A fond look at the genesis and growing pains of the world’s foremost film organization.
A history of the world’s most famous movie awards and the organization that controls them.
The Oscar is “the single best-known work of twentieth-century sculpture,” yet “the organization that dispenses those awards—the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—has never been well understood,” writes Davis, who was the Academy’s executive director for more than 20 years. He aims to improve that understanding with this book. The author focuses on the Academy’s first 30 years, from its founding in 1927 at the instigation of Louis B. Mayer, who saw the nascent Academy “as a means of elevating the public perception of film to the level of long-acknowledged art forms,” through the mid-1950s, when Academy governors worried about the threat from “the just-stirring young giant of television.” Davis covers a variety of significant events in the organization’s history, including battles with unions and guilds, the appointment of Postmaster General Will Hays to bring “wholesomeness” to the industry after its 1920s scandals, and the period in 1933 when the Academy “was essentially broke.” Technical and financial details will seem dry to anyone uninterested in dues and expenses, bylaws, building refurbishments, and the like. The best sections are those pertaining to celebrities and the Oscar itself. Davis cites competing stories of how the Oscar got its name, the most entertaining of which is Bette Davis’ claim (no relation) that she gave it her husband’s middle name because the statuette and her husband had similar backsides. Many stories are satisfyingly ribald, as when Davis notes the irony of Hays being set up in a building that had “pointedly erotic postures and the full-frontal nudity of both sexes” on the fire-escape frieze, with figures that are clearly making a film. “There is no way,” writes the author, “for a modern viewer to avoid the impression that the subject is a porn shoot in the Valley.”
A fond look at the genesis and growing pains of the world’s foremost film organization.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-68458-119-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Brandeis Univ.
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
