A biography of Bette Davis, focusing on her acting career, drawing from interviews with friends, directors, and admirers, archival research, and a new look at her films to provide insights into her personal and professional life.

“A fascinating biography that re-creates Hollywood’s Golden Age of Glamour” as it recounts the life of the star and inventor (Publishers Weekly). Hedy Lamarr’s exotic beauty was heralded across Europe in the early 1930s. Yet she became infamous for her nude scenes in the scandalous movie Ecstasy. Trapped in a marriage to one of Austria’s munitions barons, a friend of Mussolini’s who hid his Jewish heritage to become an “honorary Aryan” at the onset of World War II, Lamarr fled Europe for Hollywood, where she was transformed into one of cinema’s most glamorous stars, appearing opposite such actors as Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, and James Stewart. As her career faded, she went from one husband to the next, her personal troubles and legal woes casting a shadow over her phenomenal intelligence and former image. Stephen Michael Shearer separates the truth from the rumors regarding the life of Hedy Lamarr, and highlights her astonishing role as inventor of a technology that has become an essential part of everything from military weaponry to today’s cell phones. Praise for Beautiful “In Beautiful, Mr. Shearer writes with humor and has fun with some of the glorious nonsense of Lamarr’s movies.” —Jeanine Basinger, The Wall Street Journal “Much more than a standard Hollywood biography.” —Edge Magazine

John McCabe's participation in the writing of James Cagney's autobiography, the many years of friendship that followed, and an intense period of interview and discussion in preparation for a musical comedy based on Cagney's life--a show that never saw the light of day--make him Cagney's ideal biographer. And, indeed, he has written a searching chronicle of this major actor's life and career, packed with history and anecdote, and profusely illustrated. Cagney came from a poor Irish-American New York family but once he found his métier as an actor, it was not long before he was recognized as a brilliantly energetic and powerful phenomenon. After the tremendous impact of Public Enemy--in which he notoriously pushed half a grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face--he was typecast as a gangster because of the terrifying violence that seemed to be pent up within him. Years of pitched battle with Warner Brothers finally liberated him from those roles, and he went on to star in such triumphs as the musicals Yankee Doodle Dandy (winning the 1942 Oscar for best actor) and Love Me or Leave Me. Even so, one of his greatest later roles involved a return to crime--as the psychopathic killer in the terrifying White Heat. He retired from films in 1961 after making Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three, only to return twenty years later for Ragtime. But however much Cagney personified violence and explosive energy on the screen, in life he was a quiet, introspective, and deeply private man, a poet, painter, and environmentalist, whose marriage to his early vaudeville partner was famously loyal and happy. His story is one of the few Hollywood biographies that reflect a fulfilled life as well as a spectacular career.

First published in 1998, music scored for film has only relatively recently received the critical attention which it merits. Many composers in the twentieth century have written works for films or documentaries, a number feeling that this aspect of their output has been undervalued. This dictionary complements other studies which have appeared in recent years which look at the technical and theoretical issues concerned with film music composition. Arranged alphabetically by composer, the volume comprises over 500 entries covering all nationalities. Each entry includes very brief biographical information on the composer, followed by a list of the films (with dates) for which he or she has composed. Details of recordings are also given. The dictionary’s international coverage ensures that it will become a standard reference work for all those interested in the history of twentieth-century music and the development of film.

As a young Jewish boy growing up in Vienna, Georgia, Abe Orovitz could never have predicted the twists and turns his life would take. Many years later, as retired film director with more than thirty movies to his credit, Vincent Sherman is no less surprised when he looks back on that life. In Studio Affairs he retraces his life with candor and enthusiasm. Sherman discusses the details of his three-year relationship with Joan Crawford, his inadvertent connection with the death of Bette Davis's second husband, and his poignant romantic involvement with Rita Hayworth. Providing counterpoint to these liaisons is the love and devotion of Sherman's wife, Hedda, who accepted her husband's occasional infidelities as part and parcel of his career. Studio Affairs provides an inside look at the motion picture industry during the heyday of the studio system by one who worked his way from nearly starving actor and playwright to respected director. In effect, the book serves as a primer on the art of film directing. Sherman quickly developed a reputation of being a consummate rewrite artist, able to take whatever assignment given him and turn it into a first rate motion picture. His skill at reworked scripts led him to bigger and bigger projects, even as the salary set by his long-term contract with Warner Brothers remained below that of most of his colleagues. Though not originally signed to direct, when asked to do so he drew on his experience putting together productions at summer camps across the "borscht circuit" in upstate New York. Like so many talented individuals in Hollywood during the 1950s, Sherman was targeted by the House Un-American Activities Committee, owing in part to his active support of the WPA Theatre project in New York two decades previous. Time spent on the lesser known gray list kept him out of work for several years. Eventually, he again enjoyed some critical success, but after the demise of the studio system life was never quite the same. The quintessential "studio director" ended his career directing for television. Vincent Sherman's path from Georgia to southern California is compelling, and his legendary talent for good storytelling makes the book impossible to put down.

From page one, we know how a pair of heavily armed hijackers boarded Airmex's Flight 246, but we don't know who they are. Where do they intend to go with the twin turboprop aircraft, its nine passengers and three crew members? And why was this domestic Mexican airline the target?When they force the crew to land at a remote desert strip--in a violent storm--and escape with two of the crew as hostages, more disturbing questions arise: The FBI insinuate that Captain Bud McGuire flight attendant Esperanza Martin may have known the hijackers. Impossible--but then why haven't they, or their bodies, been found? First Officer Peter Vogel returns to his girlfriend in El Paso, to find federal agents watching their house. He refuses to accept the FBI's suspicions, even as more evidence emerges to shake Peter's confidence in his friend McGuire and the gorgeous Esperanza.