"Barzini talks of his boyhood meeting with Il Duce Mussolini; of his childhood impressions of Venice, Rome, and Milan; of the splendor of Italian Christmas Eves; and of his visits to America."--Cover.
The woman behind the icon known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, the undisputed Queen of Halloween, reveals her full story filled with intimate bombshells—told by the bombshell herself. On Good Friday in 1953, at only 18 months old, 25 miles from the nearest hospital in Manhattan, Kansas, Cassandra Peterson reached for a pot on the stove and doused herself in boiling water. Third-degree burns covered 35% of her body, and the prognosis wasn't good. But she survived. Burned and scarred, the impact stayed with her and became an obstacle she was determined to overcome. Feeling like a misfit led to her love of horror. While her sisters played with Barbie dolls, Cassandra built model kits of Frankenstein and Dracula, and idolized Vincent Price. Due to a complicated relationship with her mother, Cassandra left home at 14, and by age 17 she was performing at the famed Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas. Run-ins with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Tom Jones helped her grow up fast. Then a chance encounter with her idol Elvis Presley, changed the course of her life forever, and led her to Europe where she worked in film and traveled Italy as lead singer of an Italian pop band. She eventually made her way to Los Angeles, where she joined the famed comedy improv group, The Groundlings, and worked alongside Phil Hartman and Paul "Pee-wee" Reubens, honing her comedic skills. Nearing age 30, a struggling actress considered past her prime, she auditioned at local LA channel KHJ as hostess for the late night vintage horror movies. Cassandra improvised, made the role her own, and got the job on the spot. Yours Cruelly, Elvira is an unforgettably wild memoir. Cassandra doesn't shy away from revealing exactly who she is and how she overcame seemingly insurmountable odds. Always original and sometimes outrageous, her story is loaded with twists, travails, revelry, and downright shocking experiences. It is the candid, often funny, and sometimes heart-breaking tale of a Midwest farm girl's long strange trip to become the world's sexiest, sassiest Halloween icon. Instant New York Times Bestseller, Los Angeles Times Bestseller, USA Today Bestseller, Publishers Weekly Bestseller A New York Times Best Books to Give This Season selection
Why is everything that compromises greatness in art coded as 'feminine'? Has the feminist critique of Art History yet effected real change? With a new preface by Griselda Pollock, this edition of a truly groundbreaking book offers a radical challenge to a women-free Art History. Parker and Pollock's critique of Art History's sexism leads to expanded, inclusive readings of the art of the past. They demonstrate how the changing historical social realities of gender relations and women artists' translation of gendered conditions into their works provide keys to novel understandings of why we might study the art of the past. They go further to show how such knowledge enables us to understand art by contemporary artists who are women and can contribute to the changing self-perception and creative work of artists today. In March 2020 Griselda Pollock was awarded the Holberg Prize in recognition of her outstanding contribution to research and her influence on thinking on gender, ideology, art and visual culture worldwide for over 40 years. Old Mistresses was her first major scholarly publication which has become a classic work of feminist art history.
The New York Times bestselling author of the “delightfully clever...exceptionally entertaining” (Booklist) Bridal Pleasures novels beguiles readers once again with a new series of sensual intrigue and exquisite surprises.... Disgraced by her past employer, young governess Kate Walcott owes her loyalty to the only woman willing to hire her—the sought-after courtesan Mrs. Georgette Lawson. Georgette entrusts Kate with the care of her unruly children—and the writing of her shocking memoirs, which detail her affairs with famous gentlemen, including the rakehell who promised to marry her, then ruined her. Sir Colin Boscastle intended to keep his promise to Georgette--until his father was murdered. Thirteen years of chasing vengeance pass before he returns to find Georgette sleeping in his enemy’s bed. Revenge has destroyed their romance, but the two former lovers agree to set a trap to restore Colin’s honor. Caught in this deadly game, Kate struggles to resist Colin’s virile charm. She knows he is a born heartbreaker and unreliable rogue. Should she believe him when he whispers that, for her, he will change his sinful ways?
In this fascinating book, originally published in 1989, Anne Smith records interviews with a group of octogenerian women, covering all social classes and a great variety of experience. She allows the women to speak for themselves, bringing to light the submerged history of ordinary women's lives. This book should be of interest to wide general readership, as well as students of British social history and women's studies.
A delightful memoir of Mary Elizabeth Lucy and her life at Charlecote. Mary Elizabeth Williams, an heiress from North Wales, was only twenty when in 1823 she reluctantly married George Lucy and became mistress of Charlecote Old Hall in Warwickshire. Sixty years later she wrote this engaging account of her life for her grandchildren. It was a life of great happiness, for she grew to love her husband deeply. Her country home, her children, the London season and a tour abroad all brought joy and fulfilment. But her contentment was marred by tragedy as few of her many children survived her. Her words reveal a character of great strength and determination. High-spirited, discerning and delightfully free from prudishness, Mary Elizabeth Lucy draws pen-portraits of the people she met - Queen Victoria and Sir Walter Scott among them - and provides an authentic view of life in fashionable 19th-century society.
Eleanor Herman, the talented author of the New York Times bestselling Sex with Kings and Sex with the Queen goes behind the sacred doors of the Catholic Church in Mistress of the Vatican, a scintillating biography of a powerful yet little-known woman whose remarkable story is ripe with secrets, sex, passion, and ambition. For almost four centuries this astonishing story of a woman’s absolute power over the Vatican has been successfully buried—until now.
Start an epic journey through a realm of enchantment and treachery in 'Mistress of Mistresses' by Eric Rücker Eddison. Within the mystical tapestry of the Three Kingdoms—Rerek, Meszria, and Fingiswold—powerful nobles and rulers engage in a deadly dance of political intrigue. As the charismatic King Mezentius breathes his last, the fate of the realm hangs in the balance, teetering on the edge of dissolution. Amidst shifting alliances and mounting conspiracies, the future of the kingdoms is uncertain, and destinies clash in a battle for supremacy.
Including topics as diverse as feminism and its relationship to the marketplace, plagiarism and copyright, silence and forgetting, and myth in a digital age, this book explores the role of rewriting within feminist literature from the 1970s onwards in relation to the theme of cultural memory.