Conversations with Legendary Television Stars PDF Download

Author: James Bawden
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813177650
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
“Insightful, often humorous, and always fascinating remembrances by some of the greatest names in entertainment history . . . a vibrant portrait of a bygone era.” —Brent Phillips, author of Charles Walters: The Director Who Made Hollywood Dance During television's first fifty years—long before Hulu, Netflix, and the like—families would gather around their sets nightly to watch such shows as I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke, M*A*S*H, The Beverly Hillbillies, Fantasy Island, and The Rockford Files. Seasoned journalists James Bawden and Ron Miller have captured provocative and entertaining interviews with beloved stars of shows like these, important figures from TV’s first half century. These thirty-nine interviews, selected from conversations conducted from 1971-1998, present a fascinating glimpse of some of television’s most influential performers. Featured are exclusive interviews with major stars (including Donna Reed, James Garner, and Ricardo Montalban), icons of comedy (including Lucille Ball, George Burns, and Milton Berle), TV hosts (including Dick Clark and Ed Sullivan), and notable musical entertainers (such as Glen Campbell, Mary Martin, and Lawrence Welk). Each chapter explores the subject’s television work—with detailed behind-the-scenes disclosures—and includes additional information about the subject’s performances in film and on stage.

Author: James Bawden
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813167116
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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James Bawden: Seeing the way people behave when they're around you, is it still fun being Cary Grant? Cary Grant: I don't like to disappoint people. Because he's a completely made-up character and I'm playing a part. It's a part I've been playing a long time, but no way am I really Cary Grant. A friend told me once, "I always wanted to be Cary Grant." And I said, "So did I."—from the book In Conversations with Classic Film Stars, retired journalists James Bawden and Ron Miller present an astonishing collection of rare interviews with the greatest celebrities of Hollywood's golden age. Conducted over the course of more than fifty years, they recount intimate conversations with some of the most famous leading men and women of the era, including Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Joseph Cotten, Cary Grant, Gloria Swanson, Joan Fontaine, Loretta Young, Kirk Douglas, and many more. Each interview takes readers behind the scenes with some of cinema's most iconic stars. The actors convey unforgettable stories, from Maureen O'Hara discussing Charles Laughton's request that she change her last name, to Bob Hope candidly commenting on the presidential honors bestowed upon him. Humorous, enlightening, and poignant, Conversations with Classic Film Stars is essential reading for anyone who loves classic movies.

Author: Robert Kubey
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1135694281
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 516

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Book Description
Creating Television brings television and its creators to life, presenting fascinating in-depth interviews with the creators of American TV. Having interviewed more than 100 television professionals over the course of his 15 years of research, Professor Robert Kubey presents here the 40 conversations that provide the most illuminating insights about the industry and the people working in it. These interviews bring television's creators to life, revealing their backgrounds, work, and thoughts about the audience and the television programs they create. Each interview tells a compelling tale of an individual's struggles and successes within a complex collaborative and highly commercial medium, offering readers rare insights on the human component in television's development. Featured in this volume are actors, agents, writers, directors, producers, and executives, representing television's earliest days through to the present day. Spanning shows from I Love Lucy and The Tonight Show through to Seinfeld, The Simpsons, and The Sopranos, these creators share the stories of how they gained entry to the industry and built their careers, offering readers a rare opportunity to meet, up close, the people involved in creating many of the most famous and successful programs in the medium's history, and linking the creators' personal histories to the television programs they create. With its unique insights on the people responsible for making television, this volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers in television history, sociology of culture, human creativity, television production, media studies, and mass media ethics. It will also be a popular reader for undergraduate and graduate students in courses addressing television, mass culture, media and society, American Studies, creativity, television history, and media ethics.

Author: James Bawden
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813197546
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 389

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Book Description
For decades, James Bawden and Ron Miller have established themselves as maestros of provocative interviews, giving fans unmatched insights into the lives of Hollywood A-listers. In their fourth collection, the authors pay tribute to film pioneers who lit up Tinseltown from the 1930s through the 1960s. They Made the Movies features conversations with legendary directors who created many of film's all-time classics, including Frank Capra (It's A Wonderful Life, 1946), Richard Fleischer (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, 1954), Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho, 1960), Ralph Nelson (Lilies of the Field, 1963), Robert Wise (The Sound of Music, 1965), and Chuck Jones (How the Grinch Stole Christmas! 1966). Tantalizing firsthand details about many acclaimed films are revealed, such as the revelation of Mervyn LeRoy's first-choice of lead actress for The Wizard of Oz ("Shirley Temple... but Shirley couldn't sing like Judy [Garland]"), Billy Wilder's insights on directing ("You have to be a sycophant, a sadist, a nurse, a philosopher"), and how megaproducer Hal B. Wallis purchased an unproduced play titled Everybody Comes to Rick's and transformed it into Casablanca ("The part [of Sam] almost went to Lena Horne, but I thought she was too beautiful"). The authors also celebrate the contributions of marginalized filmmakers such as Ida Lupino, James Wong Howe, Oscar Micheaux, and Luis Valdez, who prevailed in Hollywood despite the discrimination they faced throughout their careers. They Made the Movies appeals to film and television enthusiasts of all ages.

Author: James L. Longworth, Jr.
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815629535
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
This sequel provides yet another dozen of today's most acclaimed writers and producers an open, uncensored forum in which they discuss everything from their work ethic to the political, social, and economic issues affecting the television industry. The West Wing, C.S.I., and Judging Amy are just a few of the dramas that launched a new era of television at the turn of the millennium. TV Creators gives scholars and fans alike an exclusive, firsthand account of the lives, philosophies, and contributions of some of the best television scribes of the past two decades. TV Creators: Volume Two includes revelations such as Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing) admitting that he is not a natural storyteller, and Martha Williamson (Touched by an Angel) announcing that "There is nothing more gender blind than an executive producer who desperately needs a good writer." Glenn Gordon Caron (Moonlighting, Now & Again) confesses, "I always think that disaster is an inch away," while Paul Haggis (Family Law) reveals, "I always like to do something that I think I can fail at." Also interviewed are: Aaron Spelling (Charmed, Beverly Hills 90210); Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer); Roy Huggins (The Fugitive); Clifton Campbell (Profiler); Barbara Hall (Judging Amy); Anthony Zuiker (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation); John McNamara (The Fugitive); and Don Bellisario (JAG, Magnum P.I.).

Author: Richard Levinson
Publisher: Plume
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Author: Dina-Marie Kulzer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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In this collection of 22 interviews (with Ralph Bellamy, Angela Cartwright, Barbara Eden, Kathy Garver, Gale Gordon, Don Grady, Linda Kaye Henning, Anne Jeffreys, Meredith MacRae, Gary Owens, Paul Peterson, Kasey Rogers, Rose Marie, James Stacy, Connie Stevens, Deborah Walley, Ray Walston, Julie Newmar, Dawn Wells, Jane Wyatt, Dick York, and Alan Young) some of the biggest stars of 1950s and 1960s television reminisce about their experiences, look at the show's impact on their life, and provide insight into the creative process of those classic television shows.

Author: Robert William Kubey
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780805810776
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 509

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Book Description
Creating Televisionpresents fascinating, personal, in-depth interviews with 40 leading television creators from television's earliest days through to the present day, and in so doing, television and its creators come to life on the page.

Author: Patrick McGilligan
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0312261314
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Provides interviews with notable Hollywood actors, directors, and producers, including Alfred Hitchcock, George Stevens, Joel McCrea, and Ronald Reagan.

Author: Bobbie Wygant
Publisher: Texas Christian University Press
ISBN: 9780875656915
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In her memoir Talking to the Stars: Bobbie Wygant's Seventy Years in Television, Bobbie Wygant recalls her trailblazing career as an arts and entertainment reporter for Dallas-Fort Worth's Channel 5. Started in 1948 by Amon G. Carter, WBAP (now KXAS) was the first television station west of the Mississippi, and Wygant was there from the beginning. Like everyone on that early Channel 5 staff, Wygant pitched in to do a little of everything--writing copy, performing live on-air skits, presenting commercials--but she soon became known for the way she connected with celebrities. In a career spanning seven decades, Wygant has interviewed literally thousands of the most notable entertainers and celebrities since the 1950s--from Bob Hope, Jane Fonda, and Denzel Washington to Meryl Streep, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Matt Damon. Wygant was live on the air with her popular midday program Dateline on November 22, 1963, when news broke of JFK's assassination. A few months later, during their debut tour of the US, she interviewed the Beatles. In addition to charming and often funny accounts of her interviews with the stars, Wygant's personal observations of television broadcasting as it emerged at WBAP-TV offer fascinating insights into the infancy of today's multi-billion-dollar industry. This engaging and informative volume includes more than three hundred photographs of her favorite celebrity encounters.