Butterfly McQueen Remembered

Butterfly McQueen Remembered
Author: Stephen Bourne
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2008
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780810860186

From her memorable role in Gone With the Wind to her last big screen appearance opposite Harrison Ford in The Mosquito Coast, the details of McQueen's life are captured in this book.

Notable New Yorkers of Manhattan’s Upper West Side

Notable New Yorkers of Manhattan’s Upper West Side
Author: Jim Mackin
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
Total Pages: 464
Release: 2020-11-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0823289311

Nearly 600 captivating stories of notable former residents of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, some famous, some forgotten What do Humphrey Bogart and Patty Hill (co-author of “Happy Birthday,” the most popular song of all time) have in common? Both of them once lived in the neighborhood of Morningside Heights and Bloomingdale, a strip of land that runs from the 90s to 125th Street, between the Hudson River and Central Park. Spanning hundreds of years, Notable New Yorkers of Manhattan’s Upper West Side is a compilation of stories of nearly 600 former residents who once called Manhattan’s Upper West Side home. Profiling a rare selection of wildly diverse people who shaped the character of the area, author Jim Mackin introduces readers to its fascinating residents—some famous, such as George and Ira Gershwin and Thurgood Marshall, and some forgotten, such as Harriet Brooks, Augustus Meyers, and Elinor Smith. Brief biographies reveal intriguing facts about this group, which include scientists, explorers, historians, journalists, artists, entertainers, aviators, public officials, lawyers, judges, and some in a category too unique to label. This collection also promotes accomplished women who have been forgotten and spotlights The Old Community, a tight-knit African American enclave that included such talented and accomplished residents as Marcus Garvey, Billie Holiday, and Butterfly McQueen. The book is divided into five geographical sections: the West 90s, the West 100s, the West 110s, the West 120s, and Riverside Drive. Addresses are arranged in ascending order within each section, first by street number and then by street address number. While the focus is on people, the book includes an eclectic collection of interesting facts and colorful stories about the neighborhood itself, including the 9th Avenue El, Little Coney Island, and, notoriously, one of the most dangerous streets in the city, as well as songs and movies that were written and filmed in the neighborhood. Notable New Yorkers of Manhattan’s Upper West Side provides a unique overview of the people who shaped the neighborhood through their presence and serves as a guide to those who deserve to be recognized and remembered.

Shuffling to Ignominy

Shuffling to Ignominy
Author: Champ Clark
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 159
Release: 2005
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0595371256

"Stepin Fetchit" ...two words that have entered our language, signifying the ultimate in negative racial stereotype. Between 1927 and 1975, Stepin Fetchit, born Lincoln Perry in 1902, appeared in over 40 films. He was the first Black actor to receive featured credit in a motion picture. He was the first Black actor to sign a long-term contract with a Hollywood studio. He was the first Black actor to drive through the front gates of a Hollywood studio...with a chauffer at the wheel. He was, in Fetchit's own words, "The first Black actor universally acclaimed a star by the public." This at a time when, "No White man had the idea of making a Negro a star." Stepin Fetchit was indeed the first African-American movie star. How, then, did Stepin Fetchit come to represent all that is bad about race in America? And who was the man behind this mask of a name? Here, author Champ Clark reveals the true facts of Fetchit/Perry's controversial life and career. Going beyond archival material, Clark draws from his conversations with the actor's own family, friends and co-stars. In addition, a newly discovered eight-hour interview allows the real Lincoln Perry to finally speak for himself. Shuffling to Ignominy: The Tragedy of Stepin Fetchit is a troubling tale that reflects D.E.B. DuBois' assertion that, "The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line." -Sidney Poitier says, "Stepin Fetchit paved the way."-

The Sound of Silence

The Sound of Silence
Author: Michael G. Ankerich
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2011-03-11
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 078646383X

Marion Shilling began her career as a silent film ingenue for MGM and went on to play heroines in Westerns of the 1930s. Stage actress Esther Muir made the transition from Broadway to Hollywood just as talkies became popular. Hugh Allan was a leading man in the last years of the silents only to leave the film business in 1930 because of the uncertainty surrounding his transition to sound films and his disgust with studio politics. These three performers and thirteen others (Barbara Barondess, Thomas Beck, Mary Brian, Pauline Curley, Billie Dove, Edith Fellows, Rose Hobart, William Janney, Marcia Mae Jones, Barbara Kent, Anita Page, Lupita Tovar, and Barbara Weeks) reminisce here about Hollywood and the movie business as it made the transition.

The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture

The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture
Author: Allison Graham
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 462
Release: 2011-09-12
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 0807869139

This volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture examines how mass media have shaped popular perceptions of the South--and how the South has shaped the history of mass media. An introductory overview by Allison Graham and Sharon Monteith is followed by 40 thematic essays and 132 topical articles that examine major trends and seminal moments in film, television, radio, press, and Internet history. Among topics explored are the southern media boom, beginning with the Christian Broadcast Network and CNN; popular movies, television shows, and periodicals that have shaped ideas about the region, including Gone with the Wind, The Beverly Hillbillies, Roots, and Southern Living; and southern media celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Truman Capote, and Stephen Colbert. The volume details the media's involvement in southern history, from depictions of race in the movies to news coverage of the civil rights movement and Hurricane Katrina. Taken together, these entries reveal and comment on the ways in which mass media have influenced, maintained, and changed the idea of a culturally unique South.

Hollywood at the Intersection of Race and Identity

Hollywood at the Intersection of Race and Identity
Author: Delia Malia Caparoso Konzett
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 371
Release: 2019-11-15
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0813599318

Explores the ways Hollywood represents race, gender, class, and nationality at the intersection of aesthetics and ideology and its productive tensions

Mae Murray

Mae Murray
Author: Michael G. Ankerich
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2013-01-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0813136911

Mae Murray (1885--1965), popularly known as "the girl with the bee-stung lips," was a fiery presence in silent-era Hollywood. Renowned for her classic beauty and charismatic presence, she rocketed to stardom as a dancer in the Ziegfeld Follies, moving across the country to star in her first film, To Have and to Hold, in 1916. An instant hit with audiences, Murray soon became one of the most famous names in Tinseltown. However, Murray's moment in the spotlight was fleeting. The introduction of talkies, a string of failed marriages, a serious career blunder, and a number of bitter legal battles left the former star in a state of poverty and mental instability that she would never overcome. In this intriguing biography, Michael G. Ankerich traces Murray's career from the footlights of Broadway to the klieg lights of Hollywood, recounting her impressive body of work on the stage and screen and charting her rapid ascent to fame and decline into obscurity. Featuring exclusive interviews with Murray's only son, Daniel, and with actor George Hamilton, whom the actress closely befriended at the end of her life, Ankerich restores this important figure in early film to the limelight.

CCNY Made

CCNY Made
Author: Ronnyjane Goldsmith
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2023-10-02
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1439679592

Everyone loves an underdog who succeeds against the odds. CCNY Made. Profiles in Grit is the story of City College of New York alumni who beat the odds to reach the pinnacle of their professions and in the process transformed our world. Here are just a few: Andrew Grove, hearing impaired and a survivor of Nazi occupation and Communist rule became the visionary CEO of Intel Corporation, the manufacturer of the semiconductor chip found in most personal computers today. Yip Harburg, the son of immigrants, wrote the lyrics to countless music standards, including "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," one of the most celebrated songs of all times. Jonas Salk, facing antisemitism and the rebuke of the scientific community, developed the Salk Vaccine that irradicated polio from the face of the earth. Felix Frankfurter, who came to America at 12 speaking no English, would be appointed a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and help write the unanimous opinion in Brown v. the Board of Education declaring school segregation in the United States illegal. strongIn "CCNY Made. Profiles In Grit," the stories of CCNY alumni are recounted who exemplify the promise of Townsend Harris, founder of CCNY and The Ephebic Oath affirmed by graduating students every year. "We will strive unceasingly to quicken the public's better, of civic duty; and thus, in all these ways we will strive to transmit this city not only not less, but greater, better and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us."

Gone With the Wind

Gone With the Wind
Author: Helen Taylor
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 140
Release: 2019-07-25
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1838715983

Gone with the Wind (1939) is one of the greatest films of all time - the best-known of Hollywood's Golden Age and a work that has, in popular imagination, defined southern American history for three-quarters of a century. Drawing on three decades of pertinent research, Helen Taylor charts the film's production history, reception and legacy.