The Duchess Of Idaho

Grace Wentworth knows two things about her parents, James and Sarah—one, they are deeply in love, and two, they have a secret they will share with no one. Grace senses that she is a part of that secret, but she is not sure how and James and Sarah are less than forthcoming. While visiting her grandmother in Idaho, Grace is propelled back through time to Independence, Missouri in 1850. Unsure what to do or where to go, she follows a wagon train bound on a treacherous 2000-mile journey to Oregon. She finds something oddly familiar about Matthew Cooper, a handsome, friendly pioneer, and she is deeply drawn to him. Torn between remaining with Matthew while facing constant dangers or returning to her family, Grace will need the help of Olivia Phillips, a dear family friend and the most powerful of witches, to save her. The Duchess of Idaho is the stand-alone sequel to the beloved bestselling Loving Husband Trilogy.

What does it take to let go of a painful past? James Wentworth has lived a long time, and he has seen the best and the worst that humanity can offer. While he struggles to adjust to his new life, he realizes that some things are too painful to forget. The Salem Witch Trials, with their long-lasting repercussions for James and those he loves, are still very much on his mind. With the help of his beloved wife, Sarah, and their children, Grace and Johnny, James is ready to look forward to everything good in his life. Despite his best efforts, his history continues to haunt him. In the end, he may need the help of family friend Olivia Phillips, the most powerful of witches, to leave his past behind once and for all.

That Was Entertainment: The Golden Age of the MGM Musical traces the development of the MGM musical from The Broadway Melody (1929) through its heyday in the 1940s and 1950s and its decline in the 1960s, culminating in the notorious 1970 MGM auction when Judy Garland's ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz, Charlton Heston's chariot from Ben-Hur, and Fred Astaire's trousers and dress shirt from Royal Wedding vanished to the highest bidders. That Was Entertainment uniquely reconstructs the life of Arthur Freed, whose unit at MGM became the gold standard against which the musicals of other studios were measured. Without Freed, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Ann Miller, Betty Garrett, Cyd Charisse, Arlene Dahl, Vera-Ellen, Lucille Bremer, Gloria DeHaven, Howard Keel, and June Allyson would never have had the signature films that established them as movie legends. MGM's past is its present. No other studio produced such a range of musicals that are still shown today on television and all of which are covered in this volume, from integrated musicals in which song and dance were seamlessly embedded in the plot (Meet Me in St. Louis and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) to revues (The Hollywood Revue of 1929 and Ziegfeld Follies); original musicals (Singin' in the Rain, Easter Parade, and It's Always Fair Weather); adaptations of Broadway shows (Girl Crazy, On the Town, Show Boat, Kiss Me Kate, Brigadoon, Kismet, and Bells Are Ringing); musical versions of novels and plays (Gigi, The Pirate, and Summer Holiday); operettas (the films of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy); mythico-historical biographies of composers (Johann Strauss Jr. in The Great Waltz and Sigmund Romberg in Deep in My Heart); and musicals featuring songwriting teams (Rodgers and Hart in Words and Music and Kalmar and Ruby in Three Little Words), opera stars (Enrico Caruso in The Great Caruso and Marjorie Lawrence in Interrupted Melody), and pop singers (Ruth Etting in Love Me or Leave Me). Also covered is the water ballet musical--in a class by itself--with Esther Williams starring as MGM's resident mermaid. This is a book for longtime lovers of the movie musical and those discovering the genre for the first time.

This book uses a black/white interracial lens to examine the lives and careers of eight prominent American-born actresses from the silent age through the studio era, New Hollywood, and into the present century: Josephine Baker, Nina Mae McKinney, Fredi Washington, Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge, Lonette McKee, Jennifer Beals and Halle Berry. Combining biography with detailed film readings, the author fleshes out the tragic mulatto stereotype, while at the same time exploring concepts and themes such as racial identity, the one-drop rule, passing, skin color, transracial adoption, interracial romance, and more. With a wealth of background information, this study also places these actresses in historical context, providing insight into the construction of race, both onscreen and off.

Skiing Heritage is a quarterly Journal of original, entertaining, and informative feature articles on skiing history. Published by the International Skiing History Association, its contents support ISHA's mission "to preserve skiing history and to increase awareness of the sport's heritage."

Bathing beauty Esther Williams, bombshell Jane Russell, exotic Carmen Miranda, chanteuse Lena Horne, and talk-show fixture Zsa Zsa Gabor are rarely hailed as great actors or as naturalistic performers. Those terms of praise are given to male stars like Marlon Brando and James Dean, whose gritty dramas are seen as a departure from the glossy spectacles in which these stars appeared. Like a Natural Woman challenges those assumptions, revealing the skill and training that went into the work of these five actresses, who employed naturalistic performance techniques, both onscreen and off. Bringing a fresh perspective to film history through the lens of performance studies, Kirsten Pullen explores the ways in which these actresses, who always appeared to be “playing themselves,” responded to the naturalist notion that actors should create authentic characters by drawing from their own lives. At the same time, she examines how Hollywood presented these female stars as sex objects, focusing on their spectacular bodies at the expense of believable characterization or narratives. Pullen not only helps us appreciate what talented actresses these five women actually were, but also reveals how they sought to express themselves and maintain agency, even while meeting the demands of their directors, studios, families, and fans to perform certain feminine roles. Drawing from a rich collection of classic films, publicity materials, and studio archives, Like a Natural Woman lets us take a new look at both Hollywood acting techniques and the performance of femininity itself.

They were imperiled in such flicks as The Man from Planet X, The Brain from Planet Arous and Phantom from Space. They fended off The Mummy's Ghost, Robot Monster and The Mole People. And they screamed a lot. They were damsels menaced by often otherworldly monsters and madmen. Twenty heroines recall what it was like to play endangered women in science fiction, horror, film noir and mystery movies from the 1930s to the 1960s.