"Brackett's diaries read like a funnier, better-paced version of Barton Fink." — NewsweekScreenwriter Charles Brackett is best remembered as the writing partner of director Billy Wilder, who once referred to the pair as "the happiest couple in Hollywood," collaborating on such classics as The Lost Weekend and Sunset Boulevard. He was also a perceptive chronicler of the entertainment industry, and in this annotated collection of w...

Just a Regular Bloke: The Ted Ray Story is the third in a trilogy of volumes on legends of British comedy, that began with Jimmy Edwards and continued with Arthur Askey. Ted Ray became a star as British Music Hall came to an end, and continued into radio, television and motion pictures. He never stopped performing on stage as Music Hall morphed into Variety, and could always be relied upon to make audiences laugh with his quick wit and rapid-fire humor. It might be said that it was on radi...

With A Journey Through Film History, film historian Anthony Slide offers a detailed account of his life and career over the last 80 years. In a humorous and entertaining style, he speaks of his memories, both good and bad. Interviewer Matthew Renoir is the great grandson of Jean Renoir (and the great, great grandson of impressionist painter Pierre Auguste Renoir), and a perfect fit as an interviewer for Anthony Slide, who knew Jean Renoir well in the late 1970s, and provides many memories ...

Stanley Unwin was unique among British comedians in that he invented his own language, Unwinese,with which he entertained audiences from the 1940s until his death in 2002. Continuing his book-length studies of the British comedy fraternity, Anthony Slide discusses in detail Stanley Unwin's life and career, including his years as a BBC engineer prior to embarking on a new career as a comedian, at first with the BBC. The text may not be totally in "basic engly twenty fido,"

A diminutive, frenetic comedian, known for catchphrases that were once part of the English language, Arthur Askey was one of Britain's most popular entertainers throughout much of the 20th Century. Immediately after World War One, Askey made his professional debut in concert parties at British seaside resorts. He began to appear on the stage and on radio, and in 1938, with Richard Murdoch, he introduced Band Wagon to BBC radio listeners. It soon became the most popular program on the air, ...

Collected together here are Anthony Slide's writings on film and television history from the 1960s through the present. Subjects and individuals discussed are varied, including Lillian Gish, Val Guest, Vivienne Segal, Wendy Richard, Elisabeth Welch, Lawrence Welk, and Betty White. All illustrate the author's scholarship, dedication to the serious study of the history of popular culture, and also his unique sense of humor.The book is a reminder of a career that has included time spe...

New York City Vaudeville provides a unique pictorial record of America�s preeminent entertainment medium in the late 1800s through the early 1930s. New York�s Palace Theatreserved as the flagship for vaudeville, on which stage everyvaudevillian aspired to perform. New York City Vaudevillefeatures photographs of some of the greatest names fromthe Palace Theatre, including Jack Benny, George Burnsand Gracie Allen, Anna Held, the Marx Brothers, and Eva Tanguay, as well as legendary African Am...

The fan magazine has often been viewed simply as a publicity tool, a fluffy exercise in self-promotion by the film industry. But as an arbiter of good and bad taste, as a source of knowledge, and as a gateway to the fabled land of Hollywood and its stars, the American fan magazine represents a fascinating and indispensable chapter in journalism and popular culture.Anthony Slide's Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine provides the definitive history of this artifact. It charts ...

This book provides a fascinating survey of the career of one of Hollywood's great mavericks. In his memoir Fragments, Andre de Toth took his readers on a roller coaster ride through his life. He gave scant mention to his film work. In De Toth on De Toth, he redresses the balance and expounds - in his own exhuberant style - on his film-making career. The cast of characters includes his wife - the luminous Veronica Lake - as well as stars such as Gary Cooper...

“Ravished Armenia” and the Story of Aurora Mardiganian is the real-life tale of a teenage Armenian girl who was caught up in the 1915 Armenian genocide, the first genocide in modern history. Mardiganian (1901–1994) witnessed the murder of her family and the suffering of her people at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. Forced to march over fourteen hundred miles, she was sold into slavery. When she escaped to the United States, Mardiganian was then exploited by the very individuals w...

A timely and captivating account of America’s first women directors who, with little recognition, helped pave the way for females in the film industry today.Originally published in 1977 as Early Women Directors, Anthony Slide’s The Silent Feminists was the first volume to recognize and honor the work of female directors in the American silent film industry. With a new foreword by the author, this invaluable resource documents these pioneering women...

Extras, bit players, and stand-ins have been a part of the film industry almost from its conception. On a personal and a professional level, their stories are told in Hollywood Unknowns, the first history devoted to extras from the silent era through the present.Hollywood Unknowns discusses the relationship of the extra to the star, the lowly position in which extras were held, the poor working conditions and wages, and the sexual exploitation of many of the hardw...