'' Jimmy Edwards was a Great British Entertainer '' Ken Dodd'' Not merely a peculiarly British comedian but an authentic English character  '' The TimesThe holder of the Distinguished Flying Cross, in recognition of his World War Two career with the RAF, Jimmy Edwards came to fame as an exuberant and bombastic, trombone-playing comedian in the 1940s, with early success at London's Windmill Theatre. He went on to star on radio in Take It from Here and on te...

A timely and captivating account of America’s first women directors who, with little recognition, helped pave the way for females in the film industry today.Originally published in 1977 as Early Women Directors, Anthony Slide’s The Silent Feminists was the first volume to recognize and honor the work of female directors in the American silent film industry. With a new foreword by the author, this invaluable resource documents these pioneering women...

The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville provides a unique record of what was once America's preeminent form of popular entertainment from the late 1800s through the early 1930s. It includes entries not only on the entertainers themselves, but also on those who worked behind the scenes, the theatres, genres, and historical terms. Entries on individual vaudevillians include biographical information, samplings of routines and, often, commentary by the performers. Many former vaudevillians wer...

200 striking photographs, in-depth commentaries, plot synposes, contemporary reviews, and more — about 50 British classics from yesterday and today. Preface. Text. Alphabetical list of films. Bibliography.

The fan magazine has often been viewed simply as a publicity tool, a fluffy exercise in self-promotion by the film industry. But as an arbiter of good and bad taste, as a source of knowledge, and as a gateway to the fabled land of Hollywood and its stars, the American fan magazine represents a fascinating and indispensable chapter in journalism and popular culture.Anthony Slide's Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine provides the definitive history of this artifact. It charts ...

New York City Vaudeville provides a unique pictorial record of America�s preeminent entertainment medium in the late 1800s through the early 1930s. New York�s Palace Theatreserved as the flagship for vaudeville, on which stage everyvaudevillian aspired to perform. New York City Vaudevillefeatures photographs of some of the greatest names fromthe Palace Theatre, including Jack Benny, George Burnsand Gracie Allen, Anna Held, the Marx Brothers, and Eva Tanguay, as well as legendary African Am...

This book provides a fascinating survey of the career of one of Hollywood's great mavericks. In his memoir Fragments, Andre de Toth took his readers on a roller coaster ride through his life. He gave scant mention to his film work. In De Toth on De Toth, he redresses the balance and expounds - in his own exhuberant style - on his film-making career. The cast of characters includes his wife - the luminous Veronica Lake - as well as stars such as Gary Cooper...

The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville provides a unique record of what was once America's preeminent form of popular entertainment from the late 1800s through the early 1930s. It includes entries not only on the entertainers themselves, but also on those who worked behind the scenes, the theatres, genres, and historical terms. Entries on individual vaudevillians include biographical information, samplings of routines and, often, commentary by the performers. Many former vaudevillians wer...

Extras, bit players, and stand-ins have been a part of the film industry almost from its conception. On a personal and a professional level, their stories are told in Hollywood Unknowns, the first history devoted to extras from the silent era through the present.Hollywood Unknowns discusses the relationship of the extra to the star, the lowly position in which extras were held, the poor working conditions and wages, and the sexual exploitation of many of the hardw...

A Special Relationship provides not only a historical overview of the British in Hollywood, but also a detailed study of the contributions made by American individuals and companies to British cinema from the beginning of the twentieth century onwards. The story begins with Ohio-born Charles Urban who came to London in 1898 and deserves credit for major involvement in the creation of a British film industry. While Ireland was still a part of Britain, the New York-based Kalem Compa...

D. W. Griffith (1875–1948) is one of the most influential figures in the history of the motion picture. As director of The Birth of a Nation, he is also one of the most controversial. He raised the cinema to a new level of art, entertainment, and innovation, and at the same time he illustrated, for the first time, its potential to influence an audience and propagandize a cause.Collected together here are virtually all of the “interviews” given by D. W. Griffith from the fi...

"Brackett's diaries read like a funnier, better-paced version of Barton Fink." — NewsweekScreenwriter Charles Brackett is best remembered as the writing partner of director Billy Wilder, who once referred to the pair as "the happiest couple in Hollywood," collaborating on such classics as The Lost Weekend and Sunset Boulevard. He was also a perceptive chronicler of the entertainment industry, and in this annotated collection of w...