The Life of Dick Haymes

The Life of Dick Haymes
Author: Ruth Prigozy
Publisher:
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2020-03-18
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781496828170

A biography of the superstar crooner, his rise, fall, and struggle for a second act

The Music Men

The Music Men
Author: Richard Grudens
Publisher: celebrity profiles publilshing
Total Pages: 252
Release: 1998
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781575790978

As a companion to The Best Damn Trumpet Player and The Song Stars, this is the last of a trilogy, with a foreword by Bob Hope, explores the world of male vocalists. Richard Grudens initiates a retrospective tribute to the early singers Al Jolson and Bing Crosby, Fats Waller and Nat King Cole. His heart-warming interviews or vignettes with living-legend artists, Frank Sinatra, Jack Jones, Vic Damone, Steve Lawrence, Tony Martin, Johnny Mathis, Guy Mitchell, Eddie Fisher, Andy Williams and Don Cornell are revealing, anecdotal gems. And who could forget Dick Haymes, The Ink Spots, Ray Eberle and Bob Eberly, and Billy Eckstine. Features: Donald Mills and the Mills Brothers, Sam Arlen talks of his father, Harold Arlen, and a look at Lou Lanza, Philadelphia's new singing star. The author provides a special insight into the lives of the Music Men and provides over 60 exceptional photographs to enrich your reading pleasure.

LIFE

LIFE
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 176
Release: 1951-09-24
Genre:
ISBN:

LIFE Magazine is the treasured photographic magazine that chronicled the 20th Century. It now lives on at LIFE.com, the largest, most amazing collection of professional photography on the internet. Users can browse, search and view photos of today’s people and events. They have free access to share, print and post images for personal use.

A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers

A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers
Author: Will Friedwald
Publisher: Pantheon
Total Pages: 833
Release: 2010
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0375421491

An extensive biographical and critical survey of more than 300 jazz and popular singers is comprised of provocative, opinionated essays that incorporate the views of peers, fans and critics while assessing key movements and genres.

Going My Way

Going My Way
Author: Ruth Prigozy
Publisher: University Rochester Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2007
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781580462617

A study of the singer/actor's art and of his centrality to the history of twentieth-century music, film, and the entertainment industry. It uses a range of perspectives to explore Crosby's achievements. It also includes tributes and reminiscences and explores his accomplishments as an actor, businessman, and radio and television performer.

I Don't Sound Like Nobody

I Don't Sound Like Nobody
Author: Albin Zak
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2012-10-04
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0472035126

A definitive study of the most important decade in post-World War II popular music history

All I Want Is Loving You

All I Want Is Loving You
Author: Steve Bergsman
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2023-10-30
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1496848802

In All I Want Is Loving You: Popular Female Singers of the 1950s, author Steve Bergsman focuses on the white, female artists of the 1950s, a time that predated the chart-topping girl groups of the early 1960s. These popular performers, many of whom graduated out of the big bands of the 1940s, impacted popular music in a huge way. As the last bastion of traditional pop and the last sirens of swing, they undeniably shined in the spotlight. Yet these singers’ fame dimmed relatively quickly with the advent of rock ’n’ roll. A fortunate few, like Doris Day, Patti Page, Peggy Lee, and Debbie Reynolds, experienced some of their biggest hits in the late 1950s, and Eydie Gormé broke out in the 1960s. The luckiest, including Dinah Shore and Rosemary Clooney, ventured to television with varying degrees of success. Others would become major attractions at nightclubs in Las Vegas or, like Teresa Brewer, shift into the jazz world. Though the moment did not last, these performers were best-selling singers, darlings of the disk jockeys, and the frenetic heartbeat of fan clubs during their heyday. In a companion volume, Bergsman has written the history of African American women singers of the same era. These Black musicians transitioned more easily as a new form of music, rock ’n’ roll, skyrocketed in popularity. In both books, Bergsman reintroduces readers to these talented singers, offering a thorough look at their work and turning up the volume on their legacy.

Mary Wickes

Mary Wickes
Author: Steve Taravella
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2013-05-17
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1604739061

Moviegoers know her as the housekeeper in White Christmas, the nurse in Now, Voyager, and the crotchety choir director in Sister Act. This book, filled with never-published behind-the-scenes stories from Broadway and Hollywood, chronicles the life of a complicated woman who brought an assortment of unforgettable nurses, nuns, and housekeepers to life on screen and stage. Wickes (1910–1995) was part of some of the most significant moments in film, television, theatre, and radio history. On that frightening night in 1938 when Orson Welles recorded his earth-shattering “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast, Wickes was waiting on another soundstage for him for a rehearsal of Danton's Death, oblivious to the havoc taking place outside. When silent film star Gloria Swanson decided to host a live talk show on this new thing called television, Wickes was one of her first guests. When Lucille Ball made one of her first TV appearances, Wickes appeared with her—and became Lucy's closest friend for more than thirty years. Wickes was the original Mary Poppins, long before an umbrella carried Julie Andrews across the rooftops of London. And when Disney began creating 101 Dalmatians, Wickes was asked to pose for animators trying to capture the evil of Cruella De Vil. The pinched-face actress who cracked wise by day became a confidante to some of the day's biggest stars by night, including Bette Davis and Doris Day. Bolstered by interviews with almost three hundred people, and by private correspondence from Ball, Davis, Day, and others, Mary Wickes: I Know I've Seen That Face Before includes scores of never-before-shared anecdotes about Hollywood and Broadway. In the process, it introduces readers to a complex woman who sustained a remarkable career for sixty years.

If this was Happiness

If this was Happiness
Author: Barbara Leaming
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Total Pages: 312
Release: 1989
Genre: Motion picture actors and actresses
ISBN: 9780297796305

Of All the Gin Joints

Of All the Gin Joints
Author: Mark Bailey
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2014-09-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1616203986

True tales of celebrity hijinks are served up with an equal measure of Hollywood history, movie-star mayhem, and a frothy mix of forty cocktail recipes. Humphrey Bogart got himself arrested for protecting his drinking buddies, who happened to be a pair of stuffed pandas. Ava Gardner would water-ski to the set of Night of the Iguana holding a towline in one hand and a cocktail in the other. Barely legal Natalie Wood would let Dennis Hopper seduce her if he provided a bathtub full of champagne. Bing Crosby’s ill-mannered antics earned him the nickname “Binge Crosby.” And sweet Mary Pickford stashed liquor in hydrogen peroxide bottles during Prohibition. From the frontier days of silent film up to the wild auteur period of the 1970s, Mark Bailey has pillaged the vaults of Hollywood history and lore to dig up the true—and often surprising—stories of seventy of our most beloved actors, directors, and screenwriters at their most soused. Bite-size biographies are followed by ribald anecdotes and memorable quotes. If a star had a favorite cocktail, the recipe is included. Films with the most outrageous booze-soaked stories, like Apocalypse Now, From Here to Eternity, and The Misfits, are featured, along with the legendary watering holes of the day (and the recipes for their signature drinks). Edward Hemingway’s portraits complete this spirited look at America’s most iconic silver-screen legends. “This book is like being at the best dinner party in the world. And I thought I was the first person to put a bar in my closet. I was clearly born during the wrong era.” —Chelsea Handler