Author: Jon Krampner
Publisher: Backstage Books
ISBN: 9780823088478
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
The first major biography of the great actress draws on personal interviews with friends, family, and colleagues to offer a revealing study of Kim Stanley's extraordinary career and her acclaim as the finest stage actress of her generation, as well as her turbulent, self-destructive personal life, from her childhood and early training to her rise to stardom and the demons that destroyed her life.
Female Brando
Author: Jon Krampner
Publisher: Backstage Books
ISBN: 9780823088478
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
The first major biography of the great actress draws on personal interviews with friends, family, and colleagues to offer a revealing study of Kim Stanley's extraordinary career and her acclaim as the finest stage actress of her generation, as well as her turbulent, self-destructive personal life, from her childhood and early training to her rise to stardom and the demons that destroyed her life.
Publisher: Backstage Books
ISBN: 9780823088478
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
The first major biography of the great actress draws on personal interviews with friends, family, and colleagues to offer a revealing study of Kim Stanley's extraordinary career and her acclaim as the finest stage actress of her generation, as well as her turbulent, self-destructive personal life, from her childhood and early training to her rise to stardom and the demons that destroyed her life.
The Method
Author: Isaac Butler
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1635574781
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 545
Book Description
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Nonfiction NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022 BY THE NEW YORKER, TIME MAGAZINE, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, VOX, SALON, LIT HUB, AND VANITY FAIR “Entertaining and illuminating.”--The New Yorker * “Compulsively readable.”--New York Times * “Delicious, humane, probing.”--Vulture * “The best and most important book about acting I've ever read.”--Nathan Lane The critically acclaimed cultural history of Method acting-an ebullient account of creative discovery and the birth of classic Hollywood. On stage and screen, we know a great performance when we see it. But how do actors draw from their bodies and minds to turn their selves into art? What is the craft of being an authentic fake? More than a century ago, amid tsarist Russia's crushing repression, one of the most talented actors ever, Konstantin Stanislavski, asked these very questions, reached deep into himself, and emerged with an answer. How his “system” remade itself into the Method and forever transformed American theater and film is an unlikely saga that has never before been fully told. Now, critic and theater director Isaac Butler chronicles the history of the Method in a narrative that transports readers from Moscow to New York to Los Angeles, from The Seagull to A Streetcar Named Desire to Raging Bull. He traces how a cohort of American mavericks--including Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, and the storied Group Theatre--refashioned Stanislavski's ideas for a Depression-plagued nation that had yet to find its place as an artistic powerhouse. The Group's feuds and rivalries would, in turn, shape generations of actors who enabled Hollywood to become the global dream-factory it is today. Some of these performers the Method would uplift; others, it would destroy. Long after its midcentury heyday, the Method lives on as one of the most influential--and misunderstood--ideas in American culture. Studded with marquee names--from Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, and Elia Kazan, to James Baldwin, Ellen Burstyn, and Dustin Hoffman--The Method is a spirited history of ideas and a must-read for any fan of Broadway or American film.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1635574781
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 545
Book Description
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, Nonfiction NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022 BY THE NEW YORKER, TIME MAGAZINE, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, VOX, SALON, LIT HUB, AND VANITY FAIR “Entertaining and illuminating.”--The New Yorker * “Compulsively readable.”--New York Times * “Delicious, humane, probing.”--Vulture * “The best and most important book about acting I've ever read.”--Nathan Lane The critically acclaimed cultural history of Method acting-an ebullient account of creative discovery and the birth of classic Hollywood. On stage and screen, we know a great performance when we see it. But how do actors draw from their bodies and minds to turn their selves into art? What is the craft of being an authentic fake? More than a century ago, amid tsarist Russia's crushing repression, one of the most talented actors ever, Konstantin Stanislavski, asked these very questions, reached deep into himself, and emerged with an answer. How his “system” remade itself into the Method and forever transformed American theater and film is an unlikely saga that has never before been fully told. Now, critic and theater director Isaac Butler chronicles the history of the Method in a narrative that transports readers from Moscow to New York to Los Angeles, from The Seagull to A Streetcar Named Desire to Raging Bull. He traces how a cohort of American mavericks--including Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, and the storied Group Theatre--refashioned Stanislavski's ideas for a Depression-plagued nation that had yet to find its place as an artistic powerhouse. The Group's feuds and rivalries would, in turn, shape generations of actors who enabled Hollywood to become the global dream-factory it is today. Some of these performers the Method would uplift; others, it would destroy. Long after its midcentury heyday, the Method lives on as one of the most influential--and misunderstood--ideas in American culture. Studded with marquee names--from Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, and Elia Kazan, to James Baldwin, Ellen Burstyn, and Dustin Hoffman--The Method is a spirited history of ideas and a must-read for any fan of Broadway or American film.
Imagining the Method
Author: Justin Owen Rawlins
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477328505
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
"From James Dean to Jared Leto, only one acting style has entered the lexicon of the casual moviegoer: "Method acting." In this manuscript, Justin Rawlins offers the first reception-based analysis of acting, investigating how the concept of "the Method" entered popular film discourse and became part of the establishment of a "serious actor" brand--one reserved for white, male actors and yet associated with rebellion and marginalization. Drawing on extensive archival research, Rawlins traces the construction of mainstream understandings of Method acting, using well-known actors and Hollywood figures (e.g., Marlon Brando, Hedda Hopper, and James Dean) while also bringing forgotten names to the fore"--
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477328505
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
"From James Dean to Jared Leto, only one acting style has entered the lexicon of the casual moviegoer: "Method acting." In this manuscript, Justin Rawlins offers the first reception-based analysis of acting, investigating how the concept of "the Method" entered popular film discourse and became part of the establishment of a "serious actor" brand--one reserved for white, male actors and yet associated with rebellion and marginalization. Drawing on extensive archival research, Rawlins traces the construction of mainstream understandings of Method acting, using well-known actors and Hollywood figures (e.g., Marlon Brando, Hedda Hopper, and James Dean) while also bringing forgotten names to the fore"--
Brando Unzipped
Author: Darwin Porter
Publisher: Blood Moon Productions, Ltd.
ISBN: 9780974811826
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 668
Book Description
That ongoing, barely under control drama known as Marlon Brando--Hollywood's Ultimate Bad Boy, Megastar, and Sexual Outlaw--with a special focus on his early rise to fame and his social and sexual associations with the A-list legends of the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Brando Unzipped is the definitive gossip guide to the late, great actor's life --New York Daily News. Lurid, raunchy, perceptive, and certainly worth reading, it's one of the best show-biz biographies of the year. --London's Sunday Times. Brando Unzipped received an Honorable Mention from Foreword Magazine in its Book of the Year competition, and it won a Silver Ippy award for Best Biography from the Independent Publisher's Association.
Publisher: Blood Moon Productions, Ltd.
ISBN: 9780974811826
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 668
Book Description
That ongoing, barely under control drama known as Marlon Brando--Hollywood's Ultimate Bad Boy, Megastar, and Sexual Outlaw--with a special focus on his early rise to fame and his social and sexual associations with the A-list legends of the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Brando Unzipped is the definitive gossip guide to the late, great actor's life --New York Daily News. Lurid, raunchy, perceptive, and certainly worth reading, it's one of the best show-biz biographies of the year. --London's Sunday Times. Brando Unzipped received an Honorable Mention from Foreword Magazine in its Book of the Year competition, and it won a Silver Ippy award for Best Biography from the Independent Publisher's Association.
The Works of Arthur Laurents: Politics, Love, and Betrayal
Author: John M. Clum
Publisher: Cambria Press
ISBN: 1621967387
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 214
Book Description
Arthur Laurents's career as a playwright, screenwriter, book writer for musicals and director spanned over half a century. His first Broadway play, Home of the Brave, was produced in 1945; his last play, Come Back, Come Back, Wherever You Are, was produced in 2009 when he was ninety-one. Although he is best known for his work on the classic musicals Gypsy and West Side Story and for his screenplays for Rope, The Way We Were, and The Turning Point, Laurents is the author of seventeen full-length plays, numerous screenplays and three volumes of memoirs. Despite the length and distinction of Laurents's career, until now no one has written a full-length critical study of his work. Laurentss' name was associated with a few hit musicals and films, but his best work, the plays he wrote since 1975, are not as well known. One reason is that the economics of the American theatre have changed during the writer's lifetime and Laurents's serious plays were performed Off-Broadway or at regional theatres. Few were published, except in acting editions, until a volume of Selected Plays was assembled in 2005. Moreover, Laurents's highly controversial volumes of memoirs, filled with attacks on people who he felt betrayed him over the years, overshadowed his later work. Ignoring most his own plays in the memoirs did not help to maintain his reputation as a serious playwright This book rectifies the absence of a serious examination of all of Laurents's major work. This first comprehensive study of Laurents's work focuses on the subjects and themes that recur in his work, particularly the interrelated topics of gender politics, homosexuality and the dynamics of marriage. The position of women and gay men changed greatly over the sixty-plus years of Laurents's career and we see those changes reflected in his work, particularly in the shifting power dynamics within a marriage. Laurents was fascinated by the dynamics of marriage. In his plays there is always a tension between love and the difficulty, if not impossibility, of monogamy. In works like The Enclave, we also see a variety of ways in which gay men try to live proud lives in a heteronormative society. In that play and in Two Lives, Laurents examines how gay men negotiate something like a marriage before gay marriages were legally sanctioned. The book also covers the ways in which Laurents's plays reflect his interest in leftist politics from the 1940s through the various liberations of the late 1960s and 1970s. Above all, the study argues that if there is any common theme running through the plays, films and memoirs, it is betrayal-betrayal of marriage partner, friend, artistic collaborator and, most important, betrayal of one's own ideals. The Works of Arthur Laurents will be of particular interest to students and scholarsof American drama, musical theatre, American film, gender studies, gay studies, and Jewish studies.
Publisher: Cambria Press
ISBN: 1621967387
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 214
Book Description
Arthur Laurents's career as a playwright, screenwriter, book writer for musicals and director spanned over half a century. His first Broadway play, Home of the Brave, was produced in 1945; his last play, Come Back, Come Back, Wherever You Are, was produced in 2009 when he was ninety-one. Although he is best known for his work on the classic musicals Gypsy and West Side Story and for his screenplays for Rope, The Way We Were, and The Turning Point, Laurents is the author of seventeen full-length plays, numerous screenplays and three volumes of memoirs. Despite the length and distinction of Laurents's career, until now no one has written a full-length critical study of his work. Laurentss' name was associated with a few hit musicals and films, but his best work, the plays he wrote since 1975, are not as well known. One reason is that the economics of the American theatre have changed during the writer's lifetime and Laurents's serious plays were performed Off-Broadway or at regional theatres. Few were published, except in acting editions, until a volume of Selected Plays was assembled in 2005. Moreover, Laurents's highly controversial volumes of memoirs, filled with attacks on people who he felt betrayed him over the years, overshadowed his later work. Ignoring most his own plays in the memoirs did not help to maintain his reputation as a serious playwright This book rectifies the absence of a serious examination of all of Laurents's major work. This first comprehensive study of Laurents's work focuses on the subjects and themes that recur in his work, particularly the interrelated topics of gender politics, homosexuality and the dynamics of marriage. The position of women and gay men changed greatly over the sixty-plus years of Laurents's career and we see those changes reflected in his work, particularly in the shifting power dynamics within a marriage. Laurents was fascinated by the dynamics of marriage. In his plays there is always a tension between love and the difficulty, if not impossibility, of monogamy. In works like The Enclave, we also see a variety of ways in which gay men try to live proud lives in a heteronormative society. In that play and in Two Lives, Laurents examines how gay men negotiate something like a marriage before gay marriages were legally sanctioned. The book also covers the ways in which Laurents's plays reflect his interest in leftist politics from the 1940s through the various liberations of the late 1960s and 1970s. Above all, the study argues that if there is any common theme running through the plays, films and memoirs, it is betrayal-betrayal of marriage partner, friend, artistic collaborator and, most important, betrayal of one's own ideals. The Works of Arthur Laurents will be of particular interest to students and scholarsof American drama, musical theatre, American film, gender studies, gay studies, and Jewish studies.
Live Fast, Die Young
Author: Lawrence Frascella
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743291182
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
The complete story behind the groundbreaking film Rebel Without a Cause is vividly revealed in this fascinating book as provocative as the film itself. The revolutionary film Rebel Without a Cause has had a profound impact on both moviemaking and youth culture since its 1955 release, virtually giving birth to our concept of the American teenager. And the making of the movie was just as explosive for those involved. Against a backdrop of the Atomic Age and an old Hollywood studio system on the verge of collapse, four of Hollywood's most passionate artists had a cataclysmic and immensely influential meeting. James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, and director Nicholas Ray were each at a crucial point in their careers. The young actors were grappling with their fame, burgeoning sexuality, and increasingly reckless behavior, and their on- and off-set relationships ignited as they engaged in Ray’s vision of physical melees and psychosexual seductions of startling intensity. Through interviews with the surviving members of the cast and crew and firsthand access to both personal and studio archives, the authors reveal Rebel's true drama: the director’s affair with sixteen-year-old Wood, his tempestuous “spiritual marriage” with Dean, and his role in awakening the latent sexuality of Mineo, who would become the first gay teenager to appear on film. This searing account of the upheaval the four artists experienced in the wake of Rebel is complete with thirty photographs, including ten never-before-seen photos by famed Dean photographer Dennis Stock.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743291182
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
The complete story behind the groundbreaking film Rebel Without a Cause is vividly revealed in this fascinating book as provocative as the film itself. The revolutionary film Rebel Without a Cause has had a profound impact on both moviemaking and youth culture since its 1955 release, virtually giving birth to our concept of the American teenager. And the making of the movie was just as explosive for those involved. Against a backdrop of the Atomic Age and an old Hollywood studio system on the verge of collapse, four of Hollywood's most passionate artists had a cataclysmic and immensely influential meeting. James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, and director Nicholas Ray were each at a crucial point in their careers. The young actors were grappling with their fame, burgeoning sexuality, and increasingly reckless behavior, and their on- and off-set relationships ignited as they engaged in Ray’s vision of physical melees and psychosexual seductions of startling intensity. Through interviews with the surviving members of the cast and crew and firsthand access to both personal and studio archives, the authors reveal Rebel's true drama: the director’s affair with sixteen-year-old Wood, his tempestuous “spiritual marriage” with Dean, and his role in awakening the latent sexuality of Mineo, who would become the first gay teenager to appear on film. This searing account of the upheaval the four artists experienced in the wake of Rebel is complete with thirty photographs, including ten never-before-seen photos by famed Dean photographer Dennis Stock.
Rage and Glory
Author: David Sheward
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 9781557836700
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 464
Book Description
Examines the life and accomplishments of this powerful actor through a review of the roles he has played and awards he has received while delving into his personal life and the dramas he managed off-stage, including a sexual harrassment suit and an affair with Ava Gardner.
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 9781557836700
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 464
Book Description
Examines the life and accomplishments of this powerful actor through a review of the roles he has played and awards he has received while delving into his personal life and the dramas he managed off-stage, including a sexual harrassment suit and an affair with Ava Gardner.
Mike Connolly and the Manly Art of Hollywood Gossip
Author: Val Holley
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 9780786480869
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
In 1954, Mike Connolly, the gay gossip columnist for the Hollywood Reporter from 1951 to 1966, was described by Newsweek as "probably the most influential columnist inside the movie colony," the one writer "who gets the pick of trade items, the industry rumors, the policy and casting switches." He was indeed one of the most talented and influential members of the Hollywood press of his time, and his column, for those who could read between the lines, was a daily chronicle of gay goings-on. Fifty years later, his cumulative output is a virtually untapped lode of gay Hollywood history. Mike Connolly's life and work are the focus of this book. It considers his formative years, his pre-World War II life at the University of Illinois and in Chicago, and the ways in which the homosexual community in Hollywood lived lives both secretive and open in the forties, fifties and sixties. It also examines the literary merit, power and newsworthiness of Connolly's "Rambling Reporter" column in the Hollywood Reporter and its significance as a chronicle of gay Hollywood life; the previously unexplored role of Connolly's column in the Hollywood blacklist and how his anti-Communist crusade was rooted in his earlier campaign to close down the brothels in his college town; and how his life informed his column and his column shaped his life.
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 9780786480869
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
In 1954, Mike Connolly, the gay gossip columnist for the Hollywood Reporter from 1951 to 1966, was described by Newsweek as "probably the most influential columnist inside the movie colony," the one writer "who gets the pick of trade items, the industry rumors, the policy and casting switches." He was indeed one of the most talented and influential members of the Hollywood press of his time, and his column, for those who could read between the lines, was a daily chronicle of gay goings-on. Fifty years later, his cumulative output is a virtually untapped lode of gay Hollywood history. Mike Connolly's life and work are the focus of this book. It considers his formative years, his pre-World War II life at the University of Illinois and in Chicago, and the ways in which the homosexual community in Hollywood lived lives both secretive and open in the forties, fifties and sixties. It also examines the literary merit, power and newsworthiness of Connolly's "Rambling Reporter" column in the Hollywood Reporter and its significance as a chronicle of gay Hollywood life; the previously unexplored role of Connolly's column in the Hollywood blacklist and how his anti-Communist crusade was rooted in his earlier campaign to close down the brothels in his college town; and how his life informed his column and his column shaped his life.
The Art of American Screen Acting, 1912-1960
Author: Dan Callahan
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476674051
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
Some people claim that audiences go to the movies for the genre. Others say they go for the director. But most really go to see their favorite actors and actresses. This book explores the work of many of classic Hollywood's influential stars, such as James Cagney, Bette Davis, Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. These so-called "pre-Brando" entertainers, often dismissed as old fashioned, were part of an explosion of talent that ran from the late 1920s through the early 1950s. The author analyzes their compelling styles and their ability to capture audiences.
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476674051
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
Some people claim that audiences go to the movies for the genre. Others say they go for the director. But most really go to see their favorite actors and actresses. This book explores the work of many of classic Hollywood's influential stars, such as James Cagney, Bette Davis, Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. These so-called "pre-Brando" entertainers, often dismissed as old fashioned, were part of an explosion of talent that ran from the late 1920s through the early 1950s. The author analyzes their compelling styles and their ability to capture audiences.
Jack Lord
Author: Sylvia D. Lynch
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476631751
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
Before his rise to superstardom portraying Detective Steve McGarrett on the long-running police drama Hawaii Five-O, Jack Lord was already a dedicated and versatile actor on Broadway, in film and on television. His range of roles included a Virginia gentleman planter in Colonial Williamsburg (The Story of a Patriot), CIA agent Felix Leiter in the first James Bond movie (Dr. No) and the title character in the cult classic rodeo TV series Stoney Burke. Lord's career culminated in twelve seasons on Hawaii Five-O, where his creative control of the series left an indelible mark on every aspect of its production. This book, the first to draw on Lord's massive personal archive, gives a behind-the-scenes look into the life and work of a TV legend.
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476631751
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
Before his rise to superstardom portraying Detective Steve McGarrett on the long-running police drama Hawaii Five-O, Jack Lord was already a dedicated and versatile actor on Broadway, in film and on television. His range of roles included a Virginia gentleman planter in Colonial Williamsburg (The Story of a Patriot), CIA agent Felix Leiter in the first James Bond movie (Dr. No) and the title character in the cult classic rodeo TV series Stoney Burke. Lord's career culminated in twelve seasons on Hawaii Five-O, where his creative control of the series left an indelible mark on every aspect of its production. This book, the first to draw on Lord's massive personal archive, gives a behind-the-scenes look into the life and work of a TV legend.