Jeanine Basinger Knihy

The Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies is a series of volumes that offers a comprehensive overview and brings a fresh perspective to the influential figures, forms, and styles in the development of motion pictures. Each lavishly illustrated volume has been designed to stimulate the interest of the student for whom film is an art, and to stir the memories of the fan for whom "going to the movies" will always be an exhilarating experience. -- Whether dancing merrily down a rain-soaked street, courting Judy Garland or Leslie Caron with a blithe song and infectious grin, or just leaping nimbly into space, Gene Kelly epitomizes joy inconfined for every movie-goer. Jeanine Basinger's profusely illustrated book covers the career of this irresistible song-and-dance man and brings back the treasured moments he has given us for thirty years.

"The real story of Hollywood--as told by such luminaries as Steven Spielberg, Frank Capra, Katharine Hepburn, Alfred Hitchcock, Harold Lloyd, Jordan Peele, and nearly four hundred others--reveals a fresh history of the American movie industry from its beginnings to today"--Dust jacket flap

"Leading film historian Jeanine Basinger reveals, with her trademark wit and zest, the whole story of the Hollywood musical in the most telling, most incisive, most detailed, most gorgeously illustrated book of her long and remarkable career"--Jacket

Gloria Swanson defined what it meant to be a movie star, but her unforgettable role in Sunset Boulevard overshadowed the true story of her life. Now Stephen Michael Shearer sets the record straight in the first in-depth biography of the film legend. Swanson was Hollywood's first successful glamour queen. Her stardom as an actress in the mid-1920s earned her millions of fans and millions of dollars. Realizing her box office value early in her career, she took control of her life. Soon she was not only producing her own films, she was choosing her scripts, selecting her leading men, casting her projects, creating her own fashions, guiding her publicity, and living an extravagant and sometimes extraordinary celebrity lifestyle. She also collected a long line of lovers (including Joseph P. Kennedy) and married men of her choosing (including a French marquis, thus becoming America's first member of "nobility"). As a devoted and loving mother, she managed a quiet success of raising three children. Perhaps most important, as a keen businesswoman she also was able to extend her career more than sixty years. Her astounding comeback as Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard catapulted her back into the limelight. But it also created her long-misunderstood persona, one that this meticulous biography shows was only part of this independent and unparalleled woman.