Download or read book W C Fields from the Ziegfeld Follies and Broadway Stage to the Screen written by Arthur Frank Wertheim and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-01-16 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reveals how Fields became a character comedian while performing in Broadway’s most illustrious revue, the Ziegfeld Follies. As the first biography to use the recently opened Fields Papers at the Motion Picture Academy, the book explores how Fields years as a Follies entertainer portraying a beleaguered husband and a captivating conman became a landmark turning point in his career, leading to his fame as a masterful film comedian. The book also untangles a web of mysteries about Fields’s turbulent private life, from the heartrending stories about the tragic relationship with his calculating wife who refused to divorce him, to his estranged son controlled by his mother, to the seven-year extra-marital affair with a chorus girl that led to the birth of an unwanted child. This electrifying saga illuminates a complex dual personality, whirling from tenderness to brusqueness, who endured so much anguish in order to bring the gift of laughter to millions. Although vilified by Ziegfeld and assailed by demons, Fields survived the cutthroat rigors of Broadway show biz to become a legendary American iconoclast and cultural icon.
Download or read book Ziegfeld and His Follies written by Cynthia Brideson and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2015-06-23 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this definitive biography, Cynthia Brideson and Sara Brideson offer a comprehensive look at both the life and legacy of Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. Drawing on a wide range of sources, they provide a lively and well-rounded account of Ziegfeld as a father, a husband, a son, a friend, a lover, and an alternately ruthless and benevolent employer. Lavishly illustrated, this is an intimate and in-depth portrait of a figure who profoundly changed American entertainment.
Download or read book W C Fields from Burlesque and Vaudeville to Broadway written by A. Wertheim and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-11-09 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: W. C. Fields was a virtuoso comedian, often called a comic genius, legendary iconoclast, and "Great Man," who brought so much laughter to millions while enduring so much anguish. This book explores his little-known, long stage career from 1898 to 1930, which had a major influence on his comedy and screen presence.
Download or read book Lillian Lorraine written by Nils Hanson and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2011-09-29 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After a meteoric ascent on Broadway that began with Ziegfeld's 1910 Follies, Lillian Lorraine went on to become one of the most famous entertainers in America. Her passionately lived life made her a prime target for the tabloid gossip doyens of the day. This biography recounts the early West Coast life of this superstar as well as her coronation on Broadway, her work in silent film, and her sexual liaisons that helped her gain her notoriety. It also covers her eventual disappearance from public life, her alcoholism and her death, which went largely unnoticed. She was buried in 1955 in a pauper's grave. The book includes first-hand personal anecdotes and observations from recently discovered tapes, which were recorded by a confidante of Lorraine's.
Download or read book Pop Culture and the Dark Side of the American Dream written by Paul A. Cantor and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2019-05-17 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The many con men, gangsters, and drug lords portrayed in popular culture are examples of the dark side of the American dream. Viewers are fascinated by these twisted versions of heroic American archetypes, like the self-made man and the entrepreneur. Applying the critical skills he developed as a Shakespeare scholar, Paul A. Cantor finds new depth in familiar landmarks of popular culture. He invokes Shakespearean models to show that the concept of the tragic hero can help us understand why we are both repelled by and drawn to figures such as Vito and Michael Corleone or Walter White. Beginning with Huckleberry Finn and ending with The Walking Dead, Cantor also uncovers the link between the American dream and frontier life. In imaginative variants of a Wild West setting, popular culture has served up disturbing—and yet strangely compelling—images of what happens when people move beyond the borders of law and order. Cantor demonstrates that, at its best, popular culture raises thoughtful questions about the validity and viability of the American dream, thus deepening our understanding of America itself.
Download or read book Chaplin s Limelight and the Music Hall Tradition written by Frank Scheide and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2006-10-12 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Spencer Chaplin was a stage performer before he was a filmmaker, and it was in English music hall that he learned the rudiments of his art. The last film he made in the United States, Limelight, was a tribute to the music hall days of his youth. As a parallel to Chaplin's past, the film was set in 1914, the year he left the stage for a Hollywood career. This collection of essays examines Limelight and the history of English music hall. Featuring contributions from the world's top Chaplin and music hall historians, as well as previously unpublished interviews with collaborators who worked on Limelight, the book offers new insight into one of Chaplin's most important pictures and the British form of entertainment that inspired it. Essays consider how and why Chaplin made Limelight, other artists who came out of English music hall, and the film's international appeal, among other topics. The book is filled with rare photographs, many published for the first time, sourced from the Chaplin archives and the private collections of other performers and co-stars.
Download or read book Motion Picture Story Magazine written by and published by . This book was released on 1927 with total page 716 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Encyclopaedia of the Musical Film written by Stanley Green and published by New York : Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1981 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A basic reference book for anyone interested in musical films, it contains over 1600 entries covering not only the most important actors, composers, lyricists, directors, choreographers, and producers but also the most memorable songs and films.
Download or read book British Film Institute Film Classics written by Rob White and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2003 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The SAGE Encyclopedia of Alcohol written by Scott C. Martin and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2014-12-16 with total page 1674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alcohol consumption goes to the very roots of nearly all human societies. Different countries and regions have become associated with different sorts of alcohol, for instance, the “beer culture” of Germany, the “wine culture” of France, Japan and saki, Russia and vodka, the Caribbean and rum, or the “moonshine culture” of Appalachia. Wine is used in religious rituals, and toasts are used to seal business deals or to celebrate marriages and state dinners. However, our relation with alcohol is one of love/hate. We also regulate it and tax it, we pass laws about when and where it’s appropriate, we crack down severely on drunk driving, and the United States and other countries tried the failed “Noble Experiment” of Prohibition. While there are many encyclopedias on alcohol, nearly all approach it as a substance of abuse, taking a clinical, medical perspective (alcohol, alcoholism, and treatment). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Alcohol examines the history of alcohol worldwide and goes beyond the historical lens to examine alcohol as a cultural and social phenomenon, as well—both for good and for ill—from the earliest days of humankind.
Download or read book America s Film Legacy written by Daniel Eagan and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 848 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collection of the five hundred films that have been selected, to date, for preservation by the National Film Preservation Board, and are thereby listed in the National Film Registry.
Download or read book Man on the Flying Trapeze written by Simon Louvish and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1999 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Louvish brilliantly sifts through evidence of W.C. Fields' own self-creation to illuminate the vaudeville world from which he rose to become the beloved cinematic curmudgeon and comic genius of his time. Photos.
Download or read book Capital of the World written by David Wallace and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012-09-04 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A portrait of NewYork City in the roaring twenties.
Download or read book Ziegfeld written by Ethan Mordden and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-11-11 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Any girl who twists her hat will be fired! – Florenz Ziegfeld And no Ziegfeld girl ever did as she made her way down the gala stairways of the Ziegfeld Follies in some of the most astonishing spectacles the American theatergoing public ever witnessed. When Florenz Ziegfeld started in theater, it was flea circus, operetta and sideshow all rolled into one. When he left it, the glamorous world of "show-biz" had been created. Though many know him as the man who "glorified the American girl," his first real star attraction was the bodybuilder Eugen Sandow, who flexed his muscles and thrilled the society matrons who came backstage to squeeze his biceps. His lesson learned with Sandow, Ziegfeld went on to present Anna Held, the naughty French sensation, who became the first Mrs. Ziegfeld. He was one of the first impresarios to mix headliners of different ethnic backgrounds, and literally the earliest proponent of mixed-race casting. The stars he showcased and, in some cases, created have become legends: Billie Burke (who also became his wife), elfin Marilyn Miller, cowboy Will Rogers, Bert Williams, W. C. Fields, Eddie Cantor and, last but not least, neighborhood diva Fanny Brice. A man of voracious sexual appetites when it came to beautiful women, Ziegfeld knew what he wanted and what others would want as well. From that passion, the Ziegfeld Girl was born. Elaborately bejeweled, they wore little more than a smile as they glided through eye-popping tableaux that were the highlight of the Follies, presented almost every year from 1907 to 1931. Ziegfeld's reputation and power, however, went beyond the stage of the Follies as he produced a number of other musicals, among them the ground-breaking Show Boat. In Ziegfeld: The Man Who Created Show Business, Ethan Mordden recreates the lost world of the Follies, a place of long-vanished beauty masterminded by one of the most inventive, ruthless, street-smart and exacting men ever to fill a theatre on the Great White Way : Florenz Ziegfeld.
Download or read book The Ziegfeld Follies written by Ann Ommen van der Merwe and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2009-03-26 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This documented history reconstructs the song performances of each annual production of the Ziegfeld Follies from 1907 to 1931. In so doing, it demonstrates the important role of song in facilitating the comedy and spectacle for which the Follies are better known.
Download or read book The Film Daily Year Book of Motion Pictures written by and published by . This book was released on 1938 with total page 1296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Film Year Book written by and published by . This book was released on 1938 with total page 1294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
