hollywood’s small conservative community. Lion of Hollywood is a three-dimensional biography of a figure often caricatured and vilified as the paragon of the studio system. Mayer could be arrogant and tyrannical, but under his leadership MGM made such unforgettable films as The Big Parade, Ninotchka, The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, and An American in Paris. Film historian Scott Eyman interviewed more than 150 people and researched some previously unavailable archives to write this major new biography of a man who defined an industry and an era.
Download or read book The First Lady of Hollywood written by Samantha Barbas and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2005-10-24 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Loved by fans for her "just folks," small-town image, Parsons became notorious within the film industry for her involvement in the suppression of the 1941 film Citizen Kane and her use of blackmail in service of Hearst's political and personal agendas. As she traces Parsons's life and career, Samantha Barbas situates Parson's experiences within the broader trajectory of Hollywood history, charting the rise of the star system and the complex interactions of publicity, journalism, and movie-making. The First Lady of Hollywood is both a chronicle of one of the most powerful women in American journalism and film and a penetrating analysis of celebrity culture and Hollywood power politics."--Jacket.
Download or read book Clark Gable in the 1930s written by James L. Neibaur and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-03-26 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1930s represented the strongest and most significant decade in Clark Gable's career. Later known as The King of Hollywood, Gable started out as a journeyman actor who quickly rose to the level of star, and then icon. With his ruggedly attractive looks and effortless charisma, Gable was the sort of manly romantic lead that bolstered features alongside the likes of Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, and Spencer Tracy. The decade culminated with Gable's most noted movie, Gone With the Wind. This book traces Gable's early career, film-by-film, offering background information and a critical assessment of each of his movies released during the 1930s.
Download or read book Kings of the Bs written by Todd McCarthy and published by Dutton Adult. This book was released on 1975 with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book My First Time in Hollywood written by Cari Beauchamp and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over forty legends of the film business recount their first trip to Hollywood. Actors, directors, screenwriters, cinematographers, and editors-half of them women-recall the long joinery, their initial impressions, their struggle to find work, and the love for making movies that kept them going. Drawn from letters, speeches, oral histories, memoirs, and autobiographies-and illustrated with over sixty vintage photographs and illustrations-each story is intimate and unique, but all speak to our universal need to follow our passions and be part of a community that feeds the soul. This anthology is edited and annotated by award-winning author and film historian Cari Beauchamp, the only person to twice be named as an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Scholar. Of MY FIRST TIME IN HOLLYWOOD, Academy-Award-winning film preservationist, historian, and author Kevin Brownlow writes: "What every film fan years for-first-hand, eyewitness accounts of a Hollywood none of us can remember and all of us wish we'd known. Completely fascinating." And film critic and historian Leonard Maltin writes: "What a priceless parade of evocative and highly entertaining memories. Once you start reading you won't want to stop."
Download or read book Elizabeth and Michael written by Donald Bogle and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-08-30 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the unique, profound, and unlikely yet enduring friendship between two of the most prominent and beloved celebrities of all time—Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson—in this “exhaustively researched…consistently absorbing” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) biography. From the moment Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson met, they were fascinated by one another. He peered into her violet eyes and was transfixed; she, in turn, was dazzled by his talent, intrigued by his sweet-tempered childlike personality, and moved by the stories she had already heard about his troubled early life. Soon a deep friendship blossomed, unlike anything either had ever experienced. Through their various emotional upheavals, the peaks and valleys of their careers, their personal traumas and heartaches, their countless health issues and extreme physical pain, and the glare of the often merciless public spotlight, their love for each other endured. Award-winning biographer Donald Bogle skillfully re-creates the moving narrative of “these two forces of nature, and digs into the extraordinary histories that made them uniquely suited to understanding each other” (Alan Light, author of Let’s Go Crazy). Through the recollections of friends and acquaintances of the two stars, as well as credited and anonymous sources, Elizabeth and Michael emerges as a tender, intimate look at this famous “odd couple”—and a treasure to their millions of fans.
Download or read book King of the Sunset Strip written by Steve Stevens and published by Cumberland House Publishing. This book was released on 2006 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who would have thought that an acting career that began as a teenage star on "The Mickey Mouse Club" would lead to the role of assistant to Southern California crime-boss Mickey Cohen? King of the Sunset Strip takes readers through the author's dramatic Hollywood story to the curtain call that eventually led him out of the life of crime.
Download or read book Kevin Costner written by Kelvin Caddies and published by Plexus Publishing. This book was released on 1995 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The phenomenal success of films like 'Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves', 'Dances With Wolves' and 'JFK', made Kevin Costner the Hollywood success story of the nineties. In this first extensively researched, illustrated biography of Costner, journalist Kelvin Caddies explores the unique charisma of this self-effacing star, whilst also revealing the darker side of 'the boy next door'.
Download or read book Vampyres of Hollywood written by Adrienne Barbeau and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-09-15 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Film, television and Broadway star Adrienne Barbeau and New York Times bestselling author Michael Scott have teamed up to deliver this sexy, scary, and deliciously clever novel full of Hollywood glamour, behind-the-scenes secrets, and the truly bloodthirsty reality of Tinseltown. So grab some popcorn and some holy water and lose yourself in the high-stakes, back-stabbing world of the Vampyres of Hollywood. Hollywood, California: Three gruesome deaths within two weeks and every one of them a major star - an Oscar winner, an ingénue, and an action hero. A serial killer is working through the Hollywood A-list and celebrities are running scared. Each crime scene is worthy of a classic horror movie, and all three victims share a connection to the powerful scream queen, Ovsanna Moore. The stunning and formidable Moore is the legendary head of a Hollywood studio, as well as the writer and star of seventeen blockbuster horror films (and a few that went straight to DVD). She's also a 500 year old vampyre... but this is Hollywood after all, and no one ever looks their age. Beverly Hills Police Detective Peter King knows a lot about the City of Angels, but he certainly doesn't know that most of the famous actors in town are actually an established network of vampires. Or that secretive and seductive Ovsanna Moore happens to be their CEO. Moore and King may be from opposite sides of the Hollywood Hills, but both have something to gain by stopping the killer who the tabloids have dubbed the Cinema Slayer. Ovsanna must protect her vampire legacy and her production schedule, while King just wants to keep his Beverly Hills beat as blood-free as possible. But when the horror queen and the cop with the movie star looks form an unholy alliance, sparks fly and so do the creatures of the night.
Download or read book Clark Gable The King of Hollywood written by ChatStick Team and published by ChatStick Team. This book was released on 2024-03-14 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 🌟 Step into the Golden Age with "Clark Gable: The King of Hollywood" 🌟 Embark on a journey through the life of Clark Gable, the undisputed monarch of the silver screen, in this definitive ebook crafted by the ChatStick Team. From his humble beginnings to his crowning as Hollywood's leading man, this narrative is a tribute to the charisma, talent, and enduring legacy of a true cinematic icon. 🎬✨ Why You Can't Miss This Read: Uncover Hidden Gems: Dive deep into Gable's early years, pivotal moments, and the breakthroughs that made him a legend. Behind the Scenes: Get exclusive insights into his iconic roles, personal life, and the impact he had off-camera. 📸 A Legacy Unveiled: Explore the lasting influence of Gable on the film industry and how he continues to inspire generations. 🌌 Whether you're a die-hard fan of classic cinema, a history buff, or someone who appreciates the art of storytelling, "Clark Gable: The King of Hollywood" offers something for everyone. This ebook is not just a biography; it's an invitation to witness the making of a king in the world of cinema. 🏆 Grab Your Copy Now and let the legend of Clark Gable captivate your heart and imagination. Let the journey begin!
Download or read book Not Your China Doll written by Katie Gee Salisbury and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2024-03-12 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Enlightening, nuanced, and honest.”—Lisa See Set against the glittering backdrop of Los Angeles during the gin-soaked Jazz Age and the rise of Hollywood, this debut book celebrates Anna May Wong, the first Asian American movie star, to bring an unsung heroine to light and reclaim her place in cinema history. Before Constance Wu, Sandra Oh, Awkwafina, or Lucy Liu, there was Anna May Wong. In her time, she was a legendary beauty, witty conversationalist, and fashion icon. Plucked from her family’s laundry business in Los Angeles, Anna May Wong rose to stardom in Douglas Fairbanks’s blockbuster The Thief of Bagdad. Fans and the press clamored to see more of this unlikely actress, but when Hollywood repeatedly cast her in stereotypical roles, she headed abroad in protest. Anna May starred in acclaimed films in Berlin, Paris, and London. She dazzled royalty and heads of state across several nations, leaving trails of suitors in her wake. She returned to challenge Hollywood at its own game by speaking out about the industry’s blatant racism. She used her new stature to move away from her typecasting as the China doll or dragon lady, and worked to reshape Asian American representation in film. Filled with stories of capricious directors and admiring costars, glamorous parties and far-flung love affairs, Not Your China Doll showcases the vibrant, radical life of a groundbreaking artist.
Download or read book The Archaeology of Hollywood written by Paul Bahn and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-04-14 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Golden Age of Hollywood, dating to the hazy depths of the early 20th Century, was an era of movie stars worshipped by the masses and despotic studio moguls issuing decrees from poolside divans… but despite the world-wide reach of the movie industry, little more than memories of that era linger amidst the freeways and apartment complexes of today’s Los Angeles. Noted archaeologistPaul G. Bahndigs into the material traces of that Tinseltown in an effort to document and save the treasures that remain. Bahn leads readers on a tour of this singular culture, from the industrial zones of film studios to the landmarks where the glamorous lived, partied, and played, from where they died and were buried to how they’ve been memorialized for posterity. The result is part history, part archaeology—enlivened with pop culture, reminiscence, and whimsy—and throughout, it feeds and deepens our fascination with an iconic place and time, not to mention the personalities who brought it to life.
Download or read book New Hollywood Cinema written by Geoff King and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2002-03-29 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New Hollywood extends from the radical gestures of the 'Hollywood Renaissance' of the late 1960s and early 1970s to the current dominance of the corporate blockbuster. Geoff King covers new Hollywood dynamically and accessibly in this thoroughly modern introductory text. He discusses diverse films as well as the film-makers and film companies, focusing on the interactions between the film texts, their social contexts and the industry producing them. Using examples across Hollywood and its genres, King reveals how the positions of studios within media conglomerates, together with the impact of television, advertising and franchising on the New Hollywood, shape the form and content of the films.
