"Explains Pickford's roles as not only a talented actress, but also as a philanthropist and industry leader who managed to end up her own producer." — Time OutIn the early days of cinema, when actors were unbilled and unmentioned in credits, audiences immediately noticed Mary Pickford. Moviegoers everywhere were riveted by her magnetic talent and appeal as she rose to become cinema's first great star.In this engaging collection, co-published with t...

Mary Pickford's ambition, passion, innate talent, and savvy business acumen sent her career into the stratosphere and set the blueprint for the modern movie star. Born Gladys Louise Smith in 1892, Pickford was raised in a house on University Avenue in Toronto and began her acting career on the stage. However, her determination led her to the new world of motion pictures, where she not only revolutionized acting method but negotiated her own terms for the highest salary for any actress and ...

Drawing on his unprecedented access to Grace Kelly, bestselling biographer Donald Spoto at last offers an intimate, honest, and authoritative portrait of one of Hollywood’s legendary actresses.In just seven years–from 1950 through 1956–Grace Kelly embarked on a whirlwind career that included roles in eleven movies. From the principled Amy Fowler Kane in High Noon to the thrill-seeking Frances Stevens of To Catch a Thief, Grace established herself as one of Hollywo...

Like her art, Marilyn Monroe was rooted in paradox: She was a powerful star and a childlike waif; a joyful, irreverent party girl with a deeply spiritual side; a superb friend and a narcissist; a dumb blonde and an intellectual. No previous biographer has recognized-much less attempted to analyze-most of these aspects of her personality. Lois Banner has. With new details about Marilyn's childhood foster homes, her sexual abuse, her multiple marriages, her affairs, and her untimely death at...

Barbara Leaming's Marilyn Monroe is a complex, sympathetic portrait that will totally change the way we view the most enduring icon of American sexuality. To those who think they have heard all there is to hear about Marilyn Monroe, think again. Leaming's book tells a brand-new tale of sexual, psychological, and political intrigue of the highest order. Told for the first time in all its complexity, this is a compelling portrait of a woman at the center of a drama with immensely high stakes...

"A fascinating biography that re-creates Hollywood's Golden Age of Glamour" as it recounts the life of the star and inventor ( Publishers Weekly).Hedy Lamarr's exotic beauty was heralded across Europe in the early 1930s. Yet she became infamous for her nude scenes in the scandalous movie Ecstasy. Trapped in a marriage to one of Austria's munitions barons, a friend of Mussolini's who hid his Jewish heritage to become an "honorary Aryan" at the onset...

Richard Schickel's text, combining critical analysis and a re-interpretation of all the available biographical information, masterfully maps the intersections where a great star's personal history and his screen personality met in a style as elegant, graceful and witty as the actor himself.

Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling are virtually unknown outside of Hollywood and little-remembered even there, but as General Manager and Head of Publicity for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, they lorded over all the stars in Hollywood's golden age from the 1920s through the 1940s--including legends like Garbo, Dietrich, Gable and Garland. When MGM stars found themselves in trouble, it was Eddie and Howard who took care of them--solved their problems, hid their crimes, and kept their secrets...

The fans favorite biography of Marilyn is available for the first time as an eBook! "Marilyn Monroe" is the only book to tell her amazing life story entirely in photographs. The 200+ pictures are from the legendary collection of George Zeno, the premier Marilyn collector in the world ("Marilyn in Fashion"), and the lively, anecdotal extended captions are written by the international bestselling biographer James Spada ("Peter Lawford", "Streisand", "Grace Kelly".) This book, which the New Y...

John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath during an astonishing burst of activity between June and October of 1938. Throughout the time he was creating his greatest work, Steinbeck faithfully kept a journal revealing his arduous journey toward its completion.The journal, like the novel it chronicles, tells a tale of dramatic proportions-of dogged determination and inspiration, yet also of paranoia, self-doubt, and obstacles. It records in intimate detail the concept...

Drawing on the extraordinary collection of The Library of Congress, one of the greatest repositories for silent film and memorabilia, Peter Kobel has created the definitive visual history of silent film. From its birth in the 1890s, with the earliest narrative shorts, through the brilliant full-length features of the 1920s, Silent Movies captures the greatest directors and actors and their immortal films.Silent Movies also looks at the technology of early film, the...

Blonde, vivacious Jean Arthur is best remembered today for her unizue, childlike voice and for the handful of classic Thirties and Forties movies she made for directors Frank Capra and George Stevens, such as You Can't Take It With You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The More the Merrier and her last picture Shane, released in 1953. But not many know that her 30-year film career dates from the early Twenties, when she was an inexperienced contract player at Fox. In fact, Arthur appeared in ...