The Men Who Made Hollywood

The Men Who Made Hollywood PDF Author: Michael Freedland
Publisher: Aurum
ISBN: 9781906217631
Category : Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
First or second generation Jewish immigrants who had often worked their way up from poor backgrounds, the Hollywood Moguls were remarkable entrepreneurs, the likes of whom will probably never be seen again. Sam Goldwyn, Jack and Harry Warner, Louis B. Mayer, Harry Cohn, and Zukor and Lasky ruled the movie empires in the golden age of Hollywood. These Tinseltown gods liked to be seen at race meetings as proof of their social standing, were loyal to their wives but made good use of the casting couch, were Jewish but more American than apple pie, and the stories of their rise to the top are as fascinating as they are entertaining. When Harry Cohn, iron dictator of Columbia Pictures, died, a rabbi was asked if there was anything good that could be said of him "Sure," he replied, "he’s dead." Louis B. Mayer, of MGM fame, regarded himself as head of a big family—if one of his "children" was out of line, his solution was to punch them in the jaw. Jack Warner had a determination that the studio bearing his name should product quality products. Brother Harry looked upon things differently: "I don’t want it good," he once said, "I want it Tuesday." This is a fascinating look at the men who really did make Hollywood and, in doing so, created the first and arguably most important art form of the 20th century. Based on interviews with family members, actors, producers, and directors this is a frank and detailed portrayal of the extraordinary lives of these powerbrokers, from their backgrounds and motivations to their love lives and quarrels.

The Men Who Made Hollywood

The Men Who Made Hollywood PDF Author: Michael Freedland
Publisher: Aurum
ISBN: 9781906217631
Category : Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
First or second generation Jewish immigrants who had often worked their way up from poor backgrounds, the Hollywood Moguls were remarkable entrepreneurs, the likes of whom will probably never be seen again. Sam Goldwyn, Jack and Harry Warner, Louis B. Mayer, Harry Cohn, and Zukor and Lasky ruled the movie empires in the golden age of Hollywood. These Tinseltown gods liked to be seen at race meetings as proof of their social standing, were loyal to their wives but made good use of the casting couch, were Jewish but more American than apple pie, and the stories of their rise to the top are as fascinating as they are entertaining. When Harry Cohn, iron dictator of Columbia Pictures, died, a rabbi was asked if there was anything good that could be said of him "Sure," he replied, "he’s dead." Louis B. Mayer, of MGM fame, regarded himself as head of a big family—if one of his "children" was out of line, his solution was to punch them in the jaw. Jack Warner had a determination that the studio bearing his name should product quality products. Brother Harry looked upon things differently: "I don’t want it good," he once said, "I want it Tuesday." This is a fascinating look at the men who really did make Hollywood and, in doing so, created the first and arguably most important art form of the 20th century. Based on interviews with family members, actors, producers, and directors this is a frank and detailed portrayal of the extraordinary lives of these powerbrokers, from their backgrounds and motivations to their love lives and quarrels.

Col. William N. Selig, the Man Who Invented Hollywood

Col. William N. Selig, the Man Who Invented Hollywood PDF Author: Andrew A. Erish
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 029274269X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
All histories of Hollywood are wrong. Why? Two words: Colonel Selig. This early pioneer laid the foundation for the movie industry that we know today. Active from 1896 to 1938, William N. Selig was responsible for an amazing series of firsts, including the first two-reel narrative film and the first two-hour narrative feature made in America; the first American movie serial with cliffhanger endings; the first westerns filmed in the West with real cowboys and Indians; the creation of the jungle-adventure genre; the first horror film in America; the first successful American newsreel (made in partnership with William Randolph Hearst); and the first permanent film studio in Los Angeles. Selig was also among the first to cultivate extensive international exhibition of American films, which created a worldwide audience and contributed to American domination of the medium. In this book, Andrew Erish delves into the virtually untouched Selig archive at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library to tell the fascinating story of this unjustly forgotten film pioneer. He traces Selig’s career from his early work as a traveling magician in the Midwest, to his founding of the first movie studio in Los Angeles in 1909, to his landmark series of innovations that still influence the film industry. As Erish recounts the many accomplishments of the man who first recognized that Southern California is the perfect place for moviemaking, he convincingly demonstrates that while others have been credited with inventing Hollywood, Colonel Selig is actually the one who most deserves that honor.

Dangerous Men

Dangerous Men PDF Author: Mick LaSalle
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1466876042
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Using the same mix of accessibility and insider knowledge he used so successfully in Complicated Women, author and film critic Mick LaSalle now turns his attention to the men of the pre-Code Hollywood era. The five years between 1929 and mid-1934 was a period of loosened censorship that finally ended with the imposition of a harsh Production Code that would, for the next thirty-four years, censor much of the life and honesty out of American movies. Dangerous Men takes a close look at the images of manhood during this pre-Code era, which coincided with an interesting time for men--the culmination of a generation-long transformation in the masculine ideal. By the late twenties, the tumult of a new century had made the nineteenth century's notion of the ideal man seem like a repressed stuffed shirt, a deluded optimist. The smiling, confident hero of just a few years before fell out of favor, and the new heroes who emerged were gangsters, opportunists, sleazy businessmen, shifty lawyers, shell-shocked soldiers--men whose existence threatened the status quo. In this book, LaSalle highlights such household names as James Cagney, Clark Gable, Edward G. Robinson, Maurice Chevalier, Spencer Tracy, and Gary Cooper, along with lesser-known ones such as Richard Barthelmess, Lee Tracy, Robert Montgomery, and the magnificent Warren William. Together they represent a vision of manhood more exuberant and contentious--and more humane--than anything that has followed on the American screen.

An Empire of Their Own

An Empire of Their Own PDF Author: Neal Gabler
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 030777371X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 537

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Book Description
A provocative, original, and richly entertaining group biography of the Jewish immigrants who were the moving forces behind the creation of America's motion picture industry. The names Harry Cohn, William Fox, Carl Laemmle, Louis B. Mayer, Jack and Harry Warner, and Adolph Zucker are giants in the history of contemporary Hollywood, outsiders who dared to invent their own vision of the American Dream. Even to this day, the American values defined largely by the movies of these émigrés endure in American cinema and culture. Who these men were, how they came to dominate Hollywood, and what they gained and lost in the process is the exhilarating story of An Empire of Their Own.

Charles Walters

Charles Walters PDF Author: Brent Phillips
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813147220
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 524

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Book Description
A “lively biography” of the director who choreographed Fred Astaire, Debbie Reynolds and more: “a real backstager” on the making of Hollywood musicals (Wall Street Journal). From the trolley scene in Meet Me in St. Louis to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers's last dance on the silver screen to Judy Garland's tuxedo-clad performance of "Get Happy", Charles Walters staged the iconic musical sequences of Hollywood's golden age. The Academy Award-nominated director and choreographer showcased the talents of stars such as Gene Kelly, Doris Day, and Frank Sinatra—yet Walters's name often goes unrecognized today. In the first full-length biography of Walters, Brent Phillips chronicles the artist's career from his days as a Broadway performer to his successes at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Phillips takes readers behind the scenes of beloved musicals including Easter Parade, Lili, and High Society. He also examines the director's uncredited work on films like Gigi, and discusses his contributions to musical theater and American popular culture. This revealing book also considers Walters's personal life and explores how he navigated the industry as an openly gay man. Drawing on unpublished oral histories, correspondence, and new interviews, this biography offers an entertaining and important new look at an exciting era in Hollywood history.

The Man Who Seduced Hollywood

The Man Who Seduced Hollywood PDF Author: B. James Gladstone
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613745826
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
In Hollywood history, no other lawyer has achieved the movie star–like fame and glamour that Greg Bautzer enjoyed. This revealing biography tells, for the first time, the amazing story of a self-made man who for 50 years used his irresistible charm and prodigious legal talent to dominate the courtrooms, boardrooms, and bedrooms of Hollywood. Columnists of the 1930s through 1950s dubbed him “Hollywood Bachelor Number One,” and for good reason. His long-term relationships and momentary conquests were a who’s who of leading ladies. Through exclusive interviews with those who knew him best, the book uncovers the inner workings of not only Bautzer the high-powered Hollywood lawyer—whose clients included billionaire Howard Hughes—but Bautzer the man.

The Man Who Made the Movies

The Man Who Made the Movies PDF Author: Vanda Krefft
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062680676
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 1501

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Book Description
A riveting story of ambition, greed, and genius unfolding at the dawn of modern America. This landmark biography brings into focus a fascinating brilliant entrepreneur—like Steve Jobs or Walt Disney, a true American visionary—who risked everything to realize his bold dream of a Hollywood empire. Although a major Hollywood studio still bears William Fox’s name, the man himself has mostly been forgotten by history, even written off as a failure. Now, in this fascinating biography, Vanda Krefft corrects the record, explaining why Fox’s legacy is central to the history of Hollywood. At the heart of William Fox’s life was the myth of the American Dream. His story intertwines the fate of the nineteenth-century immigrants who flooded into New York, the city’s vibrant and ruthless gilded age history, and the birth of America’s movie industry amid the dawn of the modern era. Drawing on a decade of original research, The Man Who Made the Movies offers a rich, compelling look at a complex man emblematic of his time, one of the most fascinating and formative eras in American history. Growing up in Lower East Side tenements, the eldest son of impoverished Hungarian immigrants, Fox began selling candy on the street. That entrepreneurial ambition eventually grew one small Brooklyn theater into a $300 million empire of deluxe studios and theaters that rivaled those of Adolph Zukor, Marcus Loew, and the Warner brothers, and launched stars such as Theda Bara. Amid the euphoric roaring twenties, the early movie moguls waged a fierce battle for control of their industry. A fearless risk-taker, Fox won and was hailed as a genius—until a confluence of circumstances, culminating with the 1929 stock market crash, led to his ruin.

The Movie Moguls

The Movie Moguls PDF Author: Philip French
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
"In the early 1890s the cinema was a peepshow novelty in penny arcades. Thirty years later it was America's fourth largest industry, with its production center in Hollywood. This vast new business was dominated by eight major corporations, which not only made the movies but distributed and exhibited them in their own chains of movie theaters across the nation and around the globe. And these films helped shape the tastes and behavior of several generations the world over. For the most part, movie companies were created by European immigrants who arrived penniless in the United States during the last two decades of the nineteenth century--men such as Louis B. Mayer, Samuel Goldwyn, Adolph Zukor, William Fox, the Warner Brothers. The Movie Moguls looks at the backgrounds, characters, and careers of these extraordinary men."--From dust jacket.

Conversations with the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood's Golden Age at the American Film Institute

Conversations with the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood's Golden Age at the American Film Institute PDF Author: George Stevens, Jr.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307518124
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 734

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Book Description
ONE OF THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER'S 100 GREATEST FILM BOOKS OF ALL TIME • The first book to bring together interviews of master moviemakers from the American Film Institute’s renowned seminars, Conversations with the Great Moviemakers, offers an unmatched history of American cinema in the words of its greatest practitioners. Here are the incomparable directors Frank Capra, Elia Kazan, King Vidor, David Lean, Fritz Lang (“I learned only from bad films”), William Wyler, and George Stevens; renowned producers and cinematographers; celebrated screenwriters Ray Bradbury and Ernest Lehman; as well as the immortal Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini (“Making a movie is a mathematical operation. It’s absolutely impossible to improvise”). Taken together, these conversations offer uniquely intimate access to the thinking, the wisdom, and the genius of cinema’s most talented pioneers.

The Father of Hollywood

The Father of Hollywood PDF Author: Gaelyn Whitley Keith
Publisher: Tate Publishing
ISBN: 1616634758
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
The life of visionary real estate developer HJ Whitley is told by his great-granddaughter, based on his letters, memoirs and reminiscences of his wife, and other documentation.