Bulls Balls Bicycles Actors

Charles Bickford's ups and downs on the straw-hat circuit, in vaudeville, on Broadway and as a screen actor have been penned by hand and reveal his bull-headed Irish talent for non-conformity. The accent is on brawling vitality from his Massachusetts childhood to his present eminence at 75. Bickford is probably best-known for his fiery role opposite Garbo in Anna Christie, a film he did not want to make because it was a woman's picture. At this distance, Bickford understandably glosses his early years on the road, and then brings a romantic Gable-Tracy boom-town immediacy to Jobs he held with his best friend ... raunchy days selling exterminator fluid, harvesting wheat and bumming the rails. Still, he found his metier at 21 and had a considerable acting background (Laertes in Hamlet, Tybalt in Romeo, and a hundred schlock plays) before he hit Broadway. His first big hit was in a Maxwell Anderson play about hobos. He hit Hollywood like a meteor, was starred in a huge C.B. DeMille epic, followed this with Garbo, then was pushed into trashy scripts because he had offended studio heads. Since then he has had rare starring roles as a fine character actor before he gave up acting in dime-store flicks. Bickford's writing is not without non-book banality and Hollywood posturing; but there is also a fine honest anger which shows through his embarrassment at holding a pen. The title might be retranslated Anger, Manhood, the Stage and Craftsmen.

Charles Bickford's ups and downs on the straw-hat circuit, in vaudeville, on Broadway and as a screen actor have been penned by hand and reveal his bull-headed Irish talent for non-conformity. The accent is on brawling vitality from his Massachusetts childhood to his present eminence at 75. Bickford is probably best-known for his fiery role opposite Garbo in Anna Christie, a film he did not want to make because it was a woman's picture. At this distance, Bickford understandably glosses his early years on the road, and then brings a romantic Gable-Tracy boom-town immediacy to Jobs he held with his best friend ... raunchy days selling exterminator fluid, harvesting wheat and bumming the rails. Still, he found his metier at 21 and had a considerable acting background (Laertes in Hamlet, Tybalt in Romeo, and a hundred schlock plays) before he hit Broadway. His first big hit was in a Maxwell Anderson play about hobos. He hit Hollywood like a meteor, was starred in a huge C.B. DeMille epic, followed this with Garbo, then was pushed into trashy scripts because he had offended studio heads. Since then he has had rare starring roles as a fine character actor before he gave up acting in dime-store flicks. Bickford's writing is not without non-book banality and Hollywood posturing; but there is also a fine honest anger which shows through his embarrassment at holding a pen. The title might be retranslated Anger, Manhood, the Stage and Craftsmen.

For decades, Screen World has been the film professional's, as well as the film buff's, favorite and indispensable annual screen resource, full of all the necessary statistics and facts. Now Screen World editor Barry Monush has compiled another comprehensive work for every film lover's library. In the first of two volumes, this book chronicles the careers of every significant film actor, from the earliest silent screen stars – Chaplin, Pickford, Fairbanks – to the mid-1960s, when the old studio and star systems came crashing down. Each listing includes: a brief biography, photos from the famed Screen World archives, with many rare shots; vital statistics; a comprehensive filmography; and an informed, entertaining assessment of each actor's contributions – good or bad! In addition to every major player, Monush includes the legions of unjustly neglected troupers of yesteryear. The result is a rarity: an invaluable reference tool that's as much fun to read as a scandal sheet. It pulsates with all the scandal, glamour, oddity and glory that was the lifeblood of its subjects. Contains over 1 000 photos!

Many Broadway stars appeared in Hollywood cinema from its earliest days. Some were 19th century stage idols who reprised famous roles on film as early as 1894. One was born as early as 1829. Another was cast in the performance during which Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. One took her stage name from her native state. Some modern-day stars also began their careers on Broadway before appearing in films. This book details the careers of 300 performers who went from stage to screen in all genres of film. A few made only a single movie, others hundreds. Each entry includes highlights of the performer's career, a list of stage appearances and a filmography.

Named a 2022 Richard Wall Award Finalist by the Theatre Library Association From the late 1920s through the thirties, Greta Garbo (1905–1990) was the biggest star in Hollywood. She stopped making films in 1941, at only thirty-six, and thereafter sought a discreet private life. Still, her fame only increased as the public and press clamored for news of the former actress. At the time of her death, forty-nine years later, photographers continued to stalk her, and her death was reported on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. In The Savvy Sphinx: How Garbo Conquered Hollywood, Robert Dance traces the strategy a working-class Swedish teenager employed to enter motion pictures, find her way to America, and ultimately become Hollywood’s most glorious product. Brilliant tactics allowed her to reach Hollywood’s upper-most echelon and made her one of the last century’s most famous people. Garbo was discovered by director Mauritz Stiller, who saw promise in her nascent talent and insisted that she accompany him when he was lured to America by an MGM contract. By twenty she was a movie star and the epitome of glamour. Soon Garbo was among the highest-paid performers, and in many years she occupied the number one position. Unique among studio players, she quickly insisted on and was granted final authority over her scripts, costars, and directors. But Garbo never played the Hollywood game, and by the late twenties her unwillingness to grant interviews, attend premieres, or meet visiting dignitaries won her the sobriquet the Swedish Sphinx. The Savvy Sphinx, which includes over a hundred beautiful images, charts her rise and her long self-imposed exile as the queen who abdicated her Hollywood throne. Garbo was the paramount star produced by the Hollywood studio system, and by the time of her death her legendary status was assured.

Gangsters such as Al Capone and Lucky Luciano were considered by many people to be the most exciting personalities of the 1920s and 1930s. The public was hungry for press coverage about these mysterious and dangerous men. Most reports about them were sketchy, as the reporters did not want to get on the bad side of the racket bosses. Hollywood’s response to the public’s fascination was to portray the lives of gangsters on the movie screen, using actors such as Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson. Perhaps surprisingly, these men received not-so-favorable reviews from the Academy Award voters, and as their popularity grew with the public, censorship dictated other actors be brought in to play the roles. That’s what this book is about—the personal and professional lives of William Bendix, Charles Bickford, Ward Bond, Broderick Crawford, Brian Donlevy, Paul Douglas, William Gargan, Barton MacLane, and Lloyd Nolan, second-string actors who replaced the big names and did a memorable job. A filmography is supplied for each actor.

Evelyn Brent's life and career were going quite well in 1928. She was happily living with writer Dorothy Herzog following her divorce from producer Bernard Fineman, and the tiny brunette had wowed fans and critics in the silent films The Underworld and The Last Command. She'd also been a sensation in Paramount's first dialogue film, Interference. But by the end of that year Brent was headed for a quick, downward spiral ending in bankruptcy and occasional work as an extra. What happened is a complicated story laced with bad luck, poor decisions, and treachery detailed in this first and only full-length biography.

A “treasure trove” of insider accounts of the movie business from its earliest beginnings to the present day—“exceedingly savvy . . . astute and entertaining” (Variety). The Grove Book of Hollywood is a richly entertaining anthology of anecdotes and reminiscences from the people who helped make the City of Angels the storied place we know today. Movie moguls, embittered screenwriters, bemused outsiders such as P. G. Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh, and others all have their say. Organized chronologically, the pieces form a history of Hollywood as only generations of insiders could tell it. We encounter the first people to move to Hollywood, when it was a dusty village on the outskirts of Los Angeles, as well as the key players during the heyday of the studio system in the 1930s. We hear from victims of the blacklist and from contemporary players in an industry dominated by agents. Coming from a wide variety of sources, the personal recollections range from the affectionate to the scathing, from the cynical to the grandiose. Here is John Huston on his drunken fistfight with Errol Flynn; Cecil B. DeMille on the challenges of filming The Ten Commandments; Frank Capra on working for the great comedic producer Mark Sennett; William Goldman on the strange behavior of Hollywood executives in meetings; and much more. “A masterly, magnificent anthology,” The Grove Book of Hollywood is a must for anyone fascinated by Hollywood and the film industry (Literary Review, London).