The Bette Davis Club

"When Margo's niece becomes a runaway bride --taking with her a family heirloom--her mother offers Margo fifty grand to retrieve her spoiled daughter and the invaluable property she stole. Together with the jilted and justifiably crabby fiancé, Margo sets out in a borrowed 1955 red MG on a cross-country chase and finds herself along the way"--

Originally published in 1962, The Lonely Life is legendary silver screen actress Bette Davis's lively and riveting account of her life, loves, and marriages--now in ebook for the first time, and updated with an afterword she wrote just before her death. As Davis says in the opening lines of her classic memoir: "I have always been driven by some distant music--a battle hymn, no doubt--for I have been at war from the beginning. I rode into the field with sword gleaming and standard flying. I was going to conquer the world." A bold, unapologetic book by a unique and formidable woman, The Lonely Life details the first fifty-plus years of Davis's life--her Yankee childhood, her rise to stardom in Hollywood, the birth of her beloved children, and the uncompromising choices she made along the way to succeed. The book was updated with new material in the 1980s, bringing the story up to the end of Davis's life--all the heartbreak, all the drama, and all the love she experienced at every stage of her extraordinary life. The Lonely Life proves conclusively that the legendary image of Bette Davis is not a fable but a marvelous reality.

Bette Davis, whose career spanned almost 50 years and covered theatre, radio, TV and motion pictures, was at one time the first lady of the big screen. Working with such storied performers as Henry Fonda, Humphrey Bogart, and Joan Crawford, and directors Edmund Goulding, William Wyler and Robert Aldrich, Bette Davis provided some of the most memorable performances in movie history. This volume contains detailed analyses of Bette Davis' top twelve films spanning 1938 to 1987 and including The Letter, All About Eve, The Little Foxes, Jezebel, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and The Whales of August. Each film is discussed in depth, with an examination of its script, direction, camerawork and performances, particularly as they relate to Davis's work. A second group of films, memorable largely for Davis's performance rather than the overall success of the work, are also examined. Special emphasis is placed on the way Davis viewed her own work as well as the detrimental effect her devotion to her career had on her personal life. Appendices contain a list of her marriages and children; her Oscar nominations; a discussion of Davis's missed opportunities; and a partial chronology of her films.

While the impact that legendary actors and actresses have had on the development of the Hollywood film industry is well known, few have recognised the power of movie fans on shaping the industry. This books redresses that balance, and is the first study of Hollywood's golden era to examine the period from the viewpoint of the fans. Using fan club journals, fan letters, studio production records, and other previously unpublished archival sources, Samantha Barbas reveals how the passion, enthusiasm, and ongoing activism of film fans in Hollywood's golden era transformed early cinema, the modern mass media and American popular culture.

In its heyday, The Stork Club was the "place to be seen" among New York's glitterati. Gossip columnist Walter Winchell held the corner table, recording the comings and goings of the brightest stars of stage and screen—including Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis, and Ralph Bellamy—along with shining literary lions—from Ernest Hemingway to Dashiell Hamett and Anita Loos—to politicians and bigwigs—including regulars like J. Edgar Hoover. And the Club's host—Sherman Billingsley—became famous for keeping the fun going to the early hours of the morning. The Stork Club Cookbook and Bar Book brings back these two classic works along with Shermane Billingsley's own "How to Throw a Stork Club Party" and her memories of her father's nightclub. Long unavailable in print, and never gathered together before, the entire suite of classic works is introduced with a brief history of the Stork Club by Broadway historian Ken Bloom. You'll be able to follow in the culinary footsteps of major stars while you enjoy Quail à la Jane Russell and Eggs Eva Gabor that you can whip up in your own kitchen. You'll tipple along with your favorite bar-hoppers, enjoying drinks like Nelson Eddy's Alexander the Great and Ralph Bellamy's Scotch Sour right in your own living room!

What's a girl to do if she's dumped by her husband in her 60's? How about writing a book documenting her journey and collecting role-models of inspirational women from their 60's through their 90's? The humorous yet educational memoir of a therapist's journey and the experiences of her inspiring interviewees, women who've been through grief, depression, caregiving, widowhood, retirement, empty-nesting, and physical challenges, Girls' Guide to Aging with Grit and Gusto is a roadmap for women who want to thrive (whatever their age or circumstances) as they grow older.

One of the oldest and most recognizable studios in Hollywood, Warner Bros. is considered a juggernaut of the entertainment industry. Since its formation in the early twentieth century, the studio has been a constant presence in cinema history, responsible for the creation of acclaimed films, blockbuster brands, and iconic superstars. These days, the studio is best known as a media conglomerate with a broad range of intellectual property, spanning movies, TV shows, and streaming content. Despite popular interest in the origins of this empire, the core of the Warner Bros. saga cannot be found in its commercial successes. It is the story of four brothers—Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack—whose vision for Hollywood helped shape the world of entertainment as we know it. In The Warner Brothers, Chris Yogerst follows the siblings from their family's humble origins in Poland, through their young adulthood in the American Midwest, to the height of fame and fortune in Hollywood. With unwavering resolve, the brothers soldiered on against the backdrop of an America reeling from the aftereffects of domestic and global conflict. The Great Depression would not sink the brothers, who churned out competitive films that engaged audiences and kept their operations afloat—and even expanding. During World War II, they used their platform to push beyond the limits of the Production Code and create important films about real-world issues, openly criticizing radicalism and the evils of the Nazi regime. At every major cultural turning point in their lifetime, the Warners held a front-row seat. Paying close attention to the brothers' identities as cultural and economic outsiders, Yogerst chronicles how the Warners built a global filmmaking powerhouse. Equal parts family history and cinematic journey, The Warner Brothers is an empowering story of the American dream and the legacy four brothers left behind for generations of filmmakers and film lovers to come.

Hiding in plain sight throughout America are historic, highly private women's self-education groups. These clubs are fascinating survivors from an era following the Civil War when women couldn't apply to most colleges and were told they shouldn't leave the home. In their earliest days, the study groups also contributed to the welfare of their towns - often by helping to found their town's first library-and served to get women out of the house and into the world. Today's all-women study clubs have no civic component but still fashion their meetings as their founding great-grandmothers did, with members taking turns giving original papers. In Smart Women, author Ann Dodds Costello discusses her four-year quest to locate, often visit, and describe today's 100-year-old, all-women study clubs, all over America, even though they do not publicize and have no central organization or knowledge of each other. Included: an invaluable, first-ever directory of most of the book's ninety-plus clubs.