Books in the Hollywood Legends Series series

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 "e;War of the Worlds"e; 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.

Sam Goldwyn's career spanned almost the entire history of Hollywood. The Search for Sam Goldwyn locates the real Sam Goldwyn and shatters the "hostile conspiracy of silence" that protected his legend. In writing Goldwyn's story, Carol Easton has given us a fine examination of "the civilization known as Hollywood" and how Goldwyn himself shaped that culture.

There was a time when no one would have left Dick Haymes out of the top class of his contemporaries such as Frank Sinatra and Perry Como. But now Haymes is known only to ardent fans and music historians. Ruth Prigozy uses over forty interviews with singers, musicians, composers, arrangers, and family members to explore his life.

Van Johnson's dazzling smile, shock of red hair, and suntanned freckled cheeks made him a movie-star icon. Among teenaged girls in the 1940s, he was popularized as the bobbysoxer's heartthrob. This solid, thoroughly researched biography traces the career and influence of a favourite star and narrates a fascinating, sometimes troubled life story.

Best known as the woman who "ran MGM", Ida Koverman served as talent scout, mentor, executive secretary, and confidant to American movie mogul Louis B. Mayer for twenty-five years. This book offers the first full account of Koverman's life and the story of how she became a formidable politico and a creative powerhouse during Hollywood's Golden Era.

For this first dual portrait of the Mankiewicz brothers, Sydney Ladensohn Stern draws on interviews, letters, diaries, and other documents still in private hands to provide a uniquely intimate behind-the-scenes chronicle of the lives, loves, work, and relationship between these complex men.

Claudette Colbert's mixture of beauty, sophistication, wit, and vivacity quickly made her one of the film industry's most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1930s and 1940s. Along with discussing how she left her mark on Broadway, Hollywood, radio, and television, this book explores Colbert's lifelong interests in painting, fashion design, and commercial art.

Throughout the 1940s, Zachary Scott (1914-1965) was the model for sophisticated, debonair villains in American film. His best-known roles include a mysterious criminal in The Mask of Dimitrios and the indolent husband in Mildred Pierce. He garnered further acclaim for his portrayal of villains in Her Kind of Man, Danger Signal, and South of St. Louis. Although he earned critical praise for his performance as a heroic tenant farmer in Jean Renoir's The Southerner, Scott never quite escaped typecasting. In Zachary Scott: Hollywood's Sophisticated Cad, Ronald L. Davis writes an appealing biography of the film star. Scott grew up in privileged circumstances-his father was a distinguished physician; his grandfather was a pioneer cattle baron-and was expected to follow his father into medical practice. Instead, Scott began to pursue a career in theater while studying at the University of Texas and subsequently worked his way on a ship to England to pursue acting. Upon his return to America, he began to look for work in New York. Excelling on stage and screen throughout the 1940s, Scott seemed destined for stardom. By the end of 1950, however, he had suffered through a turbulent divorce. A rafting accident left him badly shaken and clinically depressed. His frustration over his roles mounted, and he began to drink heavily. He remarried and spent the rest of his career concentrating on stage and television work. Although Scott continued to perform occasionally in films, he never reclaimed the level of stardom that he had in the mid-1940s. To reconstruct Scott's life, Davis uses interviews with Scott and colleagues and reviews, articles, and archival correspondence from the Scott papers at the University of Texas and from the Warner Brothers Archives. The result is a portrait of a talented actor who was rarely allowed to show his versatility on the screen.