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“Insightful, often humorous, and always fascinating remembrances by some of the greatest names in entertainment history . . . a vibrant portrait of a bygone era.” —Brent Phillips, author of Charles Walters: The Director Who Made Hollywood Dance During television's first fifty years—long before Hulu, Netflix, and the like—families would gather around their sets nightly to watch such shows as I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke, M*A*S*H, The Beverly Hillbillies, Fantasy Island, and The Rockford Files. Seasoned journalists James Bawden and Ron Miller have captured provocative and entertaining interviews with beloved stars of shows like these, important figures from TV’s first half century. These ...
The Lancashire Witch Conspiracy draws upon the experience of an author well versed and qualified in the history of his locality - namely the Forest of Pendle. John A Clayton provides here an in-depth study of the Lancashire Witch Trials of 1612 and, in so doing, many new discoveries of the event come to light. For instance; the most famous 'witch' of them all, Old Demdike (Elizabeth Southern), is found amongst the dusty records of Whalley parish church where she was both baptised and married. Demdike's husband, a farmer, brought his new wife and her illigitimate child into Pendle Forest and this would eventually trigger the trials at Lancaster of 19 people upon charges of witchcraft. The anc...
Journalists James Bawden and Ron Miller spent their careers interviewing the greatest stars of Hollywood's golden age. They visited Lee Marvin at home and politely admired his fishing trophies, chatted with Janet Leigh while a young Jamie Lee Curtis played, and even made Elizabeth Taylor laugh out loud. In You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet, Bawden and Miller return with a new collection of rare interviews with iconic film stars including Henry Fonda, Esther Williams, Buster Keaton, Maureen O'Sullivan, Walter Pidgeon, and many more. The book is filled with humorous anecdotes and incredible behind-the-scenes stories. For instance, Bette Davis reflects that she and Katharine Hepburn were both conside...
Before Salma Hayek, Eva Longoria, and Penelope Cruz, there was Lupe Velez—one of the first Latin-American stars to sweep past the xenophobia of old Hollywood and pave the way for future icons from around the world. Her career began in the silent era, when her beauty was enough to make it onto the silver screen, but with the rise of talkies, Velez could no longer hope to hide her Mexican accent. Yet Velez proved to be a talented dramatic and comedic actress (and singer) and was much more versatile than Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, Gloria Swanson, and other legends of the time. Velez starred in such films as Hot Pepper (1933), Strictly Dynamite (1934), and Hollywood Party (1934), and her ...
In the early days of motion pictures—before superstars, before studio conglomerates, before even the advent of sound—there was a woman named Pearl White (1889–1938). A quintessential beauty of the time, with her perfectly tousled bob and come-hither stare, White's rise to stardom was swift; her assumption of the title of queen of American motion picture serials equally deserved. Born the youngest of five children in a small, rural Missouri farm town, White first began performing in high school. She would eventually make the decision to cut her education short, dropping out to go on the Trousdale Stock Company. A bit player in the early years of her career, she was eventually spotted by...
One of the oldest and most recognizable studios in Hollywood, Warner Bros. is considered a juggernaut of the entertainment industry. Since its formation in the early twentieth century, the studio has been a constant presence in cinema history, responsible for the creation of acclaimed films, blockbuster brands, and iconic superstars. These days, the studio is best known as a media conglomerate with a broad range of intellectual property, spanning movies, TV shows, and streaming content. Despite popular interest in the origins of this empire, the core of the Warner Bros. saga cannot be found in its commercial successes. It is the story of four brothers—Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack—whose v...
Writer, director, and producer Robert Herridge left an enduring mark on the small screen, from his stewardship of Camera Three in the early 1950s through the exciting days of live television. The minimalist Herridge style that placed performers in front of a camera on a nearly empty soundstage, as well as his unique brand of robust morbidity, produced some of the most powerful performances to grace early TV. Herridge pioneered dozens of innovative productions for the CBS and NBC networks in the 1950s and '60s, ranging from provocative adaptations of works by Shirley Jackson and Tennessee Williams to premier dance collaborations with George Balanchine and Agnes de Mille. He also created impor...
In the New Hollywood Era of the 1960s and 1970s, as weakening studio control granted directors more artistic freedom, the auteur theory, which regards the director as the primary artist among all those who contribute to filmmaking, gained traction. It was embraced by both the media and by directors themselves, who were glad to see their contribution so glorified. One positive was the discovery of filmmakers whose work was under the radar but virtually all the feted directors were white and overwhelmingly heterosexual—only in recent decades have the contributions of marginalized auteur filmmakers been recognized. Mavericks: Interviews with the World's Iconoclast Filmmakers amplifies the voi...