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Book The Savvy Sphinx

Download or read book The Savvy Sphinx written by Robert Dance and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the late 1920s through the thirties, Greta Garbo (1905–1990) was the biggest star in Hollywood. She stopped making films in 1941, at only thirty-six, and thereafter sought a discreet private life. Still, her fame only increased as the public and press clamored for news of the former actress. At the time of her death, forty-nine years later, photographers continued to stalk her, and her death was reported on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. In The Savvy Sphinx: How Garbo Conquered Hollywood, Robert Dance traces the strategy a working-class Swedish teenager employed to enter motion pictures, find her way to America, and ultimately become Hollywood’s most glorious product. Brilliant tactics allowed her to reach Hollywood’s upper-most echelon and made her one of the last century’s most famous people. Garbo was discovered by director Mauritz Stiller, who saw promise in her nascent talent and insisted that she accompany him when he was lured to America by an MGM contract. By twenty she was a movie star and the epitome of glamour. Soon Garbo was among the highest-paid performers, and in many years she occupied the number one position. Unique among studio players, she quickly insisted on and was granted final authority over her scripts, costars, and directors. But Garbo never played the Hollywood game, and by the late twenties her unwillingness to grant interviews, attend premieres, or meet visiting dignitaries won her the sobriquet the Swedish Sphinx. The Savvy Sphinx, which includes over a hundred beautiful images, charts her rise and her long self-imposed exile as the queen who abdicated her Hollywood throne. Garbo was the paramount star produced by the Hollywood studio system, and by the time of her death her legendary status was assured.

Book Greta Garbo

Download or read book Greta Garbo written by David Bret and published by Biteback Publishing. This book was released on 2012-06-25 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the male-oriented studio system, Greta Garbo wielded a power no other actress has ever possessed, before or since. Be it producer, director, lover or journalist, Garbo called the shots, and when she decided that she was done with the whirlwind of life as Hollywood's darling she withdrew completely, leaving her public begging for an encore that never came. Though there have been numerous biographies of Garbo, this is the first to investigate fully the two so-called missing periods in the life of this most enigmatic of Hollywood stars: the first during the late 1920s, forcing MGM to employ a lookalike to conceal what was almost certainly a pregnancy; the second during World War II when Garbo was employed by British Intelligence to track down Nazi sympathisers. It also analyses in detail the original, uncensored copies of Garbo's films - with the exception of The Divine Woman, of which no complete print survives - and offers substantial evidence that John Gilbert was not, in fact, the great love of her life. Rather her true affections lay with the gay, Sapphic and Scandinavian members of her very intimate inner circle. Using previously unsourced material, along with anecdotes from friends and colleagues that have never before been published, David Bret paints a rounded portrait of Garbo's childhood in Sweden, her rise to stardom and her all-too-brief reign as queen of MGM. Hers is a truly remarkable story, recounted here with warmth, intensity and unique insight.

Book Garbo

    Book Details:
  • Author : Robert Gottlieb
  • Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  • Release : 2021-12-07
  • ISBN : 0374720819
  • Pages : 373 pages

Download or read book Garbo written by Robert Gottlieb and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice | One of Esquire's 125 best books about Hollywood Award-winning master critic Robert Gottlieb takes a singular and multifaceted look at the life of silver screen legend Greta Garbo, and the culture that worshiped her. “Wherever you look in the period between 1925 and 1941,” Robert Gottlieb writes in Garbo, “Greta Garbo is in people’s minds, hearts, and dreams.” Strikingly glamorous and famously inscrutable, she managed, in sixteen short years, to infiltrate the world’s subconscious; the end of her film career, when she was thirty-six, only made her more irresistible. Garbo appeared in just twenty-four Hollywood movies, yet her impact on the world—and that indescribable, transcendent presence she possessed—was rivaled only by Marilyn Monroe’s. She was looked on as a unique phenomenon, a sphinx, a myth, the most beautiful woman in the world, but in reality she was a Swedish peasant girl, uneducated, naïve, and always on her guard. When she arrived in Hollywood, aged nineteen, she spoke barely a word of English and was completely unprepared for the ferocious publicity that quickly adhered to her as, almost overnight, she became the world’s most famous actress. In Garbo, the acclaimed critic and editor Robert Gottlieb offers a vivid and thorough retelling of her life, beginning in the slums of Stockholm and proceeding through her years of struggling to elude the attention of the world—her desperate, futile striving to be “left alone.” He takes us through the films themselves, from M-G-M’s early presentation of her as a “vamp”—her overwhelming beauty drawing men to their doom, a formula she loathed—to the artistic heights of Camille and Ninotchka (“Garbo Laughs!”), by way of Anna Christie (“Garbo Talks!”), Mata Hari, and Grand Hotel. He examines her passive withdrawal from the movies, and the endless attempts to draw her back. And he sketches the life she led as a very wealthy woman in New York—“a hermit about town”—and the life she led in Europe among the Rothschilds and men like Onassis and Churchill. Her relationships with her famous co-star John Gilbert, with Cecil Beaton, with Leopold Stokowski, with Erich Maria Remarque, with George Schlee—were they consummated? Was she bisexual? Was she sexual at all? The whole world wanted to know—and still wants to know. In addition to offering his rich account of her life, Gottlieb, in what he calls “A Garbo Reader,” brings together a remarkable assembly of glimpses of Garbo from other people’s memoirs and interviews, ranging from Ingmar Bergman and Tallulah Bankhead to Roland Barthes; from literature (she turns up everywhere—in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, in Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, and the letters of Marianne Moore and Alice B. Toklas); from countless songs and cartoons and articles of merchandise. Most extraordinary of all are the pictures—250 or so ravishing movie stills, formal portraits, and revealing snapshots—all reproduced here in superb duotone. She had no personal vanity, no interest in clothes and make-up, yet the story of Garbo is essentially the story of a face and the camera. Forty years after her career ended, she was still being tormented by unrelenting paparazzi wherever she went. Includes Black-and-White Photographs

Book Book of the Sphinx

Download or read book Book of the Sphinx written by Willis Goth Regier and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2004-12-01 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sought, the Sphinx seems everywhere, whether the guardian of the pyramids on Egypt's Giza plateau or the beautiful man-eater with a deadly riddle, to be approached with awful caution. The Sphinx, that icon painted, sculpted, engraved, and exalted in poetry, fiction, and music, so impressed the philosopher Hegel that he pronounced the creature “the symbol of the symbolic itself.” With a wealth of illustrations, Book of the Sphinx confirms Hegel's lofty judgment, finding the Sphinx everywhere: in tragedies, paintings, opera, murder mysteries, brothels, bars, and advertisements. Pursuing the Sphinx through kaleidoscopic sightings and encyclopedic observations, Willis Goth Regier plumbs the symbol's mysteries, conducting the reader down ever more perplexing and intriguing paths. Wonderfully readable, his highly idiosyncratic tour of the ages and the arts leads at last to a conception of the Sphinx that embraces nothing less than all that is unknowable—proving once again that confronting a Sphinx is one of the most dangerous and exhilarating adventures of the imagination.

Book Sphinx

    Book Details:
  • Author : Christine Ha
  • Publisher : North Star Editions, Inc.
  • Release : 2021-08-01
  • ISBN : 1637381301
  • Pages : 32 pages

Download or read book Sphinx written by Christine Ha and published by North Star Editions, Inc.. This book was released on 2021-08-01 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores thrilling legends about the Sphinx. Short paragraphs of easy-to-read text are paired with eye-catching images to make reading engaging and accessible. The book also includes a table of contents, fun facts, sidebars, comprehension questions, a glossary, an index, and a list of resources for further reading.

Book The Great Sphinx

Download or read book The Great Sphinx written by Tyler Gieseke and published by ABDO. This book was released on 2021-08-01 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the history, construction, and legacy of the Great Sphinx, and sphinx symbolism in culture. Clear text and vibrant photos grab and hold readers' interest, and QR Codes in each chapter link to book-specific videos, activities, and more. Features include a table of contents, fun facts, Making Connections questions, a glossary, an infographic, and an index. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. DiscoverRoo is an imprint of Pop!, a division of ABDO.

Book Grip of the Shadow Plague

Download or read book Grip of the Shadow Plague written by Brandon Mull and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-03-24 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Very strange things are afoot at Fablehaven. Someone or something has released a plague that transforms beings of light into creatures of darkness. Seth discovers the problem early, but as the infectious disease spreads, it becomes clear that the preserve cannot hold out for long. In dire need of help, the Sorensons question where to turn. The Sphinx has always given sound advice -- but is he a traitor? Inside the Quiet Box, Vanessa might have information that could lead to a cure -- but can she be trusted? Meanwhile, Kendra and members of the Knights of the Dawn must journey to a distant preserve and retrieve another hidden artifact. Will the Society of the Evening Star recover it first? Will the plague eclipse all light at Fablehaven?

Book The Red Sphinx

    Book Details:
  • Author : Alexandre Dumas
  • Publisher : Pegasus Books
  • Release : 2017-01-03
  • ISBN : 9781681772974
  • Pages : 0 pages

Download or read book The Red Sphinx written by Alexandre Dumas and published by Pegasus Books. This book was released on 2017-01-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time in English in over a century, a new translation of the forgotten sequel to Dumas’s The Three Musketeers, continuing the dramatic tale of Cardinal Richelieu and his implacable enemies. In 1844, Alexandre Dumas published The Three Musketeers, a novel so famous and still so popular today that it scarcely needs introduction. Shortly thereafter he wrote a sequel, Twenty Years After, that resumed the adventures of his swashbuckling heroes. Later, toward the end of his career, Dumas wrote The Red Sphinx, another direct sequel to The Three Musketeers that begins, not twenty years later, but a mere twenty days afterward. The Red Sphinx picks up right where the The Three Musketeers left off, continuing the stories of Cardinal Richelieu, Queen Anne, and King Louis XIII—and introducing a charming new hero, the Comte de Moret, a real historical figure from the period. A young cavalier newly arrived in Paris, Moret is an illegitimate son of the former king, and thus half-brother to King Louis. The French Court seethes with intrigue as king, queen, and cardinal all vie for power, and young Moret soon finds himself up to his handsome neck in conspiracy, danger—and passionate romance! Dumas wrote seventy-five chapters of The Red Sphinx, all for serial publication, but he never quite finished it, and so the novel languished for almost a century before its first book publication in France in 1946. While Dumas never completed the book, he had earlier written a separate novella, The Dove, that recounted the final adventures of Moret and Cardinal Richelieu. Now for the first time, in one cohesive narrative, The Red Sphinx and The Dove make a complete and satisfying storyline—a rip-roaring novel of historical adventure, heretofore unknown to English-language readers, by the great Alexandre Dumas, king of the swashbucklers.

Book The Sphinx

    Book Details:
  • Author : Pete DiPrimio
  • Publisher : Mitchell Lane Publishers, Inc.
  • Release : 2011-08
  • ISBN : 1612282008
  • Pages : 52 pages

Download or read book The Sphinx written by Pete DiPrimio and published by Mitchell Lane Publishers, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-08 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When people think of the Sphinx, the riddle of the Sphinx of Thebes might pop to mind, or maybe the colossal Great Sphinx of Egypt. Were they the same monster in two different mythologies? Or were they completely different? The Sphinx legend began in Egypt over 4,500 years ago when ancient Egyptians were giving their gods animal forms. Built to guard the royal tombs of the Pyramids of Giza, the Great Sphinx had the body of a lion and the head of a pharaoh. It drew tourists from around the Mediterranean, and soon the mythology of the Greek Sphinx evolved. The Greek Sphinx had the body of a lion and the head of a woman. She terrorized the people of Thebes until a stranger, Oedipus, solved her riddle. Read the myths from these two cultures, and find out how sphinxes have been immortalized in statues and artwork throughout history.

Book The Modern Sphinx  and Some of Her Riddles

Download or read book The Modern Sphinx and Some of Her Riddles written by Minot Judson Savage and published by . This book was released on 1883 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Strictly Dynamite

    Book Details:
  • Author : Eve Golden
  • Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
  • Release : 2023-09-19
  • ISBN : 0813198100
  • Pages : 587 pages

Download or read book Strictly Dynamite written by Eve Golden and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2023-09-19 with total page 587 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before Salma Hayek, Eva Longoria, and Penelope Cruz, there was Lupe Velez—one of the first Latin-American stars to sweep past the xenophobia of old Hollywood and pave the way for future icons from around the world. Her career began in the silent era, when her beauty was enough to make it onto the silver screen, but with the rise of talkies, Velez could no longer hope to hide her Mexican accent. Yet Velez proved to be a talented dramatic and comedic actress (and singer) and was much more versatile than Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, Gloria Swanson, and other legends of the time. Velez starred in such films as Hot Pepper (1933), Strictly Dynamite (1934), and Hollywood Party (1934), and her popularity peaked in the 1940s after she appeared as Carmelita Fuentes in eight Mexican Spitfire films, a series created to capitalize on Velez's reputed fiery personality. The media emphasized the "Mexican Spitfire" persona, and by many accounts, Velez's private life was as colorful as the characters she portrayed on-screen. Fan magazines mythologized her mysterious childhood in Mexico, while mainstream publications obsessed over the drama of her romances with Gary Cooper, Erich Maria Remarque, and John Gilbert, along with her stormy marriage to Johnny Weissmuller. In 1944, a pregnant and unmarried Velez died of an intentional drug overdose. Her tumultuous life and the circumstances surrounding her early death have been the subject of speculation and controversy. In Strictly Dynamite: The Sensational Life of Lupe Velez, author Eve Golden uses extensive research to separate fact from fiction and offer a thorough and riveting examination of the real woman beneath the gossip columns' caricature. Through astute analysis of the actress's filmography and interviews, Golden illuminates the path Velez blazed through Hollywood. Her success was unexpected and extraordinary at a time when a distinctive accent was an obstacle, and yet very few books have focused entirely on Velez's life and career. Written with evenhandedness, humor, and empathy, this biography finally gives the remarkable Mexican actress the unique and nuanced portrait she deserves.

Book The Jean Harlow Bombshell

    Book Details:
  • Author : Mollie Cox Bryan
  • Publisher : Llewellyn Worldwide
  • Release : 2019-05-08
  • ISBN : 0738759031
  • Pages : 312 pages

Download or read book The Jean Harlow Bombshell written by Mollie Cox Bryan and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This book was released on 2019-05-08 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When it comes to writing Golden Age Hollywood biographies, the pen is deadlier than the sword Justine Turner is a world-famous biographer of Hollywood stars. She's also Charlotte Donovan's overbearing boss. So it comes as no surprise to Charlotte when Justine requests an emergency meeting related to her latest in-progress biography. It is a surprise, though, when Justine up and dies before their urgent discussion can begin. In the wake of such a tragedy, all Charlotte wants to do is finish the Jean Harlow biography that Justine had started. Instead, she finds herself in grave danger—stalked both online and in person by a drop-dead Jean Harlow look-alike. Together with police sergeant Den Brophy, Charlotte uncovers shocking revelations. But will these revelations be enough to catch the killer? Praise: "The Jean Harlow Bombshell is a page-turner, a modern whodunit threaded with Golden Age Hollywood glamour. Its protagonist, Charlotte Donovan, is a sleuth for our times, flawed, bright, and eminently relatable. Factor in the delicious elements of romance, friendship, and family, and you have a mystery as captivating as Jean Harlow's (still missing) star sapphire ring."—Jess Lourey, author of Salem's Cipher and Mercy's Chase "Twisty, fascinating, and gently edgy, this mixture of vintage Hollywood and contemporary New York will delight fans of the traditional mystery as well as those craving a modern read. Loved it!"—Hank Phillippi Ryan, nationally bestselling author of Trust Me "Mollie Cox Bryan concocts a fascinating mystery with more twists than a pretzel factory. Bryan's skillful portrayal of Charlotte and best friend Kate make it fun to follow them as they work through to the solution. An entertaining read, a steady pace, and memorable characters to meet."—Reviewing the Evidence

Book Garbo

Download or read book Garbo written by Barry Paris and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 654 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Greta Garbo (1905-1990) is as famous for her reclusiveness as for starring in such enduring classics as Flesh and the Devil, Grand Hotel, Queen Christina, and Ninotchka. In this richly illustrated volume, renowned biographer Barry Paris offers the definitive biography of this fascinating and complex woman -- from her hardscrabble childhood in Sweden to her arrival in Hollywood at the age of nineteen, from her meteoric rise to stardom to her unintentional retirement from filmmaking at the height of her fame, from the new life she crafted for herself to her surprising, and failed, plans for a comeback. Drawing on hitherto unavailable material, including one hundred hours of tape-recorded conversations, fifty years of correspondence, and interviews with Garbo's surviving friends and family, Paris reveals the real woman behind the enigma.

Book Rise of the Evening Star

Download or read book Rise of the Evening Star written by Brandon Mull and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-04-22 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kendra and Seth have to help their grandfather protect Fablehaven and all of its magic from the Society of the Evening Star.

Book Greta Garbo

    Book Details:
  • Author :
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 1990
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 15 pages

Download or read book Greta Garbo written by and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 15 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fotografier af: Russell Ball, Cecil Beaton, Atelier Binder, Clarence Sinclair Bull, Olof Ekstrand, Arnold Genthe, Henry B. Goodwin, George Hoyningen-Huene, George Hurrell, Ruth Harriet Louise, Edward Steichen

Book Frankenstein Takes the Cake

Download or read book Frankenstein Takes the Cake written by Adam Rex and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2008 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nineteen funny poems look at the secret lives of Frankenstein, Wolfman, Dracula, Bigfoot, Godzilla, etc.

Book Dark City

    Book Details:
  • Author : Eddie Muller
  • Publisher : Running Press Adult
  • Release : 2021-07-20
  • ISBN : 076249896X
  • Pages : 264 pages

Download or read book Dark City written by Eddie Muller and published by Running Press Adult. This book was released on 2021-07-20 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This revised and expanded edition of Eddie Muller's Dark City is a film noir lover's bible, taking readers on a tour of the urban landscape of the grim and gritty genre in a definitive, highly illustrated volume. Dark Cityexpands with new chapters and a fresh collection of restored photos that illustrate the mythic landscape of the imagination. It's a place where the men and women who created film noir often find themselves dangling from the same sinister heights as the silver-screen avatars to whom they gave life. Eddie Muller, host of Turner Classic Movies' Noir Alley, takes readers on a spellbinding trip through treacherous terrain: Hollywood in the post-World War II years, where art, politics, scandal, style -- and brilliant craftsmanship -- produced a new approach to moviemaking, and a new type of cultural mythology.