Meet the Mertzes

Meet the Mertzes

Author: Rob Edelman

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2013-08-27

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 1466850469

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Meet the Mertzes is an expansive dual biography chronicling the lives of two of America's most popular situation-comedy actors, William Frawley and Vivian Vance, who portrayed Fred and Ethel Mertz on I Love Lucy. This meticulously researched book contains interviews with Frawley's and Vance's colleagues, friends, and relatives, and explores their personal and professional lives before, during, and after I Love Lucy. With a complete filmography and videography of each, Meet the Mertzes finally sets the record straight on the lives and legacies of these compelling stars who detested one another. You'll learn about: -Vance's successful Broadway career prior to I Love Lucy -Frawley's vaudevillian roots and his passion for baseball -Vance's nervous breakdown after the collapse of her first marriage -Frawley's drinking and carousing -Lucille Ball's caustic relationship with both of her costars -Vance's hatred of being known to the world as Ethel Mertz


Lucille Ball FAQ

Lucille Ball FAQ

Author: Barry Monush

Publisher: Applause Theatre & Cinema

Published: 2011-06-01

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 1557839336

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(Applause Books). Although countless books and articles have been written about Lucille Ball, most people know only the surface details of her personal life and some basic facts about her popular television series. Lucille Ball FAQ takes us beyond the "Lucy" character to give readers information that might not be common knowledge about one of the world's most beloved entertainers. It can be read straight through, but the FAQ format also invites readers to pick it up and dig in at any point. Background information and anecdotes are provided in such categories as: People Lucy found funny; Lucy at home: her various residences throughout the years; Movie/television/radio/theater projects that never materialized; Lucy's off-camera romantic attachments. James Sheridan and Barry Monush go beyond the well known facts, making this an indispensable book for all Lucille Ball fans!


Hysterical!

Hysterical!

Author: Linda Mizejewski

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2017-12-06

Total Pages: 469

ISBN-13: 1477314520

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Amy Schumer, Samantha Bee, Mindy Kaling, Melissa McCarthy, Tig Notaro, Leslie Jones, and a host of hilarious peers are killing it nightly on American stages and screens large and small, smashing the tired stereotype that women aren't funny. But today's funny women aren't a new phenomenon—they have generations of hysterically funny foremothers. Fay Tincher's daredevil stunts, Mae West's linebacker walk, Lucille Ball's manic slapstick, Carol Burnett's athletic pratfalls, Ellen DeGeneres's tomboy pranks, Whoopi Goldberg's sly twinkle, and Tina Fey's acerbic wit all paved the way for contemporary unruly women, whose comedy upends the norms and ideals of women's bodies and behaviors. Hysterical! Women in American Comedy delivers a lively survey of women comics from the stars of the silent cinema up through the multimedia presences of Tina Fey and Lena Dunham. This anthology of original essays includes contributions by the field's leading authorities, introducing a new framework for women's comedy that analyzes the implications of hysterical laughter and hysterically funny performances. Expanding on previous studies of comedians such as Mae West, Moms Mabley, and Margaret Cho, and offering the first scholarly work on comedy pioneers Mabel Normand, Fay Tincher, and Carol Burnett, the contributors explore such topics as racial/ethnic/sexual identity, celebrity, stardom, censorship, auteurism, cuteness, and postfeminism across multiple media. Situated within the main currents of gender and queer studies, as well as American studies and feminist media scholarship, Hysterical! masterfully demonstrates that hysteria—women acting out and acting up—is a provocative, empowering model for women's comedy.


The Murky World of Timothy Wall

The Murky World of Timothy Wall

Author: Ian McFadyen

Publisher: Book Guild Publishing

Published: 2021-10-28

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 191512221X

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When the body of Timothy Wall, a Private Detective, is found in his office, the querulous Inspector Carmichael discovers some surprising revelations and curious contradictions about the dead man. Loved by many and seemingly despised by others in equal measure, Timothy Wall’s whole world seems to be strewn with paradoxes.


Finding a Way Home

Finding a Way Home

Author: Owen E. Brady

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2010-02-17

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 1604733357

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Essays by Owen E. Brady, Kelly C. Connelly, Juan F. Elices, Keith Hughes, Derek C. Maus, Jerrilyn McGregory, Laura Quinn, Francesca Canadé Sautman, Daniel Stein, Lisa B. Thompson, Terrence Tucker, and Albert U. Turner, Jr. In Finding a Way Home, thirteen essays by scholars from four countries trace Walter Mosley's distinctive approach to representing African American responses to the feeling of homelessness in an inhospitable America. Mosley (b. 1952) writes frequently of characters trying to construct an idea of home and wrest a sense of dignity, belonging, and hope from cultural and communal resources. These essays examine Mosley's queries about the meaning of “home” in various social and historical contexts. Essayists consider the concept—whether it be material, social, cultural, or virtual—in all three of Mosley's detective/crime fiction series (Easy Rawlins, Socrates Fortlow, and Fearless Jones), his three books of speculative fiction, two of his “literary” novels (RL's Dream, The Man in My Basement), and in his recent social and political nonfiction. Essays here explore Mosley's modes of expression, his testing of the limitations of genre, his political engagement in prose, his utopian/dystopian analyses, and his uses of parody and vernacular culture. Finding a Way Home provides rich discussions, explaining the development of Mosley's work.


Great Graves of Upstate New York

Great Graves of Upstate New York

Author: Chuck D'Imperio

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2009-01-09

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1935278312

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The hundreds of rural cemeteries in Upstate New York are the bucolic final resting places of a plethora of legendary Americans from the recent and distant past. For over a decade, Chuck DImperio traveled to research the beautiful and historic region in search of some of the most famous (and infamous) figures in American history. The product of this labor of love is Great Graves of Upstate New York: Final Resting Places of 70 True American Legends. Many of the names are familiar to any AmericanWilliam Rockefeller, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (better known as Mark Twain), Frederick Douglass, Lucille Ball, and Harriet Tubman, and four U.S. presidents: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, and Chester Arthur. An equally colorful host of local characters who shaped the culture of Upstate New York are also featured, including: Kate Smith, The God Bless America Girl; mafia figure Joe Joe the Barber Barbara; Dr. Mary Walker, Americas only female Congressional Medal of Honor winner; Jennie Grossinger, The Catskills Innkeeper; and Ernie Davis, The Pride of the Syracuse Orangemen. From Syracuse to West Point to Binghamton, and on to Cooperstown, Niagara Falls, and Lake Placid, Great Graves of Upstate New York is not only a fact-filled volume on the regions cemeteries, museums, and historical sites, but a peek into the lives of 70 distinguished individuals who have shaped American history.


The Great Clowns of American Television

The Great Clowns of American Television

Author: Karin Adir

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2001-12-01

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 9780786413034

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There are generations that have never seen Sid Caesar become an automobile tire or Red Skelton stick his thumbs in his armpits and intone, "Two theagulls...," never journeyed with Ernie Kovacs to a surrealistic world of his warped imagination. Here seventeen comic talents are profiled (with photographs): their early years, marriages and personal challenges, anecdotes about them, the characters they created, their styles, and often representative dialogue or sketch descriptions. There is a listing of all television shows in which each comic starred (giving length, network, air dates). The comics include Lucille Ball, Milton Berle, Carol Burnett, Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Tim Conway, Jackie Gleason, Danny Kaye, Ernie Kovacs, Olsen and Johnson, Martha Raye, Soupy Sales, Red Skelton, Dick Van Dyke, Flip Wilson, Jonathan Winters, and Ed Wynn.


The Greatest Sitcoms of All Time

The Greatest Sitcoms of All Time

Author: Martin Gitlin

Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Published: 2013-11-07

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 0810887258

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Since the advent of network television, situation comedies have been a staple of prime-time programming. Classics of the genre have emerged in every decade, from The Honeymooners and Make Room for Daddy in the 1950sto 30 Rock, The Office, and Modern Family of the twenty-first century. Other shows that have left enduring impressions are The Andy Griffith Show, Get Smart, The Bob Newhart Show, Barney Miller, Cheers, The Cosby Show, The Golden Girls, Home Improvement, Will & Grace, and Everybody Loves Raymond. All of these shows are assured a place in history and would make almost anyone’s list of the most beloved comedies. In The Greatest Sitcoms of All Time, Martin Gitlin has assembled the top seventy sitcoms in television history. The rankings are based on such factors as longevity, ratings, awards, humor, impact, and legacy. Iconic programs such as I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show,and Leave It to Beaver join contemporary shows The Simpsons, Arrested Development, and Family Guy on the list. Other programs include perennial favorites like All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Seinfeld, as well as short-lived treasures that never found the audiences they deserved like Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Each entry contains a comprehensive compilation of information, including: Cast members Character list Network Air dates Ratings history Time slots Series overview Notable episodes Awards Fun facts and quotes Appendixes list the top male and female sitcom characters of all time, the best sitcom spin-offs, and shows that just missed the cut. By ranking these programs, The Greatest Sitcoms of All Time is sure to inspire debate. Whether you agree with this list or whether your favorite show placed as high as you think it should have, this book will be an entertaining and informative read—not only for students and scholars of television history but for sitcom fans as well.


The Comic Dna of Lucille Ball

The Comic Dna of Lucille Ball

Author: Michael Karol

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2005-12-15

Total Pages: 88

ISBN-13: 0595823203

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Fifty-five years ago, a sitcom called I Love Lucy transformed the television landscape and made its leading lady, Lucille Ball, a superstar. No one could have known that Ball, formerly a showgirl, B-movie queen, and radio actress, would become one of the world's most beloved performers, and take her place in a rare pantheon reserved for the likes of Elvis, Marilyn, and Chaplin. This book, by acclaimed Lucy author Michael Karol-Lucy A to Z: The Lucille Ball Encyclopedia, The Lucille Ball Quiz Book, Lucy in Print-examines Ball's impact and dissects what it was, and is, that makes Lucy not only an icon of laughter, but a powerful tonic in a troubled world.