Tag Archives: Actors

A Year in Books/Day 190: Feminist Ryan Gosling

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  • Title: Feminist Ryan Gosling Feminist Theory As Imagined from Your Favorite Sensitive Movie Dude (Unauthorized)
  • Author: Danielle Henderson
  • Year Published: 2012 (Running Press)
  • Year Purchased: 2012
  • Source: This was a birthday gift from my mom.
  • About: Based on the hilarious blog of the same name, this book is every bit as good as the original source. I do not have an opinion on Ryan Gosling. Is he a fine actor? Word-of-mouth and critical response indicates as much. Is he as good-looking as many people think? That’s a matter of opinion. Until a year ago, I never even gave him any thought. As soon as I saw the first blog post, I was in love. With this concept. Feminist theory coming out of the mouth* of an actor known for his positive sentiments about women? Next to photographs of him looking thoughtful and sensitive (really, is there any other kind?). The very idea cracks me up. Hey girl, indeed. *(Naturally, he never said any of the quotes attributed to him in the blog or book. Is that a detraction? Nope. In fact, it makes it even better.)
  • Motivation: I’m a feminist with a sense of humor. There are lots of us, by the way, and this book is proof.
  • Times Read: More than once, and I’ve only had it one week.
  • Random Excerpt/Pages 62 & 99: “Hey girl. We’d be more successful at reclaiming public space for women if we were willing to address the patriarchal fixtures that made it unsafe in the first place.”/ “Hey girl. I literally have no idea how to react to someone who hasn’t read Judy Blume’s Forever.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10+++

A Year in Books/Day 188: Hollywood Royalty

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HearstAbout1910

William Randolph Hearst, circa 1910. He threw all of the best parties, thanks to his sweetheart Marion Davies. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  • Title: Hollywood Royalty
  • Author: Gregory Speck
  • Year Published: 1992 (Birch Lane Press Book/Carol Publishing Group)
  • Year Purchased: 1990s
  • Source: Library sale
  • About: San Simeon, William Randolph Hearst’s estate, was the setting of countless celebrity-gilded parties. An invitation for a weekend stay was not only a passport to bask in temporary opulence so extreme it made members of the movie colony seem like paupers in comparison, it meant that you had truly arrived on the Hollywood scene. Close your eyes. Conjure up a dinner party of seven courses, attended by some of the most fabulous classic movie stars. Your curiosity probably takes the form of many questions, with the big one being: What would they talk about? The setting of Hollywood Royalty is real, the occasion is imaginary and the conversation is composed of snippets from published interviews. Fact and fiction cross borders, on an evening removed from time, to mingle as seductively as the stars in Hearst’s dining room.
  • Motivation: I like when lines are blurred. I love classic film.
  • Times Read: 1 or 2
  • Random Excerpt/Page 160: “I (Olivia de Havilland) learned a lot from Jimmy Cagney, and he was always so sweet to me. On A Midsummer Night’s Dream he was very nice to me, and I was so flattered. He would come into my little canvas dressing room, and we would just talk about everything. I couldn’t believe it, for he was already a great star, and it was my first film, way back in 1935.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10

A Year in Books/Day 181: Legends of the Silent Screen

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  • Title: Legends of the Silent Screen A Collection of U.S. Postage Stamps
  • Authors: Charles Champlin and Linda Klinger (for the United States Postal Service)
  • Year Published: 1994 (U.S. Postal Service)
  • Year Purchased: 1994
  • Source: This was a gift from my mom, received after some pleading on my part.
  • About: In 1994, the U.S. Postal Service released a set of stamps commemorating ten of the silent screen’s greatest stars (which was, itself, part of a larger series dedicated to entertainers). This book was published as a companion piece, but is good enough to stand on its own merits. The detailed individual biographies are underpinned by amazing photographs and a time-line of the first 100 years of American film history. It’s a handsome volume, and the Al Hirschfeld caricatures commissioned for the stamps render the subjects instantly recognizable. The stars covered in this volume are: Rudolph Valentino; Clara Bow; Charlie Chaplin; Lon Chaney; John Gilbert; ZaSu Pitts; Theda Bara; the Keystone Cops; Harold Lloyd; and Buster Keaton.
  • Motivation: I was already totally captivated with silent films, even at a relatively young age.
  • Times Read: A few
  • Random Excerpt/Page 39: “Film historians note that (Theda) Bara’s producer actually cast her in quite a few sympathetic-not evil-roles, knowing that after her vamp image had been accepted, the public would continue to read treachery into all her characters, regardless of their motivations.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10

    Bara in the title role as Cleopatra (1917)

    Bara in the title role as Cleopatra (1917) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A Year in Books/Day 165: Tragic Muse Rachel of the Comedie-Francaise

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  • Title: Tragic Muse Rachel of the Comedie-Francaise
  • Author: Rachel M. Brownstein
  • Year Published: 1993/This edition: 1995 (Duke University Press)
  • Year Purchased: 1999/2000
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: Tragic Muse is more than a biography. As the title suggests, its subject met a sad end. An actress rising to stardom before burning out whilst still young? You don’t say. Sounds like familiar (and familiar and familiar) stuff. Trite. Fate as formulaic plot twist. Not quite. Continue reading →

A Year in Books/Day 141: Silent Players

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  • Title: Silent Players A Biographical and Autobiographical Study of 100 Silent Film Actors and Actresses
  • Author: Anthony Slide
  • Year Published: 2002 (The University Press of Kentucky)
  • Year Purchased: 2010
  • Source: Half Price Books
  • About: Most of the stars profiled in this book were forgotten within a few years of the end of the silent era; the rest-the lucky few- are mere by-words for Old Hollywood, names disconnected from faces. Leftovers from our great-Grandparents’ childhoods. Anthony Slide, over the course of a couple of decades, had the pleasure or the privilege to have met the majority of entertainers featured in this volume. Thus, Silent Players is not dry biography or weak conjecture, nor is it pure scholarship (although it has a foundation of extensive research); it is alive with personal experiences and revealing reminiscences. His passion for his subjects shines through his clear, yet keen writing. A must-have for anyone interested in silent cinema and those who graced it with their magic.

    Publicity photo of Mae Marsh from Stars of the...

    Publicity photo of Mae Marsh from Stars of the Photoplay (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  • Motivation: Many of my favourite film performers appeared in silent movies. I write on the subject. A lot. In fact, silent movies are one of my biggest passions!
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 127: “The number of Hollywood extras is probably in the hundreds of thousands. As early as November 1934, Photoplay reported some 17, 541 individuals registered as extras with Central Casting. Among the number of small part and bit players available at that time were former stars, including Monte Blue, Betty Blythe, Mae Marsh, and Dorothy Phillips, and silent directors, including Francis Ford, Frank Reicher and George Melford. One-time stars might become extras, but the only extra to ever be accorded the celebrity and fame of stardom is Bess Flowers.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10+++

A Year in Books/Day 87: Hollywood Kids

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  • Title: Hollywood Kids Child Stars of the Silver Screen from 1903 to the Present
  • Author: Thomas G. Aylesworth
  • Year Published: 1987 (E.P. Dutton)
  • Year Purchased: 1990?
  • Source: B. Dalton
  • About: Being a child actor has never been easy. You’re pushed and pulled between your parents and the studio powers-that-be. If you’re lucky, your parents aren’t crooks and the studio heads aren’t criminals (see: Coogan, Jackie and Garland, Judy for some chilling cautionary tales). While ‘Hollywood Kids’ doesn’t gloss over the grubby reality of what it meant to be a kiddie star during cinema’s breathless heyday, spilling sordid secrets is certainly not its focus, either. Aylesworth treats his subjects as the talented professionals they were; this is really just a typical mix of film history and biography seasoned with anecdotes. It’s well written and features standout stills and publicity photographs.
  • Motivation: When I bought this, I was a kid myself: hopeful and in love with Hollywood.
  • Times Read: 3
  • Random Excerpt/Page 10: “Griffith sized her [Mary Pickford] up as being too pretty, too short, and having a reedy voice-in a word, all wrong for the stage. But on screen, since this was the silent movie era and voice didn’t count, her petite beauty would be a big asset. He offered her $5 a day. Drawing herself up to her full five-foot height, she replied haughtily that she was “an actress and an artist” and must be paid “twice what ordinary performers” received. Griffith agreed.”
  • Happiness Scale: 9
    Lobby card showing Mary Pickford about to punc...

    Lobby card showing Mary Pickford about to punch actor Francis Marion during a scene from the film "Little Lord Fauntleroy". 1 photomechanical print : collotype, color. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

     

A Year in Books/Day 52: Hollywood Babylon

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  • Title: Hollywood Babylon
  • Author: Kenneth Anger
  • Year Published: 1975/This Edition: 1981 (Dell Books)
  • Year Purchased: 2011
  • Source: This was a Christmas gift from my best friend.
  • About: I first read Kenneth Anger’s trash classic as a sophomore in high school. My English teacher loaned me her copy because she knew that I was a budding film buff. This collection of movie colony scandals is sordid and full of minor inaccuracies, neither of which lessens the fun one bit! Just don’t take it too seriously.
  • Motivation: My best friend knows how much I love classic movies and their stars. It was a great gift and, since I hadn’t read it since high school, it was pretty much like reading it for the first time.
  • Times Read: 2
  • Random Excerpt/Page 108: “If Wally Reid’s robin’s egg blue McFarlan was no longer seen cruising down Sunset, there was enough gaudy horsepower to take its place: Clara Bow in her red Kissel convertible with Chow dogs to match; Valentino’s custom-built Voisin tourer with its coiled-cobra radiator cap; Mae Murray’s canary yellow Pierce-Arrow or more formal white Rolls-Royce with liveried chauffeur and ever-present Borzoi; Olga Petrova’s purple Packard touring sedan; Gloria Swanson’s leopard-upholstered Lancia.”
  • Happiness Scale: 8
    English: Mae Murray

    Image via Wikipedia