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Ramon Novarro was Ben-Hur to moviegoers long before Charlton Heston. The 1926 film made Novarro—known as “Ravishing Ramon”—one of Hollywood’s most beloved silent film idols. His bright and varied career, spanning silents, talkies, the concert stage, theater, and television, came to a dark conclusion with his murder in 1968. This comprehensive work details both the private and public aspects of Novarro’s life to return him to his rightful place in film history. Includes a complete filmography and numerous photos.
The first Latin American actor to become a superstar, Ramon Novarro was for years one of Hollywood's top actors. Born Ramon Samaniego to a prominent Mexican family, he arrived in America in 1916, a refugee from civil wars. By the mid-1920s, he had become one of MGM's biggest box office attractions, starring in now-classic films, including The Student Prince, Mata Hari, and the original version of Ben-Hur. He shared the screen with the era's top leading ladies, such as Greta Garbo, Myrna Loy, Joan Crawford, and Norma Shearer, and he became Rudolph Valentino's main rival in the “Latin Lover” category. Yet, despite his considerable professional accomplishments, Novarro's enduring hold on fame stems from his tragic death—his bloodied corpse was found in his house on Halloween 1968 in what has become one of Hollywood's most infamous scandals. A lifelong bachelor, Novarro carefully cultivated his image as a man deeply devoted to his family and to Catholicism. His murder shattered that persona. News reports revealed that the dashing screen hero had not only been gay, but he was dead at the hands of two young, male hustlers. Since then, details of his murder have achieved near mythic proportions, obscuring Novarro's professional legacy. Beyond Paradise presents a full picture of the man who made motion picture history. Including original interviews with Novarro's surviving friends, family, coworkers, and the two men convicted of his murder, this biography provides unique insights into an early Hollywood star—a man whose heart was forever in conflict with his image and whose myth continues to fascinate today.
Haunted Hollywood brings together more than two dozen stories about historic landmarks, theaters, watering holes, hotels, and houses that are haunted by movie stars, television personalities, and other celebrities. Some of the tales are ones the stars themselves confided, while others tell of stars whose spirits have left Hollywood but have shown up to haunt other places around America.
Ghosts and Legends of Hollywood by Brian Clune Pdf
Cursed awards, haunted estates, and deadly sets. Hollywood is supposed to be the place where dreams come true, but it's also where nightmares come to life. Spirits haunt the halls of renowned studios, legendary cafes, and lavish estates, while rumors of curses lurk in the shadows of the rich and famous. It's said that stars like James Dean, Carrie Fisher, and Prince once predicted their own deaths, while slain screenwriter Paul Bern tried in vain to warn Sharon Tate about her own fate. Ghosts reportedly linger in the corners of the El Coyote Café and the Falcon Lair boasts sightings of Rudolph Valentino long after his death. Join author and paranormal historian Brian Clune for a star-studded tour of the dark side of Hollywood.
Between 1917 and 1941, Hollywood studios, gossip columnists and novelists featured an unprecedented number of homosexuals, cross-dressers, and adulterers in their depictions of the glamorous Hollywood lifestyle. Actress Greta Garbo defined herself as the ultimate serial bachelorette. Screenwriter Mercedes De Acosta engaged in numerous lesbian relationships with the Hollywood elite. And countless homosexual designers brazenly picked up men in the hottest Hollywood nightclubs. Hollywood's image grew as a place of sexual abandon. This book demonstrates how studios and the media used images of these sexually adventurous characters to promote the industry and appeal to the prurient interests of their audiences.
Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine by Anthony Slide Pdf
The fan magazine has often been viewed simply as a publicity tool, a fluffy exercise in self-promotion by the film industry. But as an arbiter of good and bad taste, as a source of knowledge, and as a gateway to the fabled land of Hollywood and its stars, the American fan magazine represents a fascinating and indispensable chapter in journalism and popular culture. Anthony Slide's Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine provides the definitive history of this artifact. It charts the development of the fan magazine from the golden years when Motion Picture Story Magazine and Photoplay first appeared in 1911 to its decline into provocative headlines and titillation in the 1960s and afterward. Slide discusses how the fan magazines dealt with gossip and innuendo, and how they handled nationwide issues such as Hollywood scandals of the 1920s, World War II, the blacklist, and the death of President Kennedy. Fan magazines thrived in the twentieth century, and they presented the history of an industry in a unique, sometimes accurate, and always entertaining style. This major cultural history includes a new interview with 1970s media personality Rona Barrett, as well as original commentary from a dozen editors and writers. Also included is a chapter on contributions to the fan magazines from well-known writers such as Theodore Dreiser and e. e. cummings. The book is enhanced by an appendix documenting some 268 American fan magazines and includes detailed publication histories.
Scandals, Secrets and Swansongs by Boze Hadleigh Pdf
Behind the images and facades of stars whose fame and fascination continue to outlive them lies the naked truth. How Hollywood stars lived, worked and died is often more dramatic than their films. When we talk about movie stars we usually dwell not on their movies but their personalities or what happened to them or supposedly happened. Their lives interest us even more than their roles, especially, let’s be honest, their mishaps and tragedies, including early deaths. Their scandals define several movie stars, and Hollywood secrets remain a true-gossip staple, particularly sexual secrets. Scandals, Secrets & Swansongs takes a close-up, no-holds-barred look at 101 stars—at their surprising, often shocking, sometimes sordid but always entertaining real selves and lives.
From the day in 1893 that Gigi and Hobart Johnstone Whitley stood on a hill overlooking the area they christened “Hollywood,” to modern-day tales of murder and mayhem, It Happened in Hollywood recounts in thirty short episodes the behind-the-scenes events that shaped Tinseltown.
A globetrotting, time-bending, wildly entertaining masterpiece hailed by the New York Times Book Review as "Audaciously well written...the book I was raving about to my friends before I'd even finished it." Publishers Weekly raved that "with near-universal appeal . . . Seay’s debut novel is a true delight, a big, beautiful cabinet of wonders that is by turns an ominous modern thriller, a supernatural mystery, and an enchanting historical adventure story." Set in three cities in three eras, The Mirror Thief calls to mind David Mitchell and Umberto Eco in its mix of entertainment and literary bravado. The core story is set in Venice in the sixteenth century, when the famed makers of Venetian glass were perfecting one of the old world's most wondrous inventions: the mirror. An object of glittering yet fearful fascination—was it reflecting simple reality, or something more spiritually revealing?—the Venetian mirrors were state of the art technology, and subject to industrial espionage by desirous sultans and royals world-wide. But for any of the development team to leave the island was a crime punishable by death. One man, however—a world-weary war hero with nothing to lose—has a scheme he thinks will allow him to outwit the city's terrifying enforcers of the edict, the ominous Council of Ten . . . Meanwhile, in two other Venices—Venice Beach, California, circa 1958, and the Venice casino in Las Vegas, circa today—two other schemers launch similarly dangerous plans to get away with a secret . . . All three stories will weave together into a spell-binding tour-de-force that is impossible to put down—an old-fashioned, stay-up-all-night novel that, in the end, returns the reader to a stunning conclusion in the original Venice . . . and the bedazzled sense of having read a truly original and thrilling work of art.
Set amid descriptions of the unimaginable changes that affected America between Hughes's birth in 1905 and his death in 1976, this book gives an insider's perspective about what money can buy, and what it can't.
The Mammoth Book of Celebrity Murders by Chris Ellis Pdf
Murder played out in the spotlight of maximum publicity Does celebrityhood preclude a fair trial? Can the famous get away with behaviour off limits to most ordinary mortals? Here in a fascinating diagnosis of the shifting nature of high-profile justice is the fullest ever analysis of infamous and celebrity murder cases that have come to trial. This A-list selection looks in depth at 25 notable murders involving those who live their lives in the full beam of press and media headlights, including film starlets, tv actors, music legends, comedians, fashion moguls, movie directors, playwrights and aristocracy from the start of the twentieth century to the present day. All, from Fatty Arbuckle to John Lennon, are well known, and in each instance the story of their death is retold and the degree to which fame and its entourage played their part in death's final outcome examined. Among the cases included are: o The investigation surrounding the death of American film and TV star Robert Blake's wife, shot in his car after they dined together in a restaurant o The murder of silent-film star Ramon Navarro in his own home by gay lovers o The death of soul legend Marvin Gaye, shot by his own father during a family row o TV personality Jill Dando's shocking and untimely murder, gunned down on in broad daylight on her doorstep o Italy's trial of Patrizia Gucci for the murder of her husband, Maurizio, inheritor of the fashion family's fabulous fortune. The Mammoth Book of Celebrity Murder provides the clearest analysis yet of murder played out in the spotlight of maximum publicity.
The First Hollywood Musicals by Edwin M. Bradley Pdf
As Hollywood entered the sound era, it was rightly determined that the same public fascinated by the novelty of the talkie would be dazzled by the spectacle of a song and dance film. In 1929 and 1930, film musicals became the industry's most lucrative genre--until the greedy studios almost killed the genre by glutting the market with too many films that looked and sounded like clones of each other. From the classy movies such as Sunnyside Up and Hallelujah! to failures such as The Lottery Bride and Howdy Broadway, this filmography details 171 early Hollywood musicals. Arranged by subgenre (backstagers, operettas, college films, and stage-derived musical comedies), the entries include studio, release date, cast and credits, running time, a complete song list, any recordings spawned by the film, Academy Award nominations and winners, and availability on video or laserdisc. These data are followed by a plot synopsis, including analysis of the film's place in the genre's history. Includes over 90 photographs.
This film reference covers 646 silent motion pictures, starting with Eadweard Muybridge’s initial motion photography experiments in 1877 and even including The Taxi Dancer (1996). Among the genres included are classics, dramas, Westerns, light comedies, documentaries and even poorly produced early pornography. Masterpieces such as Joan the Woman (1916), Intolerance (1916) and Faust (1926) can be found, as well as rare titles that have not received critical attention since their original releases. Each entry provides the most complete credits possible, a full description, critical commentary, and an evaluation of the film’s unique place in motion picture history. Birth dates, death dates, and other facts are provided for the directors and players where available, with a selection of photographs of those individuals. The work is thoroughly indexed.