Judy Garland on Judy Garland
Judy Garland on Judy Garland

Author: Randy L. Schmidt

Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Published: 2014-09-01

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 1613749481

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“It's going to be one hell of a great—everlastingly great—book with humor, tears, fun, emotion, and love,” Judy Garland said of her plans to tell her life story. But she died at the age of forty-seven before seeing it through. Judy Garland on Judy Garland is the closest we will likely come to experiencing and exploring the legend's abandoned autobiography. Collecting and presenting the most important Garland interviews and encounters that took place between 1935 and 1969, this work opens with her first radio appearance under contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and concludes with her last known interview, one taped for Radio Denmark just months before her death. What makes this collection unique and distinguishes it from the plethora of Garland biographies is that it places Judy in the role of storyteller. She wrote a number of essays for various publications and sat for countless print, radio, and television interviews. These and the other autobiographical efforts she made are proof that Judy Garland wanted her story told, and wanted it told in her own words. Finally, here it is.

The Brothers Mankiewicz
The Brothers Mankiewicz

Author: Sydney Ladensohn Stern

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2019-10-02

Total Pages: 455

ISBN-13: 1617032689

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Winner of the 2020 Peter C. Rollins Book Award Longlisted for the 2020 Moving Image Book Award by the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation Named a 2019 Richard Wall Memorial Award Finalist by the Theatre Library Association Herman J. (1897–1953) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993) wrote, produced, and directed over 150 pictures. With Orson Welles, Herman wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane and shared the picture’s only Academy Award. Joe earned the second pair of his four Oscars for writing and directing All About Eve, which also won Best Picture. Despite triumphs as diverse as Monkey Business and Cleopatra, and Pride of the Yankees and Guys and Dolls, the witty, intellectual brothers spent their Hollywood years deeply discontented and yearning for what they did not have—a career in New York theater. Herman, formerly an Algonquin Round Table habitué, New York Times and New Yorker theater critic, and playwright-collaborator with George S. Kaufman, never reconciled himself to screenwriting. He gambled away his prodigious earnings, was fired from all the major studios, and drank himself to death at fifty-five. While Herman drifted downward, Joe rose to become a critical and financial success as a writer, producer, and director, though his constant philandering with prominent stars like Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, and Gene Tierney distressed his emotionally fragile wife who eventually committed suicide. He wrecked his own health using uppers and downers in order to direct Cleopatra by day and finish writing it at night, only to be very publicly fired by Darryl F. Zanuck, an experience from which Joe never fully recovered. For this award-winning dual portrait of the Mankiewicz brothers, Sydney Ladensohn Stern draws on interviews, letters, diaries, and other documents still in private hands to provide a uniquely intimate behind-the-scenes chronicle of the lives, loves, work, and relationship between these complex men.

George Gershwin
George Gershwin

Author: Howard Pollack

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2007-01-15

Total Pages: 938

ISBN-13: 0520933141

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This comprehensive biography of George Gershwin (1898-1937) unravels the myths surrounding one of America's most celebrated composers and establishes the enduring value of his music. Gershwin created some of the most beloved music of the twentieth century and, along with Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, and Cole Porter, helped make the golden age of Broadway golden. Howard Pollack draws from a wealth of sketches, manuscripts, letters, interviews, books, articles, recordings, films, and other materials—including a large cache of Gershwin scores discovered in a Warner Brothers warehouse in 1982—to create an expansive chronicle of Gershwin’s meteoric rise to fame. He also traces Gershwin’s powerful presence that, even today, extends from Broadway, jazz clubs, and film scores to symphony halls and opera houses. Pollack’s lively narrative describes Gershwin’s family, childhood, and education; his early career as a pianist; his friendships and romantic life; his relation to various musical trends; his writings on music; his working methods; and his tragic death at the age of 38. Unlike Kern, Berlin, and Porter, who mostly worked within the confines of Broadway and Hollywood, Gershwin actively sought to cross the boundaries between high and low, and wrote works that crossed over into a realm where art music, jazz, and Broadway met and merged. The author surveys Gershwin’s entire oeuvre, from his first surviving compositions to the melodies that his brother and principal collaborator, Ira Gershwin, lyricized after his death. Pollack concludes with an exploration of the performances and critical reception of Gershwin's music over the years, from his time to ours.

The Gershwins and Me
The Gershwins and Me

Author: Michael Feinstein

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-10-16

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1451645309

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Michael Feinstein was just 20 years old when he got the chance of a lifetime: a job with his hero, Ira Gershwin. During their six-year partnership, Feinstein blossomed under Gershwin's mentorship and Gershwin was reinvigorated by the younger man's zeal. Now, in The Gershwins and Me, Michael Feinstein shares unforgettable stories and reminiscences from the music that defined American popular song, along with rare Gershwin memorabilia he's collected through the years. Includes an accompanying CD packed with Feinstein's original recordings of 12 Gershwins' songs.

Judy Garland
Judy Garland

Author: Scott Schechter

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 446

ISBN-13: 1589793005

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This day-by-day account of the legend's life--the first of its kind--succeeds in the daunting task of tracking Judy's myriad professional pursuits, the personal crises she triumphed over, and her many accomplishments. Lavishly illustrated with eighty rare photos, this volume contains new information to enthrall even the most knowledgeable Garland fan. For those just encountering Judy, this book provides the perfect introduction, an engrossing narrative bursting with information: her performance dates, concert set lists, and recording session schedules; the evolving critical reception to her work; the many celebrities that came into contact with and adored Judy, from the Beatles to Elvis to Sinatra; her filming itineraries and guest appearances; excerpts from rare interviews and press conferences; and much more. Here is Judy Garland as never viewed before, in a way that allows readers to see her whole life on a daily basis and come to their own conclusion about what her life was really about. They will encounter a survivor, parent, friend, and one of the greatest entertainers the world has ever known, who overcame one obstacle after another in order to devote forty-five of her forty-seven years to delighting her fans. From her debut performance as a Gumm Sister at age two to her final day, Judy Garland is the definitive chronicle of this remarkable icon.

Let 'em Eat Cake
Let 'em Eat Cake

Author: Susan Jedren

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2010-02-10

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0307557367

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When the heat in Brooklyn climbs to a hundred, there's only one thing worse than being a delivery man for HomeMade Cakes. It's being a delivery woman for Homemade. Because Anna, the feisty heroine of this earthy and irreverent novel, has to put up with things that her male co-workers can't imagine, from a boss who despises women to storekeepers who feel her up when they aren't trying to rip her off for the price of a carton of Chocos. As realized by Susan Jerden, Anna is a true representative of blue-collar, no-glitz New York, a valiant single mother, whose attempts to keep her head above water—and her dignity intact—are both hilarious and uplifting. Let 'Em Eat Cake is a novel for anyone who has ever worked at a demeaning job and dreamed of dancing on the merchandise, a book as real as a corner bodega and as refreshing as an open hydrant in the middle of a scolding summer.

Arranged by Nelson Riddle
Arranged by Nelson Riddle

Author: Nelson Riddle

Publisher: Alfred Music

Published:

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9781457467929

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The definitive study of arranging by America's premiere composer, arranger and conductor. A "must" for every musician interested in a greater understanding of arranging. Includes chapters on instrumentation, orchestration and Nelson Riddle's work with Sinatra, Cole and Garland.

A Fine Romance
A Fine Romance

Author: David Lehman

Publisher: Schocken

Published: 2009-10-06

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0805242716

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In A Fine Romance, David Lehman looks at the formation of the American songbook—the timeless numbers that became jazz standards, iconic love songs, and sound tracks to famous movies—and explores the extraordinary fact that this songbook was written almost exclusively by Jews. An acclaimed poet, editor, and cultural critic, David Lehman hears America singing—with a Yiddish accent. He guides us through America in the golden age of song, when “Embraceable You,” “White Christmas,” “Easter Parade,” “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man,” “My Romance,” “Cheek to Cheek,” “Stormy Weather,” and countless others became nothing less than the American sound track. The stories behind these songs, the shows from which many of them came, and the shows from which many of them came, and the composers and lyricists who wrote them give voice to a specifically American saga of love, longing, assimilation, and transformation. Lehman’s analytical skills, wit, and exuberance infuse this book with an energy and a tone like no other: at once sharply observant, personally searching, and attuned to the songs that all of us love. He helps us understand how natural it should be that Wizard of Oz composer Harold Arlen was the son of a cantor who incorporated “Over the Rainbow” into his Sabbath liturgy, and why Cole Porter—the rare non-Jew in this pantheon of musicians who wrote these classic songs shaped America even as America was shaping them. (Part of the Jewish Encounter series)