Share in the excitement! Broken bones and horn wounds are a part of the job. It takes a special breed of cowboy to put on clown makeup, don baggy pants, and go match wits with a 2,000 lb bull while the bull rider scrambles to safety. The crowd, meanwhile, expects all the entertainment associated with a clown. A tribute to the unsung heroes of rodeo!

Greasepaint and Gore is a behind-the-scenes insight into the creative processes of the golden years of Hammer Films through the eyes of the people who made the horrors possible.

Laura Knight, the first woman elected to the Royal Academy of Arts, is widely acknowledged as one of the most important English artists of the twentieth century. Her autobiography--originally published in 1936 and now back in print with forty color images--offers a fascinating look inside the life of a trailblazing polymath. Although she is best known for her paintings of the worlds of ballet and theater, Knight's work also shed light on marginalized communities, including itinerant gypsies and laborers in the American South. She served as an official war artist in World War II and later recorded the Nuremberg trials. Oil Paint and Grease Paint tells the inside story of a multifaceted original.

First published in 1982. The intent of this book is to build an understanding of the people who create humor and are expert at making people laugh. Who are the comedians and clowns of the world? Where do they come from? Why are they so dedicated to tickling funny bones? In what ways are they unique? It is primarily to studying comedians, clowns, and other funny people. It seeks to provide an understanding of the origins, the motivations, and personalities of those who make humor and in exploring the factors that shape actors and other public entertainers.

Greasepaint Puritan details the life and work of Bradford Ropes, author of the bawdy 1932 novel 42nd Street, on which the classic film and its stage adaptation are based. Each of Ropes's long-forgotten novels was inspired by his own experiences as a performer, and focused on the lives of gay men in show business, offering rare glimpses into backstage Broadway. But why did Ropes's body of work, and consequently his biographical footsteps, disappear into such obscurity? Greasepaint Puritan aims to find out and reclaim his story. Descended from Mayflower Pilgrims, Ropes rebelled against the "Proper Bostonian" life, in a career that touched upon the Jazz Age, American vaudeville, and theater censorship. We follow Ropes's successful career as both a performer and the author of the trilogy of backstage novels: 42nd Street, Stage Mother, and Go Into Your Dance. Populated by scheming stage mothers, precocious stage children, grandiose bit players, and tart-tongued chorines, these novels centered on the lives and relationships of gay men on Broadway during the Jazz Age and Prohibition era. Rigorously researched, Greasepaint Puritan chronicles Ropes's career as a successful screenwriter in 1930s and '40s Hollywood, where he continued to be a part of a dynamic gay subculture within the movie industry before returning to obscurity in the 1950s. His legacy lives on in the Hollywood and Broadway incarnations of 42nd Street--but Greasepaint Puritan restores the "forgotten melody" of the man who first envisioned its colorful characters.

Sinners and saints without greasepaint make for memorable close-ups. Enjoy Dottie's confidential revelations about Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Mae West, Carole Lombard, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Joan Blondell, Paulette Goddard, Barbara Stanwyck, and others.