Download or read book The Slapstick Queens written by James Robert Parish and published by South Brunswick : A. S. Barnes. This book was released on 1973 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At one time or another, most every nostalgia-conscious film enthusiast has laughed heartily at the wild onscreen antics of gifted movie comediennes Marjorie Main, Joan Davis, Martha Raye, Judy Canova, and Phyllis Diller. The Slapstick Queens provides an in-depth study and appraisal of the professional work of these exceptionally noteworthy funsters. Each of these five talents has a lengthy, comprehensive chapter devoted to her oncamera and personal life, containing, as well, a detailed filmography of the subject's screen work. In addition, the book provides a full survey of each of these stars' stage, radio, television, nightclub, recording, and book-writing careers. Personal interviews with Phyllis Diller and Judy Canova give this volume an added dimension. The Slapstick Queens delves deeply into the lives and times of five major laugh makers, numbered among the cream of comediennes, particularly in motion pictures and television. Moreover, these antic talents--Marjorie Main, Joan Davis, Martha Raye, Judy Canova, and Phyllis Diller--were among the highest paid non-glamour actresses in the annals of Hollywood. This volume extols not only the film careers of these exceptionally skilled comics, but also the essence of their mirthful work in other media. The Slapstick Queens is a chronicle of, and a testament to, the fabulous careers of a quintet of Hollywood's most memorable comediennes!
Download or read book Living with the Rubbish Queen written by Thomas Tufte and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the role of telenovelas -- a Latin American sister to the Western soap opera -- this book looks at their impact on the everyday lives of Latin American audiences. It seeks to explain telenovelas' cultural and commercial success; the meanings, identities, and social actions articulated through watching telenovelas; and how audiences -- often first- or second-generation migrants in the huge cities of Latin America -- use telenovelas in coping with urban life and modernity.
Download or read book The Kings Queens of Hollywood Comedy written by Terry Rowan and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2017 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Gloria Swanson written by Stephen Michael Shearer and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-08-27 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gloria Swanson defined what it meant to be a movie star, but her unforgettable role in Sunset Boulevard overshadowed the true story of her life. Now Stephen Michael Shearer sets the record straight in the first in-depth biography of the film legend. Swanson was Hollywood's first successful glamour queen. Her stardom as an actress in the mid-1920s earned her millions of fans and millions of dollars. Realizing her box office value early in her career, she took control of her life. Soon she was not only producing her own films, she was choosing her scripts, selecting her leading men, casting her projects, creating her own fashions, guiding her publicity, and living an extravagant and sometimes extraordinary celebrity lifestyle. She also collected a long line of lovers (including Joseph P. Kennedy) and married men of her choosing (including a French marquis, thus becoming America's first member of "nobility"). As a devoted and loving mother, she managed a quiet success of raising three children. Perhaps most important, as a keen businesswoman she also was able to extend her career more than sixty years. Her astounding comeback as Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard catapulted her back into the limelight. But it also created her long-misunderstood persona, one that this meticulous biography shows was only part of this independent and unparalleled woman.
Download or read book The Shadow Queen written by Sandra Gulland and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the beloved Josephine B. Trilogy, comes a spellbinding novel inspired by the true story of a young woman who rises from poverty to become confidante to the most powerful, provocative and dangerous woman in the 17th century French court: the mistress of the charismatic Sun King. 1660, Paris Claudette’s life is like an ever-revolving stage set. From an impoverished childhood wandering the French countryside with her family’s acting troupe, Claudette finally witnesses her mother's astonishing rise to stardom in Parisian theaters. Working with playwrights Corneille, Molière and Racine, Claudette’s life is culturally rich, but like all in the theatrical world at the time, she's socially scorned. A series of chance encounters gradually pull Claudette into the alluring orbit of Athénaïs de Montespan, mistress to Louis XIV and reigning "Shadow Queen." Needing someone to safeguard her secrets, Athénaïs offers to hire Claudette as her personal attendant. Enticed by the promise of riches and respectability, Claudette leaves the world of the theater only to find that court is very much like a stage, with outward shows of loyalty masking more devious intentions. This parallel is not lost on Athénaïs, who fears political enemies are plotting her ruin as young courtesans angle to take the coveted spot in the king's bed. Indeed, Claudette's "reputable" new position is marked by spying, illicit trysts and titanic power struggles. As Athénaïs, becomes ever more desperate to hold onto the King's favor, innocent love charms move into the realm of deadly Black Magic, and Claudette is forced to consider a move that will put her own life—and the family she loves so dearly—at risk. Set against the gilded opulence of a newly-constructed Versailles and the War of Theaters, THE SHADOW QUEEN is a seductive, gripping novel about the lure of wealth, the illusion of power, and the increasingly uneasy relationship between two strong-willed women whose actions could shape the future of France.
Download or read book Victoria Queen of the Screen written by Leigh Ehlers Telotte and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2020-06-26 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Both in life and death, Queen Victoria is among the most popular monarchs to be committed to film. Her reign was characterized by an explosion in media coverage that began to rely on images rather than words to tell her story. Even though Victoria has been labeled the "first media monarch," the sheer magnitude of her screen presence has been neither chronicled nor fully appreciated until now. This book examines the growth and evolution of Queen Victoria's on-screen image. From the satirical cartoons and silent films of the 19th century to the television shows, video games, and webcomics of the 21st, it demonstrates how the protean Victoria character has evolved, ultimately meaning many different things to many different people in many different ways. Each chapter looks at a facet of her character and includes analysis of how these media present Queen Victoria as a real person and shape her as a character acting within a narrative. The book includes a comprehensive and international filmography.
Download or read book Vaudeville old new written by Frank Cullen and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 1362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Great Clowns of American Television written by Karin Adir and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2001-12-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are generations that have never seen Sid Caesar become an automobile tire or Red Skelton stick his thumbs in his armpits and intone, "Two theagulls...," never journeyed with Ernie Kovacs to a surrealistic world of his warped imagination. Here seventeen comic talents are profiled (with photographs): their early years, marriages and personal challenges, anecdotes about them, the characters they created, their styles, and often representative dialogue or sketch descriptions. There is a listing of all television shows in which each comic starred (giving length, network, air dates). The comics include Lucille Ball, Milton Berle, Carol Burnett, Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Tim Conway, Jackie Gleason, Danny Kaye, Ernie Kovacs, Olsen and Johnson, Martha Raye, Soupy Sales, Red Skelton, Dick Van Dyke, Flip Wilson, Jonathan Winters, and Ed Wynn.
Download or read book Queen s Quarterly written by and published by . This book was released on 1926 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Slapstick Camera written by Burke Hilsabeck and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2020-02-01 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demonstrates that slapstick film comedies display a canny and sometimes profound understanding of their medium. Slapstick film comedy may be grounded in idiocy and failure, but the genre is far more sophisticated than it initially appears. In this book, Burke Hilsabeck suggests that slapstick is often animated by a philosophical impulse to understand the cinema. He looks closely at movies and gags that represent the conditions and conventions of cinema production and demonstrates that film comedians display a canny and sometimes profound understanding of their medium—from Buster Keaton’s encounter with the film screen in Sherlock Jr. (1924) to Harpo Marx’s lip-sync turn with a phonograph in Monkey Business (1931) to Jerry Lewis’s film-on-film performance in The Errand Boy (1961). The Slapstick Camera follows the observation of philosopher Stanley Cavell that self-reference is one way in which “film exists in a state of philosophy.” By moving historically across the studio era, the book looks at a series of comedies that play with the changing technologies and economic practices behind film production and describes how comedians offered their own understanding of the nature of film and filmmaking. Hilsabeck locates the hidden intricacies of Hollywood cinema in a place where one might least expect them—the clowns, idiots, and scoundrels of slapstick comedy. “From its analysis of the vaudevillian Victorian origins to early Hollywood expressions, and from defining classical performances by the likes of Keaton to recent postmodern recapitulations, Hilsabeck’s theoretically rigorous and wide-ranging study masterfully weaves a path through the historical, technical, and philosophical art of slapstick comedy. A must for scholars working in this field.” — Daniel Varndell, author ofHollywood Remakes, Deleuze and the Grandfather Paradox
Download or read book Frances Farmer written by Peter Shelley and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Previous biographies of American actress Frances Farmer (1913-1970) have downplayed her professional achievements to emphasize her turbulent personal life, including several police arrests and repeated confinements in a state mental hospital. By focusing upon her acting career, this book endeavors to restore her position as a significant Hollywood player of the 1930s, '40s and '50s. An analysis of her film, radio and television work is offered, as well as assessments of the three Frances Farmer biopics and the documentaries in which she is featured. Each of her 16 films receives a chapter-length discussion. A very lengthy biographical chapter is included.
Download or read book Slapstick An Interdisciplinary Companion written by Ervin Malakaj and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-10-25 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite its unabated popularity with audiences, slapstick has received rather little scholarly attention, mostly by scholars concentrating on the US theater and cinema traditions. Nonetheless, as a form of physical humor slapstick has a long history across various areas of cultural production. This volume approaches slapstick both as a genre of situational physical comedy and as a mode of communicating an affective situation captured in various cultural products. Contributors to the volume examine cinematic, literary, dramatic, musical, and photographic texts and performances. From medieval chivalric romance and nineteenth-century theater to contemporary photography, the contributors study treatments of slapstick across media, periods and geographic locations. The aim of a study of such wide scope is to demonstrate how slapstick emerged from a variety of complex interactions among different traditions and by extension, to illustrate that slapstick can be highly productive for interdisciplinary research.
Download or read book Martha Raye written by David C. Tucker and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-06-10 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On stage from her childhood, Martha Raye (1916-1994) proudly embraced the role of the clown, her gift for slapstick comedy enhanced by a fine singing voice. She became a star with her first feature film, Rhythm on the Range (1936), as the zany, loudmouthed girl looking for love--or chasing it as it ran away. She won popular and critical acclaim with The Martha Raye Show (1954-1956) before it was abruptly cancelled, partly because of her chaotic personal life. Drawing on new interviews with her colleagues, this retrospective covers the life and career of an enduringly funny lady who influenced a generation of women comedians. Her reign as a top NBC star of the 1950s is covered, along with her appearances on popular variety shows, her roles in fondly remembered series like The Bugaloos, McMillan and Alice, and her film career that teamed her with the likes of Jack Benny, Charlie Chaplin and Doris Day.
Download or read book Take It from the Big Mouth written by Jean Maddern Pitrone and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "She was one of the world's four best comediennes," said Milton Berle, "but she lived a life of personal disaster." Martha Raye sang, danced, and joked her way into the spotlight of the entertainment world with a career that spanned seven decades and encompassed everything from vaudeville to television commercials to entertaining U.S. troops. Take It from the Big Mouth, the first full-fledged biography of the multi-talented performer, explores Raye's life and career with candor and insight. Raye got her big break when she caught the attention of a film director as she kidded with audience members Joe E. Lewis and Jimmy Durante during an engagement at the Trocadero in Hollywood. In the late 1930s, Raye appeared in a number of films, and the press heralded her as a "stridently funny comedienne with a Mammoth Cave mouth." From there her career soared. She landed a role in Charlie Chaplain's film Monsieur Verdoux, and the New York Post commented that Raye was the only one who could hold her own with the comic master. By the 1950s she hosted her own highly rated television show, reaching millions with her clowning. Behind the huge smile and raucous laugh, though, there was a darker side to Martha Raye. She found solace from her insecurities and a frenzied schedule in the use of drugs and alcohol. Her seven rocky marriages, the last to a man 33 years her junior whom she had known less than two weeks, fueled headlines and gossip columns. Particularly painful was her turbulent relationship with her only daughter, Melodye. She was passionately committed to entertaining troops abroad during World War II, and she worked tirelessly as both entertainer and nurse in the remote jungles of Vietnam. Bob Hope commented that "she was Florence Nightingale, Dear Abby, and the only singer who could be heard over the artillery fire." The Green Berets designated her an honorary lieutenant colonel, and she later received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. After her death in 1994, "Colonel Maggie" became the only civilian laid to rest among the Green Berets at the Fort Bragg military cemetery.
Download or read book Funny Ladies written by Stephen M. Silverman and published by New Word City. This book was released on 2018-12-15 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jam-packed with jokes, funny stories, and stand-up routines, this guide to America's funniest women covers more than seventy-five famous comediennes, including Carol Burnett, Ellen DeGeneres, Whoopi Goldberg, Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler, Mary Tyler Moore, Joan Rivers, Lily Tomlin, and others.
Download or read book Writers Directory written by NA NA and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-03-05 with total page 1555 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Montana Entertainers written by Brian D'Ambrosio and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2019-07-08 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Treasure State stars Gary Cooper and Myrna Loy found unparalleled success during the Golden Age of Hollywood. For more than a century, Montana has supplied a rich vein of entertainment and personality--from daredevils to dancers and even mimes. Born in Miles City in 1895, comedian Gilbert "Pee Wee" Holmes played sidekick to such stars as Tom Mix. One-time Butte resident Julian Eltinge went on to become America's first famous female impersonator. There was Taylor Gordon, whose golden voice propelled the son of a slave from White Sulphur Springs to Harlem Renaissance fame. From the little-known Robyn Adair to the ever-popular Michelle Williams, author Brian D'Ambrosio marks Big Sky Country's long-standing connections with America's performing arts.
