Astor

Founded by Robert M. Savini in 1933, Astor Pictures Corporation distributed hundreds of films in its 32 years of operation. The company distributed over 150 first run features in addition to the numerous re-releases for which it became famous. Astor had great success in the fields of horror and western movies and was a pioneer in African-American film productions. While under Savini's management, Astor and its subsidiaries were highly successful, but after his death in 1956 the company was sold, leading to eventual bankruptcy and closure. This volume provides the first in-depth look at Astor Pictures Corporation with thorough coverage of its releases, including diverse titles like La Dolce Vita and Frankenstein's Daughter.

John Jacob Astor was the best-known and most important American businessman for more than a half-century. His career encompassed the country's formative economic years from the precarious days following the American Revolution to the emergence of an urban-centered manufacturing economy in the late 1840s. Change was the dominant motif of the period, and Astor either exemplified the varied economic, social, and political changes in his business career or he directly affected the course of events. In this biography of John Jacob Astor, John Denis Haeger uses Astor's life and his career as a merchant, fur trader, and land speculator as vehicles for examining several important themes and issues in American economic and urban development between 1790 and 1860. Haeger addresses, in fascinating detail, the complexity of Astor's business endeavors, his extensive connections with the country's dominant political figures, and the "modern" business strategies and managerial techniques that he used to build his business empire. Astor was clearly not a business revolutionary who radically altered an existing system. He was, however, an entrepreneur who exerted a profound change on an industry. He fascinated his contemporaries precisely because he so mirrored his age and its changing business and economic patterns. He grasped the greater size and complexity of an emerging commercial economy in post-Revolutionary America and adopted strategies and structures that transformed the fur and China trades. His investment in city real estate, stocks, bonds, and even a western city made him part of America's evolution into an urbanindustrial society. For his era, John Astor's career was remarkable for its modernity, vision, and reflection of American economic and political values. More than just a personal biography, John Jacob Astor combines economic theories with a fascinating narrative that demonstrates, like no other book has, Astor's impact on the early republic.

Few newspaper editors are remembered beyond their lifetimes, but David Astor of the Observer is a great exception to the rule. He converted a staid, Conservative-supporting Sunday paper into essential reading, admired and envied for the quality of its writers and for its trenchant but fair-minded views. Astor grew up at Cliveden, the country house on the Thames which his grandfather had bought when he turned his back on New York, the source of the family fortune. His liberal-minded father was a constant support, but his relations with his mother, Nancy, were always embattled. At Oxford he suffered the first of the bouts of depression that were to blight his life; a lost soul for much of the Thirties, he became involved in attempts to put the British Government in touch with the German opposition in the months leading up to the war. George Orwell had urged Astor to champion the decolonisation of Africa, and Nelson Mandela always acknowledged how much he owed to the Observer’s long-standing support. A generous benefactor to good causes, he helped to set up Amnesty International and Index on Censorship. A good man and a great editor, he deserves to be better remembered.

Some weeks later a dray drove up to the Astor store, then at 68 Pine Street, and delivered a number of very heavy little kegs which chinked faintly as they were rolled in through the door. "What on earth are those, Jacob?" Sarah demanded when she happened in during the afternoon. "Der fruits of our East India pass," he answered, his deep-set eyes twinkling merrily. "Money?" He nodded. "Ho-how much?" "Fifty-five t'ousan' dollar." "Jacob!" she gasped. And well she might. It was as rich a coup as he ever achieved. -from "Fur and Tea" New Yorkers can't escape the name Astor: it graces theaters, hotels, street names, and even an entire Queens neighborhood. This delightful biography of the "landlord of New York" explains how John Jacob Astor, who arrived in the city a poor immigrant in 1784, created such a fortune-in real estate, fur, and trade with China-not only for himself but for the city and nation around him that his influence could not be denied. Author Arthur D. Howden Smith was, in the early years of the 20th century, a tremendously popular author of pulp fiction on a par with E.E. "Doc" Smith and Edgar Rice Burroughs. And the same boisterous enthusiasm that made his adventure tales of pirates and Vikings so riproaring readable bursts forth from this classic biography as well. Also available from Cosimo Classics: Howden Smith's Commodore Vanderbilt: An Epic of American Achievement. ARTHUR DOUGLAS HOWDEN SMITH (1887-1945) was an enormously prolific and diverse writer, penning numerous short stories, biographies, and business studies, but he is best remembered for his many pulp novels, including Porto Bello Gold (a prequel to Treasure Island), The Dead Go Overside, The Doom Trail, Swain's Saga, and others.

A richly illustrated romp with America’s Gilded Age leisure class—and those angling to join it Mark Twain called it the Gilded Age. Between 1870 and 1900, the United States’ population doubled, accompanied by an unparalleled industrial expansion, and an explosion of wealth unlike any the world had ever seen. America was the foremost nation of the world, and New York City was its beating heart. There, the richest and most influential—Thomas Edison, J. P. Morgan, Edith Wharton, the Vanderbilts, Andrew Carnegie, and more—became icons, whose comings and goings were breathlessly reported in the papers of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. It was a time of abundance, but also bitter rivalries, in work and play. The Old Money titans found themselves besieged by a vanguard of New Money interlopers eager to gain entrée into their world of formal balls, debutante parties, opera boxes, sailing regattas, and summer gatherings at Newport. Into this morass of money and desire stepped Caroline Astor. Mrs. Astor, an Old Money heiress of the first order, became convinced that she was uniquely qualified to uphold the manners and mores of Gilded Age America. Wherever she went, Mrs. Astor made her judgments, dictating proper behavior and demeanor, men’s and women’s codes of dress, acceptable patterns of speech and movements of the body, and what and when to eat and drink. The ladies and gentlemen of high society took note. “What would Mrs. Astor do?” became the question every social climber sought to answer. And an invitation to her annual ball was a golden ticket into the ranks of New York’s upper crust. This work serves as a guide to manners as well as an insight to Mrs. Astor’s personal diary and address book, showing everything from the perfect table setting to the array of outfits the elite wore at the time. Channeling the queen of the Gilded Age herself, Cecelia Tichi paints a portrait of New York’s social elite, from the schools to which they sent their children, to their lavish mansions and even their reactions to the political and personal scandals of the day. Ceceilia Tichi invites us on a beautifully illustrated tour of the Gilded Age, transporting readers to New York at its most fashionable. A colorful tapestry of fun facts and true tales, What Would Mrs. Astor Do? presents a vivid portrait of this remarkable time of social metamorphosis, starring Caroline Astor, the ultimate gatekeeper.

In 1928, Rosina Harrison arrived at the illustrious household of the Astor family to take up her new position as personal maid to the infamously temperamental Lady Nancy Astor, who sat in Parliament, entertained royalty, and traveled the world. "She's not a lady as you would understand a lady" was the butler's ominous warning. But what no one expected was that the iron-willed Lady Astor was about to meet her match in the no-nonsense, whip-smart girl from the country. For 35 years, from the parties thrown for royalty and trips across the globe, to the air raids during WWII, Rose was by Lady Astor's side and behind the scenes, keeping everything running smoothly. In charge of everything from the clothes and furs to the baggage to the priceless diamond "sparklers," Rose was closer to Lady Astor than anyone else. In her decades of service she received one £5 raise, but she traveled the world in style and retired with a lifetime's worth of stories. Like Gosford Park and Downton Abbey, ROSE is a captivating insight into the great wealth 'upstairs' and the endless work 'downstairs', but it is also the story of an unlikely decades-long friendship that grew between Her Ladyship and her spirited Yorkshire maid.

Mauritius in the late 1980’s, unemployment is at its peak and a young girl gets the amazing opportunity to travel leaving behind her bleak job in a textile factory. A whole Mauritian crew of one hundred and fifty is recruited to form the hotel staff of a brand new cruise ship, the Astor which flies the Mauritian flag and is due for a three month maiden voyage from the port of Southampton in England to Genoa in Italy around the South America Coast to Peru and the Caribbean islands. Their difficulty to adapt to European food and misery of seasickness is compensated by the luxury of their new living quarters and fascination seeing so many wonderful places. The cabin stewardesses Mela, Bianca, Nicoleta and other members of the crew tour this great world stunned by the beauty of Norwegian Glaciers and fjords, the greatness of the Amazon River and awed at Jerusalem and the holy land. Souvenirs of unpalatable pizza in Portugal, encounter with rude Spanish horse carriage drivers in Malaga, meeting with a Togolese in Hamburg, a Pakistanis in Montreal are evoked. They befriend Turkish students in Ankara, eat delicious baby octopus salads in the Balearic Islands and dive in cold seas of the Mediterranean and warm lagoons of the Indian Ocean. In French speaking countries they delight in using their familiar Creole with people of Haiti and Jamaica and enjoy the different French accents of Montreal and Quebec in Canada, Casablanca in Morocco, and Dakar in Senegal. They dance in the nightclubs of the world, moving to South American music in Salvador de Bahia and carnival music in Rio de Janeiro, Whitney Houston’s 1987 tube ‘I want to dance with somebody’ in Montreal and Mediterranean rhythms in Greece.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 After a lifetime of being an accessory to men, Brooke Astor hungered for meaningful work and the chance to be valued on her own merits. She became a philanthropist and a social arbiter. Her ability to dispense millions made her popular and powerful. #2 Mrs. Astor was very loyal to her inner circle, but she did have a habit of moving on, replacing dour faces with young and frisky newcomers. She was determined to have younger friends because she thought it was life-giving. #3 The relationship between the women had changed over the past decade, as the preternaturally energetic Brooke began showing her age. Annette had become Brooke's defender and protector, attentive and thoughtful, ever eager to please. #4 The New York Times treated Brooke Astor's birthdays with the civic reverence granted to holidays on which alternate-side-of-the-street parking is suspended. Every year, the event was commemorated with a story or a photograph.