Dark-eyed and distant Alma Rubens was one of the first female stars of the early feature film industry in the 1910s. She was a major star by 1920, but before the decade was over her screen career was marked and marred by cocaine abuse. She died in 1931 at age 33--a Hollywood beauty, a casualty of Hollywood "snow," yet much more. As an actress she was versatile, demonstrating a talent that was ahead of its time with her gentle and subtle expressions. This book contains Rubens's autobiography, a text titled This Bright World Again that was serialized in newspapers in 1931. Ghost-written or not or somewhere in between, this long forgotten document deals with Rubens's addiction and despair. In addition, a new biography of Rubens takes the reader from her birth in San Francisco through an impoverished upbringing, three short-lived marriages, and her career in pictures for Triangle Film, Cosmopolitan, Fox and other production companies. The story of her film career mingles with a tale of desperate drug addiction that led to hospital stays, violence and deception. A filmography lists her credits from 1913 to 1929.

Dark-eyed and distant Alma Rubens was one of the first female stars of the early feature film industry in the 1910s. She was a major star by 1920, but before the decade was over her screen career was marked and marred by cocaine abuse. She died in 1931 at age 33--a Hollywood beauty, a casualty of Hollywood "snow," yet much more. As an actress she was versatile, demonstrating a talent that was ahead of its time with her gentle and subtle expressions. This book contains Rubens's autobiography, a text titled This Bright World Again that was serialized in newspapers in 1931. Ghost-written or not or somewhere in between, this long forgotten document deals with Rubens's addiction and despair. In addition, a new biography of Rubens takes the reader from her birth in San Francisco through an impoverished upbringing, three short-lived marriages, and her career in pictures for Triangle Film, Cosmopolitan, Fox and other production companies. The story of her film career mingles with a tale of desperate drug addiction that led to hospital stays, violence and deception. A filmography lists her credits from 1913 to 1929.

This book explores the political, legal, medical, and social battles that led to the widespread institutionalization of Californians with disabilities from the gold rush to the 1970s. By the early twentieth century, most American states had specialized facilities dedicated to both the care and the control of individuals with disabilities. Institutions reflect the lived historical experience of many Americans with disabilities in this era. Yet we know relatively little about how such state institutions fit into specific regional, state, or local contexts west of the Mississippi River; how those contexts shaped how institutions evolved over time; or how regional institutions fit into the USA’s contentious history of care and control of Americans with mental and developmental disabilities. This book examines how medical, social, and political arguments that individuals with disabilities needed to be institutionalized became enshrined in state law in California through the creation of a “bureaucracy of disability.” Using Los Angeles County as a case study, the book also considers how the friction between state and county policy in turn influenced the treatment of individuals within such facilities. Furthermore, the book tracks how the mission and methods of such institutions evolved over time, culminating in the 1960s with the birth of the disability rights movement and the complete rewriting of California’s laws on the treatment and rights of Californians with disabilities. This book is a must-read for those interested in the history of California and the American West and for anyone interested in how the intersections of disability, politics, and activism shaped our historical understanding of life for Americans with disabilities.

In 1926 Silent Film Icon, Rudolph Valentino, died unexpectedly at the age of 31. That same year, he had finalized a bitter divorce from his wife of four years, Natacha Rambova. Valentino had been madly in love with the gorgeous and very talented designer, yet they had been unable to make their marriage work. Since their first marriage in 1922, the public had been critical of Rambova, blaming her for any mistakes in Valentino's career or life. As Valentino laid on his deathbed in New York, Rambova was in Paris. The two exchanged telegrams to the very end, with both sides believing they would soon reunite and a reconciliation had taken place. Upon hearing the news of his death, Rambova was so distraught she locked herself in her room for three days. With many estate issues to fulfill, Valentino's manager George Ullman took the reigns. To help keep Valentino's name in the spotlight, Ullman wrote a book detailing his time with the gifted actor. Ullman and Rambova had never gotten along, fighting for control of Valentino's career. Feeling she had been unfairly portrayed not only by Ullman, but also by the press, Rambova decided to write her own book. First published in the UK in 1927, "Rudy: An Intimate Portrait by His Wife," presented Rambova's side of the story, providing many amusing stories and anecdotes about her time with Valentino. Both Valentino and Rambova had been firm believers in the practice of Spiritualism. Rambova decided to utilize her beliefs for this book, adding a section titled "Revelations," consisting of things supposedly told to her by Valentino's soul, through seances. Rambova felt the need to publish these 'messages', believing these were things his soul wished to communicate with the world. However things soon got out of hand, with boisterous fans and attention seekers bombarding the legacy of Rudolph Valentino with their own claims. Rambova would remain firm in her beliefs, eventually becoming a renowned Egyptologist. After the publication of this book, she never spoke of her time with Valentino again. "Rudolph Valentino: An Intimate Portrait by his wife" is proudly reprinted by The Rudolph Valentino Society for the first time in over 80 years, under a new title, "Rudolph Valentino: A Wife's Memories of an Icon." In addition to the original text there is a new section containing biographies, filmographies, bibliographies, notes, and new forwards. This section also contains groundbreaking biographies on screenwriter and film executive June Mathis; as well as silent film vamp Nita Naldi. 70% of proceeds from this book benefit The Rudolph Valentino Society and Film Festival.

When most of us hear the title Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, we think of Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell’s iconic film performance. Few, however, are aware that the movie was based on Anita Loos’s 1925 comic novel by the same name. What does it mean, Women Adapting asks, to translate a Jazz Age blockbuster from book to film or stage? What adjustments are necessary and what, if anything, is lost? Bethany Wood examines three well-known stories that debuted as women’s magazine serials—Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, and Edna Ferber’s Show Boat—and traces how each of these beloved narratives traveled across publishing, theatre, and film through adaptation. She documents the formation of adaptation systems and how they involved women’s voices and labor in modern entertainment in ways that have been previously underappreciated. What emerges is a picture of a unique window of time in the early decades of the twentieth century, when women in entertainment held influential positions in production and management. These days, when filmic adaptations seem endless and perhaps even unoriginal, Women Adapting challenges us to rethink the popular platitude, “The book is always better than the movie.”

Theatre Library Association's Wall Award Finalist Silent film superstar Douglas Fairbanks was an absolute charmer. Irrepressibly vivacious, he spent his life leaping over and into things, from his early Broadway successes to his marriage to the great screen actress Mary Pickford to the way he made Hollywood his very own town. The inventor of the swashbuckler, he wasn't only an actor—he all but directed and produced his movies, and in founding United Artists with Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith, he challenged the studio system. But listing his accomplishments is one thing and telling his story another. Tracey Goessel has made the latter her life's work, and with exclusive access to Fairbanks's love letters to Pickford, she brilliantly illuminates how Fairbanks conquered not just the entertainment world but the heart of perhaps the most famous woman in the world at the time. When Mary Pickford died, she was an alcoholic, self-imprisoned in her mansion, nearly alone, and largely forgotten. But she left behind a small box; in it, worn and refolded, were her letters from Douglas Fairbanks. Pickford and Fairbanks had ruled Hollywood as its first king and queen for a glorious decade. But the letters began long before, when they were both married to others, when revealing the affair would have caused a great scandal. Now these letters form the centerpiece of the first truly definitive biography of Hollywood's first king, the man who did his own stunts and built his own studio and formed a company that allowed artists to distribute their own works outside the studio system. But Goessel's research uncovered more: that Fairbanks's first film appearance was two years earlier than had been assumed; that his stories of how he got into theater, and then into films, were fabricated; that the Pickford-Fairbanks Studios had a specially constructed underground trench so that Fairbanks could jog in the nude; that Fairbanks himself insisted racist references be removed from his films' intertitles; and the true cause of Fairbanks's death. Fairbanks was the top male star of his generation, the maker of some of the greatest films of his era: The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, The Mark of Zorro. He was fun, witty, engaging, creative, athletic, and a force to be reckoned with. He shaped our idea of the Hollywood hero, and Hollywood has never been the same since. His story, like his movies, is full of passion, bravado, romance, and desire. Here at last is his definitive biography, based on extensive and brand-new research into every aspect of his career, and written with fine understanding, wit, and verve.

This collection of essays represents key contributions to 'transgression cinema:' overlooked, forgotten, or under-analyzed movies that walk the fine line between 'arthouse' and 'grindhouse' film.