What S It All About Sybil

Journalist Debbie Nathan reveals the true story behind the famous case of Sybil, the woman with sixteen different personalities.

This is the true story of a woman with sixteen personalities - two of whom were men - and her struggle, against overwhelming odds, for health and happiness.

Sybil says: I have been so fortunate in my life to have met or worked with so many icons from the musical world, the stage and radio world, and, of course, the motion picture world. This third book of mine spans several generations--Patrick Swayze, Rudy Vallee, Jane Wyman, touching on Jack Benny, George Burns and Bob Hope, to name just a few. And for a change of pace I profile the creme de la creme of the directors who fortunately guided me through each film. Please enjoy this nostalgic trip of icons you are so familiar with on screen, which I have tried to present to you not as written characters but as real flesh and blood people. Blessings to you one and all. "I have known the redoubtable Ms. Jason for many years and I've known her work for many more. We 'former kid stars' stick together no matter the generation. Sybil's support of our mission at A Minor Consideration is what keeps us going. She knows. She's been there. She's more than an entry in Trivial Pursuit. Enjoy WHATS IT ALL ABOUT, SYBIL with my complete blessings." - Paul Petersen, one of the original Mouseketeers

'Whatever Uglow writes about she makes absolutely fascinating.' DIANA ATHILL The story of Sybil Andews and Cyril Power, two artists who changed each other in an age of experiment and turmoil. 'In all her books, she makes us feel the life behind the facts.' GUARDIAN 'Wonderfully sharp and sympathetic . . . Uglow is a perfect biographer.' CRAIG BROWN, MAIL ON SUNDAY In 1922, Cyril Power, a fifty-year-old architect, left his family to work with the twenty-four-year-old Sybil Andrews. They would be together for twenty years. Both became famous for their dynamic, modernist linocuts, streamlined, full of movement and brilliant colour, summing up the hectic interwar years. Yet at the same time they looked back, to medieval myths and early music, to country ways disappearing from sight. Cyril & Sybil traces their struggles and triumphs, conflicts and dreams, following them from Suffolk to London, from the New Forest to Vancouver Island. This is a world of Futurists, Surrealists and pioneering abstraction, but also of the buzz of the new, of machines and speed, shops and sport and dance, shining against the threat of depression and looming shadows of war.

On her way home from a gay wedding, Sybil's eponymous protagonist is ambushed, beaten, and left for dead on the train tracks. Days later, Sybil awakens in a hospital and finds her skull has been reconstructed, but it quickly becomes clear that her version of "normal" and "reality" may have been permanently altered. When she falls in love with a very beautiful, but very married, actress, Sybil does what comes naturally: she presents the object of her affection with a homemade explosive device, and then abruptly leaves town. I've Got A Time Bomb chronicles her surrealistic journey living among the loners, losers, and leave-behinds in the dark corners of Amerika.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SYBIL? Dr. Patrick Suraci discovered the answer to that question in 1993. He learned that Sybil was Shirley Mason and they became friends. Flora Schreiber wrote SYBIL explaining how Shirley developed the 16 personalities as a result of her early childhood abuse. Using psychoanalysis for ten years, Dr. Cornelia Wilbur ......

Child actress Sybil Jason was initially considered a serious rival to Shirley Temple in the late 1930s after her work in theater, on Old Time Radio, and on recordings led to a supporting role in Barnacle Bill (1935). A Warner Bros. test led to a contract, and her American film debut took place in Little Big Shot (1935), directed by Michael Curtiz and co-starring Glenda Farrell, Robert Armstrong, and Edward Everett Horton. Jason followed this with supporting roles opposite some of Warner Bros. most popular stars, including Kay Francis in I Found Stella Parish (1935), Al Jolson in The Singing Kid (1936), Pat O'Brien and Humphrey Bogart in The Great O'Malley (1937), and again with Kay Francis in Comet Over Broadway (1938), among other films. Sybil’s career ended after minor parts in The Little Princess (1939) and The Blue Bird (1940) — ironically with Shirley Temple. Sybil has a lot to say about those years of Hollywood with friends Ian Hunter, Guy Kibbee, May Robson, Rudy Vallee, Jane Wyman, Patrick Swayze, Johnny Green, Frieda Inescort, Beverly Roberts, and others.

On a dark, cold, and rainy night in April 1777, Sybil Ludington sets out on a journey to warn American soldiers that danger is headed their way. The British are coming! They have already attacked a nearby town, and it is up to sixteen-year-old Sybil to make sure that she reaches the American soldiers before the British do. With only a large stick to defend herself, and her horse, Star, for company, Sybil rides off into the perilous night and changes the course of the American Revolution. The true story of Sybil's bravery and perseverance are faithfully related by Marsha Amstel's appealing text and Ellen Beier's finely crafted illustrations.