Gene Tierney

Called the most beautiful woman in movie history, Gene Tierney starred in such 1940s classics as Laura, Leave Her to Heaven and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Her on-screen presence and ability to transform into a variety of characters made her a film legend. Her personal life was a whirlwind of romance (she married a count, was engaged to a prince, and was courted by a future president) and tragedy (her first daughter was born with severe retardation and Tierney herself struggled with mental illness). After years of treatment, including electroshock therapy that erased portions of her life from her memory, she triumphantly returned in one of the biggest comebacks in Hollywood history. This first complete biography since the actress's death includes a foreword by her daughter, Christina Cassini, an extensive filmography, and many rare photographs.

Hollywood’s Gene Tierney, the lasting impact of her wartime and postwar films, and her continuing legacy. Gene Tierney may be one of the most recognizable faces of studio-era Hollywood: she starred in numerous classics, including Leave Her to Heaven, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir,and Laura,with the latter featuring her most iconic role. While Tierney was considered one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, she personified "ordinariness" both on- and off-screen. Tierney portrayed roles such as a pinup type, a wartime worker, a wife, a mother, and, finally, a psychiatric patient—the last of which may have hit close to home for her, as she would soon leave Hollywood to pursue treatment for mental illness and later attempted suicide in the 1950s. After her release from psychiatric clinics, Tierney sought a comeback as one of the first stars whose treatment for mental illness became public knowledge. In this book, Will Scheibel not only examines her promotion, publicity, and reception as a star but also offers an alternative history of the United States wartime efforts demonstrated through the arc of Tierney's career as a star working on the home front. Scheibel's analysis aims to showcase that Tierney was more than just "the most beautiful woman in movie history," as stated by the head of production at Twentieth Century Fox in the 1940s and 1950s. He does this through an examination of her making, unmaking, and remaking at Twentieth Century Fox, rediscovering what she means as a movie legend both in past and up to the present. Film studies scholars, film students, and those interested in Hollywood history and the legacy of Gene Tierney will be delighted by this read.

The story of Dana Andrews (1909-1992)

*Includes pictures *Includes Tierney's own quotes about her life and career *Includes a bibliography for further reading "I ask myself: Would I have been any worse off if I had stayed home or lived on a farm instead of shock treatments and medication?" - Gene Tierney "I was fine when it came to cheering up others, not so fine with myself." - Gene Tierney A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history's most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors' American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America's most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. When people are asked to list the pros and cons of a star in Hollywood, there's a good chance that Gene Tierney lived all of the highs and lows they would come up with. In many ways, Tierney had the prototypical career of an actress who experienced the best that Hollywood had to offer and got caught up with some of its most notorious pitfalls. With beauty queen looks, Tierney was almost immediately marked for success as an actress once she was discovered, and after just a year on Broadway, she was making her film debut around her 20th birthday. But once she seemed to be on the road to instant fame, her early career faltered, and all the while, she felt the stress and pressure to look her best, including adhering to a strict diet to maintain weight. She also became a heavy smoker in an attempt to lower her voice, which she complained made her sound too much like "an angry Minnie Mouse." Tierney was a major star in her 20s, was one of World War II's most notable pinups, and she was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress by the age of 25, but life off the screen continued to cause her problems. By the time she was in her 30s, Tierney was struggling with severe bouts of depression, which led to her being institutionalized and even receiving electroshock therapy. Tierney hated the shock therapy and complained that it led to memory loss, and she once bitterly remarked, "I existed in a world that never is - the prison of the mind." On top of that, she suffered at least one miscarriage and gave birth to a premature baby that had mental handicaps in part because Tierney had contracted rubella, possibly from a fan who came into close contact with her. Struggling to cope with it all, Tierney attempted suicide, and after being committed yet again, her acting career was almost over. Tierney attempted a comeback of sorts in the 1960s, but after just a few projects, she was all but through with acting, making just one more appearance in a TV miniseries in 1980. In one final blow brought about in part due to her acting career, Tierney died of emphysema when she was 70, a disease caused by the smoking habit she had taken up in order to further herself in Hollywood. American Legends: The Life of Red Skelton chronicles the life and career of one of America's most famous actresses. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Gene Tierney like never before, in no time at all.

Winner of the 2020 Peter C. Rollins Book Award Longlisted for the 2020 Moving Image Book Award by the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation Named a 2019 Richard Wall Memorial Award Finalist by the Theatre Library Association Herman J. (1897–1953) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993) wrote, produced, and directed over 150 pictures. With Orson Welles, Herman wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane and shared the picture’s only Academy Award. Joe earned the second pair of his four Oscars for writing and directing All About Eve, which also won Best Picture. Despite triumphs as diverse as Monkey Business and Cleopatra, and Pride of the Yankees and Guys and Dolls, the witty, intellectual brothers spent their Hollywood years deeply discontented and yearning for what they did not have—a career in New York theater. Herman, formerly an Algonquin Round Table habitué, New York Times and New Yorker theater critic, and playwright-collaborator with George S. Kaufman, never reconciled himself to screenwriting. He gambled away his prodigious earnings, was fired from all the major studios, and drank himself to death at fifty-five. While Herman drifted downward, Joe rose to become a critical and financial success as a writer, producer, and director, though his constant philandering with prominent stars like Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, and Gene Tierney distressed his emotionally fragile wife who eventually committed suicide. He wrecked his own health using uppers and downers in order to direct Cleopatra by day and finish writing it at night, only to be very publicly fired by Darryl F. Zanuck, an experience from which Joe never fully recovered. For this award-winning 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.

Explores twenty definitive film noir titles from 1941 to 1950 and traces the evolution of popular fashion in the decade of the 1940s, the impact of World War II on home-front fashion, and the influence of the film noir genre on popular fashion.

Culture and institutions.

What "Guns, Germs, and Steel" did for colonial history, this book will do for modern anthropology, telling the explosive story of how ruthless journalists, self-serving anthropologists, and obsessed scientists placed the Yanomami, one of the Amazon basin's oldest tribes, on the cusp of extinction. A "New York Times" Notable Book. of photos.

Behold the history of a film so scandalous, so outrageous, so explosive it disappeared from print for over a quarter century! A film so dangerous, half its cast and crew met their demise bringing eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes’ final cinematic vision to life! Starring All-American legend John Wayne in full Fu Manchu make-up as Mongol madman Genghis Khan! Featuring sultry seductress Susan Hayward as his lover! This is the true story of The Conqueror (1956), the worst movie ever made. Filmed during the dark underbelly of the 1950s—the Cold War—when nuclear testing in desolate southwestern landscapes was a must for survival, the very same landscapes were where exotic stories set in faraway lands could be made. Just 153 miles from the St. George, Utah, set, nuclear bombs were detonated regularly at Yucca Flat and Frenchman Flat in Nevada, providing a bizarre and possibly deadly background to an already surreal moment in cinema history. This book tells the full story of the making of The Conqueror, its ignominious aftermath, and the radiation induced cancer that may have killed John Wayne and many others.

Ann Sheridan, Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, Hedy Lamarr, Dorothy Lamour, Veronica Lake, Gene Tierney, and Maria Montez in gowns by Adrian, Travis Banton, Jean Louis, Edith Head, Oleg Cassini, Vera West, and other top Hollywood designers. A must for paper doll fans and lovers of costume design and film history. 16 plates.