Bestselling author and Hollywood historian Wallace unveils 25 enchanting buildings and homes from Hollywood's glorious Golden Age. Each restored to its original grandeur, the buildings are showcased in 200 sumptuous photographs, all specially commissioned for this book, as well as rare historic shots.
Just when you thought you've heard everything about Hollywood comes a totally original new book - a special blend of biography, history and lore. Hollywood Stories is packed with wild, wonderful short tales about famous stars, movies, directors and many others who have been part of the world's most fascinating, unpredictable industry! Full of funny moments and twist endings, Hollywood Stories features an amazing, icons and will keep you totally entertained!
(Limelight). Fleeing Nazi persecution, half of Europe's creative talents, including screen legend Greta Garbo and composer Igor Stravinsky, were, in Arnold Schoenberg's words, "driven into paradise," settling in Los Angeles. It was the greatest flight of European cultural and intellectual talent in history, and for a time made Los Angeles a cultural capital. Their presence, enabling the evolution of film noir, also changed American movies forever. In Exiles in Hollywood, David Wallace, author of the national bestseller Lost Hollywood and whom columnist Liz Smith has called "the maestro of entertainment history," tells their dramatic stories. His profiles of refugees include filmmaker Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, Nobel Prize-winning writer Thomas Mann, the screenwriter Salka Viertel and her controversial relationship with Greta Garbo, the deeply conflicted actor Charles Laughton, and many more. The result is a rich, page-turning look at an era, its triumphs and tragedies, its gossip and hidden facts, and its colorful personalities.
Savor the inside scoop on over-the-top superstars "I'm not a paranoid, deranged millionaire. . . . I'm a billionaire!" "Acting is an empty and useless profession." "Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere else." "I'm interested in being provocative and pushing people's buttons." Which screen icons gave us the quotes above? How do stars get away with self-indulgent, unrestrained behaviors-or do they? In The Hollywood Book of Extravagance, longtime industry insider and Hollywood historian James Robert Parish gives you a provocative look behind the scenes at the lavish indulgences and larger-than-life egos of Tinseltown's rich and famous. The featured celebrities range from heartthrobs to industry tycoons, and from yesterday's matinee idols to today's hottest celebs. The stars are grouped according to their excesses: ego, neurosis, partying, power, rich living, and romancing. You'll devour little-known details on the excesses and exploits of notables ranging from Mae West to Madonna, Greta Garbo to Marilyn Monroe and Marlon Brando, Bela Lugosi to John Belushi, Zsa Zsa Gabor to Paris Hilton, Errol Flynn to Jude Law, and many more.
The period between the two world wars is often named 'the golden age of the cinema' in Britain. This definitive and entertaining book on the cinema and cinema-goers of the era is herewith reissued with a new Introduction. Jeffrey Richards, described by Philip French as 'a shrewd critic, a compulsive moviegoer, and a professional historian', tells the absorbing story of the cinema during the decade that produced Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers, the musicals of Jessie Matthews and Alexander Korda's epics. He examines the role of going to the pictures in people's lives during a tough period when, in the sumptuous buildings that housed local cinemas, people regularly spent a few pence to purchase ready-made dreams watching Gracie Fields, Robert Donat and the other stars of the day. He scrutinizes the film industry, censorship, cinema's influence, the nature of the star system and its images, as well as the films themselves, including the visions of Britain, British history and society that they created and represented.
In this one-of-a-kind Hollywood history, the creator of Instagram's celebrated @ThisWasHollywood reveals the forgotten past of the film world in a dazzling visual package modeled on the classic fan magazines of yesteryear. From former screen legends who have faded into obscurity to new revelations about the biggest movie stars, Valderrama unearths the most fascinating little-known tales from the birth of Hollywood through its Golden Age. The shocking fate of the world's first movie star. Clark Gable's secret love child. The film that nearly ended Paul Newman's career. A former child star who, at ninety-three, reveals her #metoo story for the first time. Valderrama unfolds these stories, and many more, in a volume that is by turns riveting, maddening, hilarious, and shocking. Drawing on new interviews, archival research, and an exhaustive library of photographs, This Was Hollywood is a compelling and visually stunning catalogue of the lost history of the movies.
Dream Town - A Comprehensive Summary The Pacific Coast Highway transports PI Aloysius Archer and his swish 1939 blood-red Delahaye convertible from Bay Town, California, to Hollywood in David Baldacci's third Archer adventure, Dream Town. Baldacci transports readers to the 1950s, an age of dazzling films and cinematic stars such as Kate Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Marilyn Monroe, and Bette Davis as if transported by a time machine. Adultery, kinky sex, blackmail, drug and drink abuse, and murder are prevalent throughout this period. The glossy yachts, movies, and galas, as Archer swiftly realizes, are only the tip of the iceberg that conceals Hollywood's seamier and steamier underbelly. Archer is ringing in the New Year in the City of Angels with his gal companion, actress Liberty Callahan, on New Year's Eve 1952. Liberty's friend Eleanor Lamb approaches Archer just before midnight, stating that someone is attempting to murder her and requesting his assistance. Archer is reluctant to take the job, but he's all in once his Bay Town employer, PI Willie Dash, approves. The only problem is that Archer finds a body at Lamb's Malibu house soon after that. She's also gone missing. Is there a link between the deceased and Lamb? Where does Archer start his research as a newcomer to town? Archer visits the headquarters of the production firm for Lamb's upcoming picture since Lamb is a well-known Hollywood screenwriter. There, he meets Cecily Ransome, a well-known director who promises to pay Archer's fee if he can find her colleague. Archer's hunt takes him to Hollywood's opulent homes, Chinatown's seedy pubs, Vegas's gambling palaces, and Lake Tahoe's desolate shoreline. Archer's trip is long and winding, and everyone in Tinsel Town's inner circle has secrets to keep hidden, making finding his missing client extremely difficult. To be continued... Here is a Preview of What You Will Get: ⁃ A Detailed Introduction ⁃ A Comprehensive Chapter by Chapter Summary ⁃ Etc Get a copy of this summary and learn about the book.
Cari Beauchamp masterfully combines biography with social and cultural history to examine the lives of Frances Marion and her many female colleagues who shaped filmmaking from 1912 through the 1940s. Frances Marion was Hollywood's highest paid screenwriter—male or female—or almost three decades, wrote almost 200 produced films and won Academy Awards for writing "The Big House" and "The Champ."
Most of us have never found ourselves trapped inside a burning skyscraper or entombed within an Egyptian pyramid--but we probably have some idea of what it would be like because of their portrayal on screen. The movies have overcome the constraints of time and place by bringing us images of diverse and otherwise unfamiliar settings. This work covers the many applications of art and architecture appearing in the movies produced in Hollywood from the very beginning until the fifties. The first chapters deal with the process of design, construction, physical characteristics and immediate functions of a wide variety of architectural sets. The remaining chapters examine the great number of styles shown in those movies and take the reader up to the final triumph of modernist architecture in the aftermath of the Second World War.