bookshelf

HOLLYWOOD ROYALTY

Name: HOLLYWOOD ROYALTY
Author: Gregory Speck
ISBN: 1-55972-150-2

HEPBURN, DAVIS, STEWART AND FRIENDS RECALL THE SCREEN'S GOLDEN YEARS

by Gregory Speck ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1992

bookshelf

A fictitious dinner party featuring Hollywood ``royalty,'' with dialogue taken from their own words during actual interviews with Speck. From 1985 to 1988, Speck did a series of 24 interviews for Interview magazine, talking with Katherine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, Olivia de Havilland, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, Joan Fontaine, Gregory Peck, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and others. Since many of these celebrities spoke on the same topic, or were led to speak on that topic, Speck has decided to arrange this book not simply as a sheaf of interviews, but by topics, as if one were at a party in which Stewart, Fontaine, Peck, and others all tell about their work with Alfred Hitchcock (a revised picture of Hitch emerges, after his blackening by Donald Spoto) and with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. Bette Davis and others tell about making pictures with William Wyler, and a dozen or more have their memories of working with, of dining with, or of just watching Greta Garbo—memories that, when strung together like this, produce a rainbow of awe and a heartfelt if stagestruck chorus of ``incomparable''s. Geraldine Fitzgerald says of Garbo that she ``liked to try on hats without any other clothes. They used to have these tours through the Metro lot, and one time a tour came into the fitting room. Well, there on a high chair, trying on hats, completely nude, was Garbo....It would have made a wonderful picture.'' Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh get the big treatment, as do Davis, Clark Gable, James Cagney, Marilyn Monroe, David Selznick, Henry Fonda, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Capra, John Ford, Spencer Tracy, and others. Guess who's coming to dinner! A brilliant idea well carried out. (Photographs throughout—not seen.)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1992

ISBN: 1-55972-150-2

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Birch Lane Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1992

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

bookshelf

NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

bookshelf

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

bookshelf

TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

bookshelf

An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.