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On stage from her childhood, Martha Raye (1916-1994) proudly embraced the role of the clown, her gift for slapstick comedy enhanced by a fine singing voice. She became a star with her first feature film, Rhythm on the Range (1936), as the zany, loudmouthed girl looking for love--or chasing it as it ran away. She won popular and critical acclaim with The Martha Raye Show (1954-1956) before it was abruptly cancelled, partly because of her chaotic personal life. Drawing on new interviews with her colleagues, this retrospective covers the life and career of an enduringly funny lady who influenced a generation of women comedians. Her reign as a top NBC star of the 1950s is covered, along with her appearances on popular variety shows, her roles in fondly remembered series like The Bugaloos, McMillan and Alice, and her film career that teamed her with the likes of Jack Benny, Charlie Chaplin and Doris Day.
Through the story of Lucy a woman born of rape, this narrative sensitively explores racism, poverty and oppression in a tumultuous cosmopolitan society which, redolent of genteel pretensions and human tragedy, searches for catharsis through annual carnival abandon. Spanning 150 years from post slavery to post-colonial times, this shimmering yet gritty tale unfolds against the background of declining old cocoa and sugar plantations and gushing new oil wells in the tropical Caribbean island of Trinidad. A fascinating amalgam of history and heart-wrenching drama skilfully woven together by author Bertille David-Allahar, this novel captures the odyssey of Lucy and other women of colour, through an intimate portraiture of awakening, endurance and coming of age in a stratified island society still haunted by the shadows of slavery.
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