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Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > Film, television, music, theatre
Elinor Remick Warren's distinguished career as a composer, concert
pianist, and accompanist for renowned singers spanned seventy-five
years of American musical history. She began writing music in 1904
at age four. Her first published composition, a song, was accepted
by G. Schirmer in 1916. Thereafter, her compositions appeared
regularly through 1990. Her full oeuvre is cataloged here along
with performance information, discography, and review and critical
commentary, all of which is carefully documented, cross-referenced,
and indexed. A biographical sketch is supplemented by a long
interview conducted by the author with Warren four years before the
composer's death in 1991. Among the useful appendixes are textual
sources for Warren's many vocal compositions.
The time is 1946. From Georgia O'Keeffe's old hacienda sitting on a
bluff in Abiquiu, New Mexico, she could see my aunt and uncle,
Helen and Winfield Morten's property across the Chama River.
Georgia had begun the restoration of her property. The Mortens, in
the final stages of purchasing land along the Chama River, had
recently completed their restoration of another old hacienda they
called Rancho de Abiquiu. As one of few Anglos in the Chama River
valley, Georgia ventured over to Rancho de Abiquiu to introduce
herself and a private friendship resulted with the Mortens and
their family. In this close family circle, Georgia revealed herself
and proved that beneath her bare face there was more to her than
just an artist of legendary proportions. Nancy Hopkins Reily spent
many of her childhood days walking the Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch
land. She explored the canyons, the White Place, Echo Amphitheater,
the mountains, and the Chama River by walking the trails worn by
earlier moccasined feet. In a seamless, clear, and straightforward
narrative of excerpts from their lives, Reily presents Georgia in a
time-window of her age. The book features Reily's youthful
experiences, letters from Georgia, glimpses of the family's
memorabilia and photographic snapshots-all gracefully woven into
the forces of the contemporaneous scene that shaped their
friendship. In addition, there are insights into the land's beauty,
times, culture, history and the people who surrounded Georgia, as
well as many minute details that should be remembered and which are
often overlooked by others when they speak of Georgia O'Keeffe.
Nancy Hopkins Reily was born in Dallas, Texas, and attended Gulf
Park College in Gulfport, Mississippi, for one year. She graduated
from Southern Methodist University with a B.B.A. in Retail
Merchandising. Since childhood she has divided her time between
Texas, Colorado and New Mexico. At a young age, the colorful New
Mexico landscape captured her heart and gave her a sense of place.
She continues to enjoy its beauty. Reily makes her home in Lufkin,
Texas.
There have been many books written on the Hollywood legend, James
Dean, but never before have we had a chance to hear from the real
Jimmy Dean. Now, for the first time, Dean speaks in his own words
as he is channeled through Patricia A. Leone, a long-time admirer
of the motion picture star and metaphysical practicioner. James
Dean/ The Lost Memoirs is an incrediably realistic look into Dean's
life, transporting the reader to another place and time. As you
read each entry in his journal you become closer than ever before
to the man behind the legend. Five decades ago this farm boy took
the world by storm, and the fascination with Dean continues to this
very day. Now, through this book, we are privvy not only to this
legendary actor's own words, but also his own most private and
innermost thoughts. He writes with intensity about his insecurity
concerning acting, his stormy relationship with Pierre Angeli, his
broken heart over the death of his mother, his constant flirtation
with death, and encounters with Hollywood stars like Marilyn
Monroe, Shelly Winters, Rock Hudson, Martin Landau, Elizabeth
Taylor and Sal Mineo. He also devuleges intimate details about
others who had the opportunity to be called his friends. The
author, in a remarkable series of channeled sessions with Dean that
were conducted over the course of several months, was able to break
through to the other side and give Dean this opportunity on the
50th anniversary of his death to share with us his own epiloge to
his life. It is the real and intimate side of Jimmy Dean, one that
has never been presented to the public before. This remarkable book
is must reading for Dean fans. It is written in journal form just
as the star, himself, might have written it, and includes his
thoughts, memories, and opinions beginning with the death of his
mother at age nine until the day just before his fatal motorcycle
accident on September 30, 1955.
In SCAR TISSUE Anthony Kiedis, charismatic and highly articulate
frontman of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, recounts his remarkable life
story, and the history of the band itself. Raised in the Midwest,
he moved to LA aged eleven to live with his father Blackie,
purveyor of pills, pot, and cocaine to the Hollywood elite. After a
brief child-acting career, Kiedis dropped out of U.C.L.A. and
plunged headfirst into the demimonde of the L.A. underground music
scene. He formed the band with three schoolfriends - and found his
life's purpose. Crisscrossing the country, the Chili Peppers were
musical innovators and influenced a whole generation of
musicians.;But there's a price to pay for both success and excess
and in SCAR TISSUE, Kiedis writes candidly of the overdose death of
his soul mate and band mate, Hillel Slovak, and his own ongoing
struggle with an addiction to drugs.;SCAR TISSUE far transcends the
typical rock biography, because Anthony Kiedis is anything but a
typical rock star. It is instead a compelling story of dedication
and debauchery, of intrigue and integrity, of recklessness and
redemption.
Shot Girls is the real life, raw accounting of Vanity Wonder's 5
year journey with black market butt injections. Commonly called
"shots," "pumping" or "work," illegal butt injections are quickly
on the rise and not just for strippers or women in the
entertainment industry. Known for her jaw dropping 34-23-45 curves,
Vanity tells no lies about how she obtained them. In this book,
Vanity takes you on a gripping ride through her 16+ injection
procedures, drug abuse, and the lessons she learned along the way.
Without a doubt, this book will answer any questions you may have
about this procedure and satisfy your curiosity on the subject.
When Harry Carey, Sr., died in 1947, director John Ford cast
Carey's twenty-six-year-old son, Harry, Jr., in the role of The
Abilene Kid in 3 Godfathers. Ford and the elder Carey had filmed an
earlier version of the story, and Ford dedicated the Technicolor
remake to his memory. Company of Heroes is the story of the making
of that film, as well as the eight subsequent Ford classics. In it,
Harry Carey, Jr., casts a remarkably observant eye on the process
of filming Westerns by one of the true masters of the form. From
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Wagonmaster to The Searchers and
Cheyenne Autumn, he shows the care, tedium, challenge, and
exhilaration of movie-making at its highest level. Carey's
portrayal of John Ford at work is the most intimate ever written.
He also gives us insightful and original portraits of the men and
women who were part of Ford's vision of America: John Wayne,
Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Maureen O'Hara, Ward Bond, Victor
McLaglen, and Ben Johnson. Funny, insightful, and brutally honest,
Company of Heroes is a rip-roaring good read that presents the
remarkable life story of Harry Carey, Jr., and his many fine
performances.
The first book to analyze and celebrate Baltimore's
underappreciated jazz tradition, Music at the Crossroads shines new
light on legends such as Eubie Blake and Cab Calloway, honors
neglected figures such as Ellis Larkins, Hank Levy, and Ethel
Ennis, pays tribute to the legacies of Pennsylvania Avenue and the
Left Bank Jazz Society, and analyzes the current Baltimore jazz
scene.
Jimi Hendrix, Princess Diana and Syria's Asma Al-Assad rub
shoulders with Auden, Eliot and Shelley - and with the Trouser
Thief Clive met during ten long weeks locked up in a closed
psychiatric ward - in this offbeat and affectionate poetic
biography. Since 2010, when Clive was told he had three separate
life-threatening conditions, he has poured out a stream of fine
poems - sometimes light, witty and paradoxical, sometimes sad,
heartfelt and regretful. Some, like `Japanese Maple', an instant
Internet sensation, have already made it into the anthologies.
Others, like his book-length epic, The River in the Sky, are more
demanding. All are packed with the unexpected ideas, inventive
imagery and breathtaking wordplay that have helped him achieve his
avowed ambition of becoming `a fairly major minor poet'.
Though chiefly remembered as the dance partner of Fred Astaire,
Ginger Rogers had many other significant achievements in the
entertainment world. She was a dancer, singer, comedienne, and
Academy Award winning dramatic actress, as well as the highest paid
Hollywood star in 1942. Miss Faris provides a detailed record of
Ginger Roger's life and career, painting a picture of her as one of
the most versatile performers in the United States. The volume
begins with a short biography of Ginger Rogers, along with a
succinct chronology of the major events in her life and career.
These portions of the book provide a context for the chapters that
follow, which contain annotated entries for her stage, film, radio,
and television performances. The entries provide production
information and cast listings, along with excerpts from reviews and
critical commentaries. An extensive annotated bibliography lists
books, magazine and newspaper articles, and movie trade
publications that provide further information about Ginger Rogers's
fascinating career.
View, through the eyes of a child and teenager, the scene of
growing up in the glamorous Hollywood of the 1930s and 1940s During
childhood, the author visited or auditioned at almost every major
movie studio in Tinseltown. What was it like to work on the set of
Hal Roach's Little Rascals? To be given a screen test with one of
Hollywood's greatest directors? To be told "never again to call"
the office of Columbia Pictures studio boss, Harry Cohn? To receive
from one of the Marx Brothers, the gift of a camera? Author Laura
June Kenny experienced all this and more. Her memoir provides a
unique look at a Hollywood and a Southern California that is no
more, and cannot be replaced. Born disadvantaged in the worst year
of the Great Depression, her fate was to be discovered and to be
loved by a disparate group of people who inspired her to reach for
the "real stars," and thereby find her stardom. Filled with rare
photos from the author's own collection, this is the story of a
Hollywood moppet turned teacher, writer, public speaker, emcee,
wife, mother, grandmother, and what she learned along the way
A propulsive and "entertaining" (The Wall Street Journal) history
chronicling the conception and creation of the iconic Disneyland
theme park, as told like never before by popular historian Richard
Snow. One day in the early 1950s, Walt Disney stood looking over
240 acres of farmland in Anaheim, California, and imagined building
a park where people "could live among Mickey Mouse and Snow White
in a world still powered by steam and fire for a day or a week or
(if the visitor is slightly mad) forever." Despite his wealth and
fame, exactly no one wanted Disney to build such a park. Not his
brother Roy, who ran the company's finances; not the bankers; and
not his wife, Lillian. Amusement parks at that time, such as Coney
Island, were a generally despised business, sagging and sordid
remnants of bygone days. Disney was told that he would only be
heading toward financial ruin. But Walt persevered, initially
financing the park against his own life insurance policy and later
with sponsorship from ABC and the sale of thousands and thousands
of Davy Crockett coonskin caps. Disney assembled a talented team of
engineers, architects, artists, animators, landscapers, and even a
retired admiral to transform his ideas into a soaring yet soothing
wonderland of a park. The catch was that they had only a year and a
day in which to build it. On July 17, 1955, Disneyland opened its
gates...and the first day was a disaster. Disney was nearly
suicidal with grief that he had failed on a grand scale. But the
curious masses kept coming, and the rest is entertainment history.
Eight hundred million visitors have flocked to the park since then.
In Disney's Land, "Snow brings a historian's eye and a child's
delight, not to mention superb writing, to the telling of this
fascinating narrative" (Ken Burns) that "will entertain
Disneyphiles and readers of popular American history" (Publishers
Weekly).
Peter Sellers's explosive talent made him a beloved figure in world
cinema and continues to attract new audiences. With his darkly
comic performances in Dr. Strangelove and Lolita and his
outrageously funny appearances as Inspector Clouseau in the Pink
Panther films, he became one of the most popular movie stars of his
time. Sellers himself identified most personally with the character
he played in Being There--an utterly empty man on whom others
projected what they wanted, or needed, to see. In this lively and
exhaustively researched biography, Ed Sikov offers unique insight
into Sellers's comedy style. Beginning with Sellers' lonely
childhood with a mother who wouldn't let go of him, through his
service in the Royal Air Force and his success on BBC Radio's The
Goon Show, Sikov goes on to detail his relationships with co-stars
such as Alec Guinness, Sophia Loren, and Shirley MacLaine; his work
with such directors as Stanley Kubrick, Billy Wilder, and Blake
Edwards; his four failed marriages; his ridiculously short
engagement to Liza Minnelli; and all the other peculiarities of
this eccentric man's unpredictable life. The most insightful
biography ever written of this endlessly fascinating star, Mr.
Strangelove is as comic and tragic as Peter Sellers was himself.
'I see my story as a suite of songs that have a magical connection.
I never understood that connection until I sat down to write. It
was then that the magic started to flow.' Let Love Rule is a work
of deep reflection. Lenny Kravitz looks back at his life with
candor, self-scrutiny, and humour. 'My life is all about
opposites,' he writes. 'Black and white. Jewish and Christian. The
Jackson 5 and Led Zeppelin. I accepted my Gemini soul. I owned it.
I adored it. Yins and yangs mingled in various parts of my heart
and mind, giving me balance and fueling my curiosity and comfort.'
Let Love Rule covers a vast canvas stretching from Manhattan's
Upper East Side, Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant, Los Angeles's
Baldwin Hills, Beverly Hills, and finally to France, England and
Germany. It's the story of a wildly creative kid who, despite tough
struggles at school and extreme tension at home, finds salvation in
music. We see him grow as a musician and ultimately a master
songwriter, producer, and performer. We also see Lenny's spiritual
growth-and the powerful way in which spirit informs his music. The
cast of characters surrounding Lenny is extraordinary: his father,
Sy, a high-powered news executive; his mother, Roxie Roker, a
television star; and Lisa Bonet, the young actress who becomes his
muse. The central character, of course, is Lenny, who, despite his
great aspirational energy, turns down record deal after record deal
until he finds his true voice.The creation of that voice, the same
voice that is able to declare 'Let Love Rule' to an international
audience, is the very heart of this story. 'Whether recording,
performing, or writing a book,' says Lenny, 'my art is about
listening to the inspiration inside and then sharing it with
people. Art must bring the world closer together.'
In this wise, stimulating, and deeply personal book, an eminent
jazz chronicler writes of his encounters with four great black
musicians: Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Milt Hinton, and Nat
"King" Cole. Equal parts memoir, oral history, and commentary, each
of the main chapters is a minibiography, weaving together
conversations Gene Lees had with the musicians and their families,
friends, and associates over a period of several decades.
Lees begins the book with an essay that tells of his introduction
to the world of jazz and his reaction to racism in the United
States when he emigrated from Canada in 1955. The underlying theme
in his book is the impact racism had on the four musicians' lives
and careers and their determination to overcome it. As Lees writes,
"No white person can even begin to understand the black experience
in the United States. . . . All of the four jazz makers] are men
who had every reason to embrace bitterness--and didn't."
This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It
contains classical literature works from over two thousand years.
Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore
shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the
cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical
literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the
mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from
oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of
international literature classics available in printed format again
- worldwide.
This book contains a selection of non-academic materials on a wide
range of topics related to Malaysian culture. Several of them deal
with traditional Malay theatre genres, particularly mak yong,
recognised by UNESCO as an item of the Oral and Intangible Heritage
of Humanity in 2005, the shadow play and bangsawan. Others record
the contributions of prominent personalities as practitioners,
preservers, teachers and transmitters of oral traditions. The
author touches upon issues related to the precarious situation in
the arts in a rapidly changing Malay society which has in general
neglected traditional performing arts forms under pressures exerted
by modenisation and the simultaneous wave of Islamicisation. His
own involvement in teaching, research, documentation as well as
preservation of many of these arts provides unique personal
insights into some of the problems and pertinent issues. Other
essays of a more general nature, touch upon the continuing and at
times controversial relationships between Malay cultural
manifestations and those in neighbouring countries, contributions
of the minority Indian-Muslim community in Malaysia, and upon the
role of the administration in the preservation of heritage. The
brief accounts contained in this volume are presented in a direct
and readable manner for the non-expert enthusiast of culture and
the arts from the perspective of someone deeply and passionately
involved.
"The biography is as good an introduction to Chaplin's life and
films as has been published. The bibliographical essay . . . offers
clear and reliable evaluations of the works considered. The
filmography carefully lists everyone involved in each Chaplin
film." Choice
For more than eight years, I lived and worked in the dark
underworld of Las Vegas as an exotic dancer. Some things are worth
repeating--others you try to forget. Unfortunately, you never
forget. I decided it was time that somebody told the truth about
what really happens in Las Vegas strip clubs and their VIP rooms.
Is there "sex in the champagne room?" With the right dancer and for
right price, there is anything you want in the champagne room! This
book gives a lot of insight into what really happens when men are
turned loose on the Las Vegas scene. I think men and women alike
will be interested in reading about what really happens in Vegas.
See what the dark twenty-four-hour world of Vegas is really like.
See what an insider has to say about the life of an exotic dancer.
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