An essential volume for understanding Chaplin's body of work. An Everyman who expressed the defiant spirit of freedom, Charlie Chaplin was first lauded and later reviled in the America that made him Hollywood's richest man. He was a figure of multiple paradoxes. Simon Louvish's book looks afresh at the "mask behind the man." Louvish charts the tale of the Tramp himself through his films, from the early Mack Sennett shorts through the major features (The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times, The Great Dictator, et al.). He retrieves Chaplin as the iconic London street kid who carried the "surreal" antics of early British music hall triumphantly onto the Hollywood screen. Louvish also looks anew at Chaplin's and the Tramp's social and political ideas--the challenge to fascism, defiance of the McCarthyite witch hunts, eventual "exile," and last mature disguises as the serial killer Monsieur Verdoux and the dying English clown Calvero in Limelight. This book is an epic journey, summing up the roots of comedy and its appeal to audiences everywhere, who reveled in the clown's raw energy, his ceaseless struggle against adversity, and his capacity to represent our own fears, foibles, dreams, inner demons and hopes.

This is the first full and properly researched biography of all five Marx Brothers - Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo and Zeppo. It features the first authentic account of their origins, of the roots of their comedy, and their twenty-four years on the stage prior to the shooting of their first movie, The Cocoanuts, in 1929. Never-before-published scripts, well-minted Marxian dialogue, and much madness and mayhem feature in this tale of the Brothers' battles with Hollywood, their loves and marriages, and the story of the forgotten brother Gummo, who never appeared on screen. Spicing up the anarchic brew are accounts of Salvador Dali's 'missing' script for Harpo, the true identity of the long-suffering Margaret Dumont, and the FBI's verdict on Groucho's particular brand of Marxism.

Providing a detailed account of W.C. Fields's artistic path to the cinema, this biography aims to disentangle the facts from the lies and myths nurtured by Fields himself. It traces the origins of his comedy in the vaudeville sketches which he wrote himself, and then follows his career from stage to silent screen, revealing the sources of his familiar "talkie" routines. The book also highlights Fields's later struggle - against studio heads, censorship, alcohol addiction and illness - to create some of the most celebrated scenes in the history of cinema humour.

Sex goddess, Hollywood star, transgressive playwright, author, blues singer, and vaudeville brat - Mae West remains the Twentieth century's greatest comedienne. She made an everlasting mark in trailblazing Broadway plays such as Sex and the Constant Sinner and in films such as She Done Him Wrong, Klondike Annie, and I'm No Angel. Mae West: It Ain't No Sin is the first biography to make use of West's recently uncovered personal papers, offering an unprecedented view into the endless creative drive and daring wit of this legendary star.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy both passed away in the 1950s, yet their films still have the power to reduce audiences old and new to helpless laughter. There has been no comprehensive account of their lives and work, until now. The roots of their comic greatness lay in 19th century variety theatre. Lancashire-born Stan Laurel was steeped in the traditions of the music hall, and found himself touring the USA in the 1910s as Charlie Chaplin's understudy. American Oliver Hardy had established himself as a 'fat funny man' by the time he and Laurel were first paired in 1927. Laurel inspired Hardy to forge their famous double act, in which Laurel played the eternal comic fool, Hardy his temperamental master. Both men were devoted to their professional partnership, which outlasted multiple marriages. They saw themselves only as jobbing comedians, but their great work in the years 1927-1938 ensured that they remain recognisable in the furthermost corners of the globe. Stan and Ollie completes Louvish's trilogy of definitive biographies of the great clowns of screen comedy, following his books on W. C. Fields and the Marx Brothers.

An Everyman who expressed the defiant spirit of freedom, Charlie Chaplin was first lauded and later reviled in the America that made him Hollywood's richest man. He was a figure of multiple paradoxes, and many studies have sought to unveil 'the man behind the mask.' Louvish charts the tale of the Tramp himself through his films - from the early Mack Sennett shorts through the major features (The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times, The Great Dictator et al.) He weighs the relationship between the Tramp, his creator, and his world-wide fans, and in doing so retrieves Chaplin as the iconic London street-kid who carried the 'surreal' antics of early BritishMusic Hall triumphantly onto the Hollywood screen. Louvish also looks anew at Chaplin's and the Tramp's social and political ideas - the challenge to fascism, defiance of the McCarthyite witch-hunts, eventual 'exile', and last mature disguises as the serial-killer Monsieur Verdoux and the dying English clown Calvero in Limelight. This book is an epic journey, summing up the roots of Comedy and its appeal to audiences everywhere, who revelled in the clown's raw energy, his ceaseless struggle against adversity, and his capacity to represent our own fears, foibles, dreams, inner demons and hopes.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy have remained, from 1927 to the present day, the screen's most famous and popular comedy double act, celebrated by legions of fans. But despite many books about their films and individual lives, there has never been a fully researched, definitive narrative biography of the duo, from birth to death.
Louvish traces the early lives of Stanley Jefferson and Norvell Hardy and the surrounding minstrel and variety theatre, which influenced all of their later work. Louvish examines the rarely seen solo films of both our heroes, prior to their serendipitous pairing in 1927, in the long-lost short "Duck Soup." The inspired casting teamed them until their last days. Both often married, they found balancing their personal and professional lives a nearly impossible feat.
Between 1927 and 1938, they were able to successfully bridge the gap between silent and sound films, which tripped up most of their prominent colleagues. Their Hal Roach and MGM films were brilliant, but their move in 1941, to Twentieth Century Fox proved disastrous, with the nine films made there ranking as some of the most embarrassing moments of cinematic history.
In spite of this, Laurel and Hardy survived as exemplars of lasting genius, and their influence is seen to this day. The clowns were elusive behind their masks, but now Simon Louvish can finally reveal their full and complex humanity, and their passionate devotion to their art. In "Stan and Ollie: The Roots of Comedy: The Double Life of Laurel and Hardy," Louvish has seamlessly woven tireless and thorough research into an authoritative biography of these two important and influential Hollywood pioneers.

"[Fields] was his own greatest creation, and in Louvish, this complicated artist has finally found the biographer he deserves."—Malcolm Jones, Jr., Newsweek

Man on the Flying Trapeze is the first biography in decades — and the only accurate one — of the beloved cinematic curmudgeon and inimitable comic genius W. C. Fields. Simon Louvish brilliantly sifts through evidence of Fields's own self-creation to illuminate the vaudeville world from which Fields sprang and his struggles with studios and censors to make his hilarious films-in the process confirming suspicions (yes, he did drink) and confounding them (he doted on his grandchildren).

"One of the best movie biographies to come along in quite some time. . . . [A] book to cherish."—Film Review

"[Man on the Flying Trapeze] nicely regales us with many vaudevillian stories. . . . Louvish does a heroic job."—Katharine Whittemore, New York Times Book Review

"A rapturous, giddy, and irrepressible book. . . . Let us be clear: this is a delight, a marvel of research . . . and a superb argument for the case that William Claude Dukenfield was, and is, the greatest comic the movies have given us."—David Thomson

"At last 'the Great Man' (as Fields called himself, accurately) has a great biography."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)