My First Hundred Years In Hollywood

On August 5, 1958, Jack Warner spent six hours playing baccarat, taking $4,000 from the tables at Cannes before stepping out into the night. He drove home along a winding road in a sporty little Alfa-Romeo, and was negotiating a tricky turn when a truck leapt in front of him. The Alfa was destroyed, but Warner was saved—thrown out the door to land forty feet from the burning car. Around the world, the newspapers told of the death of the king of Hollywood. But Warner wasn’t finished yet. One of the true legends of the movie business, Warner had wielded absolute power over his studio since the silent era. He produced Casablanca and The Jazz Singer; he feuded with Errol Flynn, and gave the green light to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? starring Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. As the studio system crumbled, Warner’s control remained unquestioned, and in this engaging autobiography, he shows the man behind the crown. Jack L. Warner is portrayed by Stanley Tucci in the Ryan Murphy TV series Feud.

This text charts the real story of the Warner brothers and contains all the drama of a big screen production. The book tells of tension and strife among four brothers, love and marriage, death and divorce, and plotting and betrayal.

Extravagantly praised by critics and readers, this stunning story by bestselling author Kati Marton tells of the breathtaking journey of nine extraordinary men from Budapest to the New World, what they experienced along their dangerous route, and how they changed America and the world. They are the scientists Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, Eugene Wigner, and John von Neuman; Arthur Koestler, author of Darkness at Noon; Robert Capa, the first photographer ashore on D-Day; Andre Kertesz, pioneer of modern photojournalism; and iconic filmmakers Alexander Korda and Michael Curtiz.

This Tony winner’s memoir is “a riot of characters met and characters played . . . a funny, frank, and savvy chronicle of a wonderful life.” —David Hyde Pierce Mary Louise Wilson became a star at age sixty with her smash one-woman play Full Gallop, portraying legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland. But before and since, her life and career—including the Tony Award for her portrayal of Big Edie in Grey Gardens—have been celebrated and varied. Raised in New Orleans with a social climbing, alcoholic mother, Mary Louise moved to New York City in the late 1950s; lived with her gay brother in the Village; entered the nightclub scene in a legendary revue; and rubbed shoulders with every famous person of that era and since. My First Hundred Years in Show Business gets it all down. Yet as delicious as the anecdotes are, the heart of this book is in its unblinkingly honest depiction of the life of a working actor. In her inimitable voice—wry, admirably unsentimental, mordantly funny—Mary Louise Wilson has crafted a work that is at once a teeming social history of the New York theatre scene and a thoroughly revealing, superbly entertaining memoir of the life of an extraordinary woman and actor. “Brims with anecdotes . . . plenty of laughs [and] plenty of candor, too.” —Nola.com

Plunge into the magic of moviemaking with a gorgeous chronicle of nearly a century of unforgettable films. From the very start, Hollywood showcased an alluring combination of personality, technology, and creative vision. Every one of the stills and behind-the-scenes shots reproduced here capture cinema's glamour and excitement, while the lively text follows the Hollywood moguls and masterminds, brightest stars, and greatest movies. Along the way, meet visionary pioneers, such as D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille; the golden boys of the "Golden Age," including George Cukor, Frank Capra, and Alfred Hitchcock; and powerful producers. In breathtaking photos, gaze at the beauteous stars, strong and silent heroes, and matinee idols, from Lillian Gish, Katharine Hepburn, and Susan Sarandon to Rudolph Valentino, Clark Gable, and Jack Nicholson.. Relive the fabulous films in every genre, from the western to the musical. Informative and delightful, this is an essential reference for all who love the movies.

From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, behind the scenes at the legendary Warner Brothers film studio, where four immigrant brothers transformed themselves into the moguls and masters of American fantasy Warner Bros charts the rise of an unpromising film studio from its shaky beginnings in the early twentieth century through its ascent to the pinnacle of Hollywood influence and popularity. The Warner Brothers--Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack--arrived in America as unschooled Jewish immigrants, yet they founded a studio that became the smartest, toughest, and most radical in all of Hollywood. David Thomson provides fascinating and original interpretations of Warner Brothers pictures from the pioneering talkie The Jazz Singer through black-and-white musicals, gangster movies, and such dramatic romances as Casablanca, East of Eden, and Bonnie and Clyde. He recounts the storied exploits of the studio's larger-than-life stars, among them Al Jolson, James Cagney, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, Doris Day, and Bugs Bunny. The Warner brothers' cultural impact was so profound, Thomson writes, that their studio became "one of the enterprises that helped us see there might be an American dream out there." About Jewish Lives: Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics, cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity to the present. In 2014, the Jewish Book Council named Jewish Lives the winner of its Jewish Book of the Year Award, the first series ever to receive this award. More praise for Jewish Lives: "Excellent." -New York Times "Exemplary." -Wall Street Journal "Distinguished." -New Yorker "Superb." -The Guardian