Miss D and Me

Miss D and Me PDF Author: Kathryn Sermak
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 0316507822
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
For ten years Kathryn Sermak was at Bette Davis's side--first as an employee, and then as her closest friend--and in Miss D and Me she tells the story of the great star's harrowing but inspiring final years, a story fans have been waiting decades to hear. Miss D and Me is a story of two powerful women, one at the end of her life and the other at the beginning. As Bette Davis aged she was looking for an assistant, but she found something more than that in Kathryn: a loyal and loving buddy, a co-conspirator in her jokes and schemes, and a competent assistant whom she trained never to miss a detail. But Miss D had strict rules for Kathryn about everything from how to eat a salad to how to wear her hair...even the spelling of Kathryn's name was changed (adding the "y") per Miss D's request. Throughout their time together, the two grew incredibly close, and Kathryn had a front-row seat to the larger-than-life Davis's career renaissance in her later years, as well as to the humiliating public betrayal that nearly killed Miss D. The frame of this story is a four-day road trip Kathryn and Davis took from Biarritz to Paris, during which they disentangled their ferocious dependency. Miss D and Me is a window into the world of the unique and formidable Bette Davis, told by the person who perhaps knew her best of all.

Miss D and Me

Miss D and Me PDF Author: Kathryn Sermak
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 0316507822
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
For ten years Kathryn Sermak was at Bette Davis's side--first as an employee, and then as her closest friend--and in Miss D and Me she tells the story of the great star's harrowing but inspiring final years, a story fans have been waiting decades to hear. Miss D and Me is a story of two powerful women, one at the end of her life and the other at the beginning. As Bette Davis aged she was looking for an assistant, but she found something more than that in Kathryn: a loyal and loving buddy, a co-conspirator in her jokes and schemes, and a competent assistant whom she trained never to miss a detail. But Miss D had strict rules for Kathryn about everything from how to eat a salad to how to wear her hair...even the spelling of Kathryn's name was changed (adding the "y") per Miss D's request. Throughout their time together, the two grew incredibly close, and Kathryn had a front-row seat to the larger-than-life Davis's career renaissance in her later years, as well as to the humiliating public betrayal that nearly killed Miss D. The frame of this story is a four-day road trip Kathryn and Davis took from Biarritz to Paris, during which they disentangled their ferocious dependency. Miss D and Me is a window into the world of the unique and formidable Bette Davis, told by the person who perhaps knew her best of all.

Dark Victory

Dark Victory PDF Author: Ed Sikov
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780805088632
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 516

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Book Description
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.

This 'n That

This 'n That PDF Author: Bette Davis
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 0316441260
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Originally published in 1987, a collection of anecdotes as well as opinions pro and con on a wide range of subjects by legendary actress Bette Davis--now in ebook for the first time! A woman of strong appetites and opinions, Bette Davis minces no words. In frank, no nonsense terms she talks about the stroke that nearly killed her, and inspires us with the story of her subsequent recovery from cancer--a lively and encouraging account shot through with the star's unique blend of spunk and wit. Davis was famous for being as unsparing of herself as she was of others. Among the "others" of this book are President Ronald Reagan, who was a contract player at Warner Bros. when she was; Joan Crawford, her costar in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?; Humphrey Bogart; Marilyn Monroe; Elizabeth Taylor; and Helen Hayes, Bette's costar in her first film after her illness, Murder with Mirrors. She also talks about her deep friendship with her longtime assistant, Kathryn Sermak, who nursed Davis back to health after her stroke and ushered her back into acting when Davis's doctors thought all hope was lost. As Davis says, "If everyone likes you, you're doing your job wrong." This is a unique and controversial book by one of the most incandescent and unconventional acting talents of all time, as magnetic and supremely talented as the lady herself.

Bette Davis

Bette Davis PDF Author: Richard Schickel
Publisher: Running Press Adult
ISBN: 9780762436880
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
“Until you're known in my profession as a monster, you're not a star,” Bette Davis once said. Let's just say in Hollywood she was considered the ultimate star. The Academy Award-winning actress was one of the movies' most riveting and volatile personalities both on and off the screen. She comes to life in the pages of this lavish, fully illustrated tribute produced in conjunction with her estate. Bette Davis remains one of the most acclaimed and well-known stars in the history of film. Breaking new ground for women, she was a fighter who took on the Hollywood establishment at the drop of a dime. She reveled in lifelong feuds (such as with arch nemesis and co-star Joan Crawford). She was a mother, wife, and friend. She was also a no-nonsense New Englander who happened to have more talent than the movies seemed able to contain. Her personality leapt off the screen and earned her an unprecedented number of high-profile nominations and awards for her work in films like Jezebel, Dark Victory, All About Eve, and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? As the epitaph on Davis's tombstone reads, “She did it the hard way.” Through a biography, comprehensive filmography, and hundreds of rare photos, readers will find out why.

The Lonely Life

The Lonely Life PDF Author: Bette Davis
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0316441295
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Originally published in 1962, The Lonely Life is legendary silver screen actress Bette Davis's lively and riveting account of her life, loves, and marriages--now in ebook for the first time, and updated with an afterword she wrote just before her death. As Davis says in the opening lines of her classic memoir: "I have always been driven by some distant music--a battle hymn, no doubt--for I have been at war from the beginning. I rode into the field with sword gleaming and standard flying. I was going to conquer the world." A bold, unapologetic book by a unique and formidable woman, The Lonely Life details the first fifty-plus years of Davis's life--her Yankee childhood, her rise to stardom in Hollywood, the birth of her beloved children, and the uncompromising choices she made along the way to succeed. The book was updated with new material in the 1980s, bringing the story up to the end of Davis's life--all the heartbreak, all the drama, and all the love she experienced at every stage of her extraordinary life. The Lonely Life proves conclusively that the legendary image of Bette Davis is not a fable but a marvelous reality.

The Girl Who Walked Home Alone

The Girl Who Walked Home Alone PDF Author: Charlotte Chandler
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1847396984
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 594

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Book Description
Of Human Bondage, Jezebel, All About Eve, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Just this short list of Bette Davis' films gives an unmistakable sense of the role she played in twentieth-century cinema as one of the finest performers in Hollywood history. Drawing on an extensive series of conversations that took place during the last decade of Bette Davis' life, this biography draws heavily on the actresses own words. Looking back over the decades, from her teenage decision to become an actress to the pain and outrage over her daughter's bitter portrayal of her, Davis speaks with extraordinary candour. She explains how her father's abandonment of her a child reverberated through her four marriages, and discusses the persistent Hollywood legend that she was difficult to work with. Immersing readers in the drama and glamour of movie-making's golden age, The Girl Who Walked Home Alone is a startling portrait of an enduring icon.

Bette Davis Black and White

Bette Davis Black and White PDF Author: Julia A. Stern
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022681386X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
Introduction: Black and white -- Little Foxes and little brown wrens -- The poetics of color in Jezebel -- Melodramas of blood in In This Our Life -- The whiteness of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? -- Bette Davis black and white.

Mother Goddam

Mother Goddam PDF Author: Whitney Stine
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Motion picture actors and actresses
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
One of Hollywood's famous actresses offers a running commentary of personal sidelights to the movies in which she appeared.

The Bette Davis Club

The Bette Davis Club PDF Author: Jane Lotter
Publisher: Center Point
ISBN: 9781628999365
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description
"When Margo's niece becomes a runaway bride --taking with her a family heirloom--her mother offers Margo fifty grand to retrieve her spoiled daughter and the invaluable property she stole. Together with the jilted and justifiably crabby fiancé, Margo sets out in a borrowed 1955 red MG on a cross-country chase and finds herself along the way"--

Bette Davis

Bette Davis PDF Author: Peter McNally
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786434996
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Bette Davis, whose career spanned almost 50 years and covered theatre, radio, TV and motion pictures, was at one time the first lady of the big screen. Working with such storied performers as Henry Fonda, Humphrey Bogart, and Joan Crawford, and directors Edmund Goulding, William Wyler and Robert Aldrich, Bette Davis provided some of the most memorable performances in movie history. This volume contains detailed analyses of Bette Davis' top twelve films spanning 1938 to 1987 and including The Letter, All About Eve, The Little Foxes, Jezebel, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and The Whales of August. Each film is discussed in depth, with an examination of its script, direction, camerawork and performances, particularly as they relate to Davis's work. A second group of films, memorable largely for Davis's performance rather than the overall success of the work, are also examined. Special emphasis is placed on the way Davis viewed her own work as well as the detrimental effect her devotion to her career had on her personal life. Appendices contain a list of her marriages and children; her Oscar nominations; a discussion of Davis's missed opportunities; and a partial chronology of her films.