Frederick Hastings Rindge (1857-1905) moved from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles in 1882 and bought the famed rancho at Malibu, which he dubbed "Laudamus Farm." Happy days in southern California (1898) opens with a history of the region, followed by chapters dealing with different lifestyles in the area: "seaside life" at Redondo, Santa Monica, and Santa Catalina, and the fish and animals of the sea; ranch life; climate; horseback riding; and mountain climbing.
A lighthearted account by the award-winning producer and director of such productions as Laverne & Shirley and Pretty Woman traces his Bronx childhood, role in shaping A-list celebrity careers and personal philosophies about life and entertainment. 60,000 first printing.
In 1971, my family of four left the bustle of the city for the suburbs of Long Island where we discovered the world of garage sales and flea markets. Before long we were a part of the action, creating "Happy Days," a 30-year family business entailing the buying and selling of antique and collectible toys. We never thought that our middle class suburban family would traverse the United States and the globe encountering humorous and surprising situations wherever we went. After all, who would suspect that something as innocent as selling children's playthings would lead to dealing with mobsters, actors, dreamers, schemers and at least one murderer?!
Acclaimed 60 Minutes commentator and true-crime author Shana Alexander turns her journalist’s eye to her own unconventional family—and herself—in this fascinating, moving memoir Shana Alexander spent most of her life trying to figure out her enigmatic parents. Milton Ager was a famous songwriter whose creations included “Ain’t She Sweet” and “Happy Days Are Here Again.” Cecelia Ager was a film critic and Variety columnist. They were a glamorous Jazz Age couple that moved in charmed circles with George and Ira Gershwin, Dorothy Parker, and Jerome Kern. They remained together for fifty-seven years, and yet they lived separate lives. This wise, witty, unflinchingly candid memoir is also a revealing account of Alexander’s own life, from her successful career as a writer and national-news commentator to her troubled marriages and emotionally wrenching love affairs. She shares insights about growing up with a cold, hypercritical mother, her relationship with her younger sister, the suicide of her adopted daughter, and her reconciliation with her parents after a twenty-year estrangement. “I had to do a lot of detective work to uncover the truth about my parents’ lives,” Alexander said. “I knew almost nothing about them as people. But by the end they really did become my best friends.”
In the 21st century, why do we keep talking about the fifties and sixties? In "Happy Days and Wonder Years", Daniel Marcus reveals how interpretations of these decades have figured in the cultural politics of the United States since 1970.
"This true tale of a Hollywood childhood, a fairytale role in one of television's all-time most popular shows, and a journey to dynamic and radiant health through a living-foods diet reveals author Cathy Silvers to be as enthusiastic an advocate of healthy living as "Jenny Piccolo" was boy-crazy"--Provided by publisher.
"A true story of the battle for paradise…men and women fighting for a slice of earth like no other." —New York Times Book Review Frederick and May Rindge, the unlikely couple whose love story propelled Malibu’s transformation from an untamed ranch in the middle of nowhere to a paradise seeded with movie stars, are at the heart of this story of American grit and determinism. He was a Harvard-trained confidant of presidents; she was a poor Midwestern farmer’s daughter raised to be suspicious of the seasons. Yet the bond between them would shape history. The newly married couple reached Los Angeles in 1887 when it was still a frontier, and within a few years Frederick, the only heir to an immense Boston fortune, became one of the wealthiest men in the state. After his sudden death in 1905, May spent the next thirty years fighting off some of the most powerful men in the country—as well as fissures within her own family—to preserve Malibu as her private kingdom. Her struggle, one of the longest over land in California history, would culminate in a landmark Supreme Court decision and lead to the creation of the Pacific Coast Highway. The King and Queen of Malibu traces the path of one family as the country around them swept off the last vestiges of the Civil War and moved into what we would recognize as the modern age. The story of Malibu ranges from the halls of Harvard to the Old West in New Mexico to the beginnings of San Francisco’s counter culture amid the Gilded Age, and culminates in the glamour of early Hollywood—all during the brief sliver of history in which the advent of railroads and the automobile traversed a beckoning American frontier and anything seemed possible.
