Mae West and the Count

Mae West and the Count PDF Author: Guido Roberto Deiro
Publisher: Outskirts Press
ISBN: 9781977210647
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Mae West & The Count takes you inside Mae's relationship with the man who launched her career and stole her heart. Set in the first half of the 20th Century, this is the heretofore untold story of the torrid romance, lust-filled five-year marriage, and entwined show business careers of the Vaudeville headliner "Deiro" and the "Queen of Camp" Mae West. Unpublicized by mutual agreement, the improbable, humorous, and often heartbreaking, personal and professional relationship between the Italian nobleman, who rose to "rock-star" fame, and the Brooklyn-born fifth-grade dropout who became a show business legend and an icon of sexual freedom, is intimately and elegantly exposed in this volume. "I couldn't help myself - "D" was an amazing lover. The sex thing was terrific with this guy. I wanted to do it morning, noon and night, and that's all I wanted to do. " -Mae West, Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It (1959). "It went very deep, hittin' on all the emotions. You can't get too hot over anybody unless there's somethin' that goes along with the sex act, can you?" -Mae West, Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It (1959).

Mae West and the Count

Mae West and the Count PDF Author: Guido Roberto Deiro
Publisher: Outskirts Press
ISBN: 9781977210647
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Get Book Here

Book Description
Mae West & The Count takes you inside Mae's relationship with the man who launched her career and stole her heart. Set in the first half of the 20th Century, this is the heretofore untold story of the torrid romance, lust-filled five-year marriage, and entwined show business careers of the Vaudeville headliner "Deiro" and the "Queen of Camp" Mae West. Unpublicized by mutual agreement, the improbable, humorous, and often heartbreaking, personal and professional relationship between the Italian nobleman, who rose to "rock-star" fame, and the Brooklyn-born fifth-grade dropout who became a show business legend and an icon of sexual freedom, is intimately and elegantly exposed in this volume. "I couldn't help myself - "D" was an amazing lover. The sex thing was terrific with this guy. I wanted to do it morning, noon and night, and that's all I wanted to do. " -Mae West, Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It (1959). "It went very deep, hittin' on all the emotions. You can't get too hot over anybody unless there's somethin' that goes along with the sex act, can you?" -Mae West, Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It (1959).

Mae West

Mae West PDF Author: Jill Watts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780195347678
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
"Why don't you come up and see me sometime?" Mae West invited and promptly captured the imagination of generations. Even today, years after her death, the actress and author is still regarded as the pop archetype of sexual wantonness and ribald humor. But who was this saucy starlet, a woman who was controversial enough to be jailed, pursued by film censors and banned from the airwaves for the revolutionary content of her work, and yet would ascend to the status of film legend? Sifting through previously untapped sources, author Jill Watts unravels the enigmatic life of Mae West, tracing her early years spent in the Brooklyn subculture of boxers and underworld figures, and follows her journey through burlesque, vaudeville, Broadway and, finally, Hollywood, where she quickly became one of the big screen's most popular--and colorful--stars. Exploring West's penchant for contradiction and her carefully perpetuated paradoxes, Watts convincingly argues that Mae West borrowed heavily from African American culture, music, dance and humor, creating a subversive voice for herself by which she artfully challenged society and its assumptions regarding race, class and gender. Viewing West as a trickster, Watts demonstrates that by appropriating for her character the black tradition of double-speak and "signifying," West also may have hinted at her own African-American ancestry and the phenomenon of a black woman passing for white. This absolutely fascinating study is the first comprehensive, interpretive account of Mae West's life and work. It reveals a beloved icon as a radically subversive artist consciously creating her own complex image.

Three Plays by Mae West

Three Plays by Mae West PDF Author: Lillian Schlissel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136041982
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Mae West, wise-cracking vaudeville performer, was one of the most controversial figures of her era. Rarely, however, do people think of Mae West as a writer. In Three Plays By Mae West, Lillian Schlissel brings this underexplored part of West's career to the fore by offering for the first time in book form, three of the plays West wrote in the 1920s--Sex (1926), The Drag (1927) and Pleasure Man (1928). With an insightful introduction by Schlissel, this book offers a unique look into to the life and early career of this legendary stage and screen actress.

She Always Knew How

She Always Knew How PDF Author: Charlotte Chandler
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1471105849
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Sex goddess Mae West is responsible for some of the most quoted lines in film history: * Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? * When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better. * It's not the men in my life that counts - it's the life in my men. She was a performer from childhood and debuted on Broadway in a play she wrote entitled "Sex" which was a success until it was raided for immorality and Mae was jailed for ten days. This book is packed with stars from George Raft to Cary Grant and W.C. Fields, with whom she made "My Little Chickadee", the most successful film of Fields' career. Charlotte Chandler recorded Mae West over a period of roughly a month towards the end of the star's life. She was still as vital and lively as ever, and this book will convey all of Mae West's legendary attitude.

Complete Works of Guido Deiro

Complete Works of Guido Deiro PDF Author: Henry Doktorski
Publisher: Mel Bay Publications
ISBN: 1609746821
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
Count Guido Deiro (1886-1950), Italian-born composer and accordion virtuoso. Deiro was a major force in the popularization of the accordion in the early 20th century. Concert accordionist and scholar Henry Doktorski has transcribed and edited all of Deiro's original music for accordion-45 pieces including waltzes, rags, marches, polkas, fox trots, tangos, and popular Deiro favorites: My Florence Waltz, Egypto Fantasia, Sharpshooter's March, and the Broadway hit, Kismet.A lengthy essay and rare photos from the Deiro family archive complete the 192-page book.

He Done Her Wrong

He Done Her Wrong PDF Author: Stuart M. Kaminsky
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1453232885
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
Goodness has nothing to do with it as a hard-luck private eye in 1940s Hollywood takes a case for legendary silver screen sex symbol Mae West. In the early days of talking pictures, the greatest sex symbol in Hollywood was the platinum-blonde bad girl Mae West. Naughty and gorgeous with a razor-sharp wit, West wrote her own material and controlled her own image—until the censors came in and outlawed the racy repartee that made her famous. By the forties, her star has faded and she’s banking everything on a scandalous memoir that she hopes will set the stage for a comeback. When the only copy is stolen, she calls in a favor from an old beau—the brother of wisecracking PI Toby Peters. When Mae West asks, “Why don’t you come up sometime and see me?” you don’t say no. Peters arrives at a party at West’s house, where every guest is a man dressed as the woman herself—and one of them may be the thief who stole the manuscript. But before he can tear off the culprit’s wig, Peters finds that this is about more than theft. The crook wants to destroy Mae West, and he has murder on his mind. The star of Edgar Award winner Stuart M. Kaminsky’s fun forties private eye series, “Peters is a good guy with a sense of humor, and every appearance he makes is a welcome one” (Booklist).

From Drags to Riches

From Drags to Riches PDF Author: John Wallraff
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136571876
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Learn how Charles Pierce achieved stardom and became one of the most famous female impersonators of all time! Charles Pierce (1926--1999) was an internationally known and highly successful female impersonator, known for his vivid portrayals of Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, and Mae West. This book offers a candid look at a career that spanned over fifty years--from his humble start at the Pasadena Playhouse, to his sold-out shows in San Francisco. From Drags to Riches provides a rich and colorful history of Charles Pierce. In this insightful and moving volume, Pierce’s friend John Wallraff offers valuable insights about the little-known man behind the makeup and captures the essence of what drag stardom is really like. This informative, imaginative, and sexually provocative book contains: stories of how famous Hollywood icons shaped Charles Pierce’s life and his act Pierce’s history, from his humble beginnings at the Pasadena Playhouse to his sold-out shows in San Francisco and beyond a look at Pierce’s private life an examination of the price of fame--how successes and failures shape any performer Using the words of Charles Pierce himself, adding a dash of humor, mixing in fascinating insights, and sprinkling in juicy stories of love, lust, and sex, this book is a melting pot of information about a well-loved but sometimes misunderstood man.

The Warmth of Other Suns

The Warmth of Other Suns PDF Author: Isabel Wilkerson
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0679763880
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 642

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S FIVE BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY “A brilliant and stirring epic . . . Ms. Wilkerson does for the Great Migration what John Steinbeck did for the Okies in his fiction masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath; she humanizes history, giving it emotional and psychological depth.”—John Stauffer, The Wall Street Journal “What she’s done with these oral histories is stow memory in amber.”—Lynell George, Los Angeles Times WINNER: The Mark Lynton History Prize • The Anisfield-Wolf Award for Nonfiction • The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize • The Hurston-Wright Award for Nonfiction • The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism • NAACP Image Award for Best Literary Debut • Stephen Ambrose Oral History Prize FINALIST: The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction • Dayton Literary Peace Prize ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times • USA Today • Publishers Weekly • O: The Oprah Magazine • Salon • Newsday • The Daily Beast ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker • The Washington Post • The Economist •Boston Globe • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • Entertainment Weekly • Philadelphia Inquirer • The Guardian • The Seattle Times • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Christian Science Monitor In this beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson presents a definitive and dramatic account of one of the great untold stories of American history: the Great Migration of six million Black citizens who fled the South for the North and West in search of a better life, from World War I to 1970. Wilkerson tells this interwoven story through the lives of three unforgettable protagonists: Ida Mae Gladney, a sharecropper’s wife, who in 1937 fled Mississippi for Chicago; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, and Robert Foster, a surgeon who left Louisiana in 1953 in hopes of making it in California. Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous cross-country journeys by car and train and their new lives in colonies in the New World. The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is a modern classic.

Too Much of a Good Thing

Too Much of a Good Thing PDF Author: Ramona Curry
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9780816627912
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Before Madonna, before Marilyn, there was Mae. The impact of Mae West - through her films, attitude, and aphorisms ("Too much of a good thing can be wonderful"; "Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?") - continues to reverberate through American popular culture more than fifteen years after her death. In Too Much of a Good Thing, Ramona Curry examines the interplay between West's bawdy, worldly persona and twentieth-century gender and media politics. Although West has remained an important figure, her image has fulfilled varied cultural functions. In the thirties, she was a lightning rod for debates over morality and censorship. In the seventies, the complexity of her portrayal of gender made her a controversial figure for both the gay rights and feminist movements. Curry not only analyzes the symbolic roles West has occupied, arguing that the entertainer represents a carefully orchestrated transgression of race, class, and gender expectations, she also illustrates how icons of pop culture often distill contested social issues, serving diverse and even contradictory political functions. A pithy and innovative look at what Mae West means, Too Much of a Good Thing is must reading for fans, film buffs, and anyone interested in how popular culture evolves and circulates in the United States.

American Hunks

American Hunks PDF Author: David L. Chapman
Publisher: arsenal pulp press
ISBN: 1551524651
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
The "American hunk" is a cultural icon: the image of the chiseled, well-built male body has been promoted and exploited for commercial use for over 125 years, whether in movies, magazines, advertisements, or on consumer products, not only in America but throughout the world. American Hunks is a fascinating collection of images (many in full color) depicting the muscular American male as documented in popular culture from 1860 to 1970. The book, divided into specific historic eras, includes such personalities as bodybuilder Charles Atlas; pioneer weightlifter Eugene Sandow; movie stars like Steve "Hercules" Reeves and Johnny "Tarzan" Weismuller; and publications such as the 1920s-era magazine Physical Culture and the 1950s-era comic book Mr. Muscles. It also touches on the use of masculine, homoerotic imagery to sell political and military might (including American recruitment posters and Nazi propaganda from the 1936 Olympics), and how companies have used buff, near-naked men to sell products from laundry detergent to sacks of flour since the 1920s. The introduction by David L. Chapman offers insightful information on individual images, while the essay by Brett Josef Grubisic places the work in its proper historical context. David L. Chapman has written many books on male photography and bodybuilding, including Comin' at Ya!: The Homoerotic 3-D Photographs of Denny Denfield. Brett Josef Grubisic is author of the novel The Age of Cities and editor of Contra/Diction: New Queer Fiction.