Hollywood Baby Boomers

Biographies of the superstars of today's Hollywood who were born in the Baby Boom generation; includes filmographies.

Between 1946 and 1964 seventy-five million babies were born, dwarfing the generations that preceded and succeeded them. At each stage of its life-cycle, the baby boom's great size has dictated the terms of national policy and public debate. While aspects of this history are well-documented, the relationship between the baby boom and Hollywood has never been explored. And yet, for almost 40 years, baby boomers made up the majority of Hollywood's audience, and since the 1970s, boomers have dominated movie production. Hollywood and the Baby Boom weaves together interviews with leading filmmakers, archival research and the memories of hundreds of ordinary filmgoers to tell the full story of Hollywood's relationship with the boomers for the first time. The authors demonstrate the profound influence of the boomers on the ways that movies were made, seen and understood since the 1950s. The result is a compelling new account that draws upon an unprecedented range of sources, and offers new insights into the history of American movies.

Popular TV and film of the American 50’s and 60’s evolved over time, but themes of family and fun never wavered. Many Baby Boomers look back and miss those old days, but surprising, hilarious, and even shocking stories hid in Dark Shadows despite so many Happy Days. Now, secrets are revealed as celebrities share their memories and mishaps. Shooting the Breeze with Baby Boomer Stars is a collection of first person stories and histories shared with Baby Boomer radio host, Torchy Smith. Torchy’s celebrity connection began before his own kids entered the entertainment business. He always had an interest in seeking a way to combine his nostalgia obsession with communications, which resulted in his own radio show where he interviewed actors from the past. Read trade secrets never before revealed as stars chat about being on set for Animal House, Star Trek, Leave it to Beaver, and more. Go back in time with Baby Boomer icons as they relive behind-the-scenes snafus and fights all while honoring the glory days of television. Where are they now, and what are they doing? You’re about to find out.

Part of the Encore Film Book Classics series, this is a reprint of the original text to Hollywood Baby Boomers by James Robert Parish and Don E. Stanke. The generation of the American Baby Boomers is comprised of those born in the years from 1946, following the return home of soldiers who had fought in World War II, through 1964. For purposes of brevity, this book includes Hollywood luminaries born between 1946 and 1960. Most of the subjects profiled herein made it to the top of their profession without the aid of a major studio to serve as a safe harbor and launching pad of their show business careers. Most of the successful members of this generation of talent formed, at one time or another, their own production companies to make themselves self-sufficient in dealings with the film studios. Above all, they are an intelligent, self-sufficient group of acting talent. Each personality profiled in this book has a separate chapter containing a career and biographical narrative. Each chapter has a listing of the subject's feature films/TV movies, TV series, Broadway appearances, and, if any, released music albums. An important quote from each star launches his/her own chapter. The 80 celebrities presented in Hollywood Baby Boomers are: Richard Dean Anderson, Dan Aykroyd, Alec Baldwin, Ellen Barkin, Roseanne Barr, Kim Basinger, Tom Berenger, Candice Bergen, Bruce Boxleitner, Jeff Bridges, Cher, Glenn Close, Kevin Costner, Billy Crystal, Jamie Lee Curtis, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Daniels, Ted Danson, Tony Danza, Richard Dreyfuss, Sally Field, Richard Gere, Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Jeff Goldblum, John Goodman, Melanie Griffith, Steve Guttenberg, Arsenio Hall, Harry Hamlin, Tom Hanks, Mark Harmon, Gregory Harrison, Gregory Hines, William Hurt, Timothy Hutton, Ann Jillian, Don Johnson, Tommy Lee Jones, Diane Keaton, Michael Keaton, Perry King, Kevin Kline, Christine Lahti, Jessica Lange, Shelley Long, Madonna, John Malkovich, Kelly McGillis, Bill Murray, Mandy Patinkin, Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer, Dennis Quaid, Christopher Reeve, John Ritter, Mickey Rourke, Kurt Russell, Susan Saint James, Susan Sarandon, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jane Seymour, Cybill Shepherd, Jaclyn Smith, Jimmy Smits, Sissy Spacek, Sylvester Stallone, Meryl Streep, Patrick Swayze, John Travolta, Kathleen Turner, Lindsay Wagner, Sigourney Weaver, Robin Williams, Treat Williams, Bruce Willis, Oprah Winfrey, Debra Winger, and James Woods.

The Boomers are the generation that changed everything, from economics to politics to popular culture. This book examines the myriad ways and long-reaching consequences of the now fully "grown up" Baby Boomer generation on America. Once upon a time, the members of the Baby Boomer generation were young, idealistic, and hungry to change the world. And they did create sweeping, irreversible changes throughout American society—but probably not in the ways their younger selves imagined they would. Now that the Boomers are in their late-adult or retirement years, their tremendous legacy can clearly be perceived. In retrospect, the paths the members of this generation took to come to power—and how they came to terms with that power—are also apparent. This single-volume work supplies a broad yet detailed critical guide to the Boomer Generation, containing essays on key people, moments, and phenomena not only during the Boomers' 1960s heyday but also their extensive influences on American culture decades afterward. The contributors address key topics such as the rise of feminism; Civil Rights; the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement; the Beatles, the Grateful Dead, and rock 'n roll; gay rights; idealism, narcissism, and materialism; the influence of television on America, and vice versa; and the transition of Boomers from being "Yippies" to "Yuppies." This work is an ideal text for students in undergraduate or graduate courses in television studies, media studies, cultural studies, and American studies; and is highly appropriate as a supplemental text in literature, history, and philosophy surveys.

All baby boomers are children of their time. In Our Time After a While, writer Lloyd Billingsley backpacks into that time, the tail end of the tail-fi n era, in its very birthplace. In the motor cities of Detroit and Windsor, the streets, schools and parks jostled with a vast cast of characters. The author charts their adventures, and the sound track no border could stop, and which would spread around the world. This was long ago, but like Bob Seger the author is still humming a song from 1962, and still looking back in wonder. In Our Time After a While, his fellow baby boomers and all others can join him. Memories are made of this.

Drawing on a wide range of films from the 1920s to the 1990s—from Keaton’s Our Hospitality to Casablanca to Terminator 2, Kristin Thompson offers the first in-depth analysis of Hollywood’s storytelling techniques and how they are used to make complex, easily comprehensible, entertaining films.

This book provides an interdisciplinary and collaborative anthology that seeks to make a compelling and exciting analysis of contemporary Hollywood film texts (and the larger industry and society to which they are dialectically related) in light of Giroux's ideas about public pedagogy. Foreword by Lawrence Grossberg.