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It's Raining Benjamins (Cheetah Girls #6)
by Deborah GregoryNow that the record company is going to give them a test single deal, Chanel and Galleria duke it out for control of the group. They both want to be the group's queen diva, while the rest of the Cheetah Girls just want them to compromise. Even though there's only room for one in the spotlight, Chanel and Galleria come up with a solution that lets both of them shine. Soon it's raining Benjamins - and cash comes falling from the sky!
Hey, Ho, Hollywood (Cheetah Girls #4)
by Deborah GregoryKahlua is coming to town. The Cheetahs hatch a plan "Mission Kahlua," in which they rock their newest song, "More Pounce to the More... Ounce." The girls are ready to prove that every cheetah has its day!
Who's 'Bout to Bounce, Baby? (Cheetah Girls #3)
by Deborah GregoryDorinda's dance teacher tells her that she's got what it takes to audition as a back-up dancer for the singing sensation Money Monique. But if she gets chosen to tour with Money Monique, she'll have to leave The Cheetah Girls and Mrs. Bosco, her foster mother, behind.
Born to Rock
by Gordon KormanLeo Caraway, president of the Young Republicans Club and a future Harvard student, has his entire future planned. But Leo is soon thrown for a loop when he discovers that the lead singer of punk rock's most destructive band is his biological father.
No More Dead Dogs
by Gordon KormanFootball hero Wallace Wallace is sentenced to detention attending rehearsals of the school play where, in spite of himself, he becomes wrapped up in the production and begins to suggest changes that improve not only the play but his life as well.
Wilder Times
by Kevin LallyBilly Wilder is one of the last living members of the generation of important film directors active in Hollywood's Golden Era. His credits include such landmark films as Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like it Hot, The Lost Weekend, The Apartment, and Witness for the Prosecution. Today, interest in Wilder films is at an all-time high, making his eventful life and substantial body of work an ideal subject for a full-scale biography. Filled with Hollywood's greatest stars, the book features new interviews with Billy Wilder himself and with such famed Wilder colleagues as Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Tony Curtis, Walter Matthau, and Kirk Douglas, among others.As the cowriter of all his films, Wilder is a true auteur. Nearly every film makes imaginative use of the Vienna native's life experiences, whether drawing from his early years as a journalist (Ace in the Hole) his initial struggle as a Hollywood screenwriter (Sunset Boulevard), or his ties to the Berlin he fled in 1933 (A Foreign Affair). His films' recurring elements of disguise and deception (who can forget Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in Some Like it Hot?) reflect Wilder's own outsider status as an immigrant who hit it big in the land of celluloid illusion. A protean talent, he is equally at home with hard-edged dramas and bright, witty romances and comedies. Wilder Times is the long-overdue biography of one of film's finest directors.Kevin Lally is managing editor of the movie-industry magazine Film Journal International, where he has conducted interviews with more than 100 major filmmakers. During the 1980s, he was the film critic for the Gannett newspaper The Courier-News. A graduate of Fordham University, Mr. Lally has also worked in film exhibition, distribution, and publicity in New York City. He currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.Terrific ... Besides covering Wilder's life off the soundstages in snappy but biting detail, Lally's book Is also crammed with a lot of fascinating Wilderama.-Robert OsborneFast-paced, entertaining biography ... Wilder Times Is especially valuable for illuminating the latter phase of its subject's career.-The Washington PostMagical yet even-handed critical biography ... Wilder's aphoristic wit provides many laugh-out-loud moments ... A tremendous birthday cake for Billy, all candles burning.-The Hollywood ReporterAn enormously entertaining portrait of Hollywood's most beloved and perhaps wittiest iconoclast.-Houston ChronicleFirst-rate, four-star salute to The Great Man ... This thoughtful tome fills a Carlsbad Caverns kind of hole in the movie buff's bookshelf.-Newark Star Ledger
It's Only Temporary
by Evan HandlerWhat if you were supposed to die, but you didn't? And what if, years later, your precious second chance didn't turn out anything like you thought it would? That's the journey Evan Handler experiences, and the one he explores in It's Only Temporary: The Good News and the Bad News of Being Alive. In a collection of funny, offbeat, and poignant autobiographical essays, Handler moves beyond the supposedly "incurable" illness he triumphed over in his mid-twenties--only to tumble through his thirties and forties in search of ever elusive love and happiness.From bold attempts to rekindle his acting career to hapless efforts to run faster around New York's Central Park reservoir, from bizarre Internet dates to twenty-seven breakups (involving only ten women), Handler careens through his against-all-odds existence. Always searching for meaning in his unlikely survival, he shares stories of sadistic junior high school gym teachers, bullying wannabe Hollywood moguls, returned engagement rings, and Europeans' fascination with American bathroom habits.Picking up ten years after his first book, Time on Fire, Handler again uses what the New York Times calls his "laceratingly funny and revealing" storytelling skills to weave twenty-one new tales into a defiantly unconventional memoir. Consistently witty and insightful, Handler's stories shift effortlessly from the comedic to the profound, musing with equal intensity on the existence of God and his experiences with TV stardom. Then, just when it seems he's failed to make the most of his astonishing second chance, Handler finds his way to miracles even greater than the ones that saved his life. His memoir describes his journey from darkness to light, from yearning to gratitude, and in so doing succeeds as both a stirring love story and a classic coming-of-age tale. It's Only Temporary celebrates the transformation of a boy to man--even if it look Handler more than forty years to get there.
Time on Fire
by Evan HandlerBased on Evan Handler's hit off-Broadway play (called by The New York Times "laceratingly funny and self-revealing"), Time on Fire is a remarkable memoir of illness and survival, love and hope-shot through with anger, humor, and piercing eloquence.Evan Handler was twenty-four and already an accomplished actor when he was diagnosed with acute leukemia and told that his chances for survival were slim. Resigning his role in Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues, Handler checked into New York Memorial's Cancer Center and began a bizarre, sometimes uproarious five-year journey in and out of hospitals-"a raucous rump through Hell"-only to face an equally arduous return to the life he left behind.Time on Fire is the story of Handler's passage into a twilight world: a place of lonely, haunting despair lit by moments of exultation and hilarity; a world where the truly horrible and the hysterically funny not only coexist but seem to become the same thing. Told with the trenchant humor of a survivor, it takes a wry, unflinching look at the absurdity of fighting for life in a place where death is what is most expected, and a health care system on the brink of madness. It is the story of refusing to succumb to the pressures of conformity that threatened his recovery and of the fierce struggle to find the road back to health-at all costs.From the comic accounts of his trip to a Madison Avenue sperm bank ("Nothing but the best address for my progeny") and his experimentation with psychic healing, to the portrayal of the unraveling effects of his illness on his family and girlfriend, Handler records with astonishing precision the full emotional range of his experience. The result is a bracing, achingly poignant account of his determination to steal time and reclaim life. Glowing with uncommon insights and uncompromising honesty, Time on Fire is a testament to the bravery and the endurance of the human spirit.
But You Made the Front Page
by Sonny FoxThere have been many books about the strange and exotic world of show business, but rarely has one encompassed so many roles in one person, Sonny Fox. Comedy writer on a daily half-hour TV series in New York, pioneer on the eighth Educational TV station to go on the air, host of the first weekly CBS-TV series to originate a live TV series, Emcee of "The $64,000 Challenge," Producer of movies for TV and specials for PBS, VP Children's programming NBC-TV, Chair of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a weekly, four-hour children's program that set a standard for how to deal with young viewers, Fox ran the gamut, starting in radio in 1947 and lasting until today, that may be unique in TV history.What makes this a must-read is Sonny's ability to spin narratives that take you inside of this panoply of events and personalities, so you feel their immediacy and experience the kaleidoscope almost as a participant. As he weaves his engaging tales, you will meet Senator Robert Kennedy, Actresses Julie Harris and Colleen Dewhurst, Lyricists Alan Jay Lerner, and Sheldon Harnick, Tom Snyder, and a whole cast of colorful personalities who are presented through the prism of Sonny Fox's cavalcade that is a history of TV: in fact a history of the 20th century as it will never be taught in schools.
Was Michael Jackson Framed?
by Mary A. FischerThis is it! The original GQ story that became an international sensation by exploring, for the first time in the media, the other side-the defense side-- of the 1993 Michael Jackson scandal. Today, it remains a sought-after story by the superstar's fans around the world.Until now, the original, unedited version of the GQ article has not been available. Now, two years after Michael Jackson's death, in the midst of a resurgence of his music and popularity, the official GQ story is being released, with a new cover and foreword written by the author, award-winning journalist Mary A. Fischer.As the media rushed to judgment about the '93 allegations-that Jackson had molested a 13-year-old boy-no one bothered to look in depth at Jackson's adult accusers. GQ senior writer Mary A. Fischer, known for investigating controversial, under-reported stories, took on the assignment.She spent months delving into the backgrounds of Evan Chandler and his attorney Barry K. Rothman, Jackson's main accusers. What emerged from Fischer's examination, based on court documents, business records and scores of interviews, some with confidential sources who would only meet in out of the way places, was a persuasive argument that Jackson molested no one and that he himself may have been the victim of a well-conceived plan to extract money from him.More than that, it was a classic story of greed, ambition, misconceptions on the part of police and prosecutors, a lazy and sensation-seeking media and the use of a powerful, hypnotic drug.Today, it remains an important, relevant story about how a case was simply invented. And now, for the first time in over a decade, it is available to Michael Jackson fans everywhere.
Gilded Lili
by Kelly DinardoBlond and beautiful, Lili St. Cyr shimmied across the country's nightclubs as one of the century's great sirens. She inspired future femme fatales including Marilyn Monroe, Madonna and Dita Von Teese. She helped cultivate the modern-day impression of striptease. And, with stage routines featuring themes from fantasy, history and literature, she scandalized and seduced millions, influencing pop culture for decades.Gilded Lili: Lili St. Cyr and the Striptease Mystique explores the life of the last real queen of burlesque. Born into a poor family, abandoned by her parents, and raised by her grandmother, she used her ambition, beauty, and charm to escape her small-town life. Upon becoming the top burlesque dancer of her era, she amassed legions of famous fans, including Betty Grable, Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, and Humphrey Bogart. During her reign, one reporter called her "the rich man's Gypsy Rose Lee" and Marilyn Monroe took cues from her acts. After she retired, Mike Wallace wrote that his television interview with her remained one of the most fascinating he had ever conducted.The private Lili was considerably more troubled, however. Despite being married six times, Lili found love elusive; she was involved in affairs with wealthy businessmen and rumored to have dalliances with celebrities including Orson Welles, Victor Mature and Yul Brynner. She had as many as ten abortions, attempted suicide several times, and became reliant on sleeping pills and, ultimately, heroin.A searing look at American sexuality in the twentieth century, Gilded Lili immortalizes the legend with verve and grace. Lili's era - which see-sawed between McCarthyism and puritanical humor - is presented with vibrancy, intelligence, and commentary on the ever-changing dynamics between sex and commerce. Based on exhaustive research and filled with rare photographs, Gilded Lili reveals a portrait of a woman who made the century sizzle.
A Glamorously Unglamorous Life
by Julia AlbainWhen I was 22 I hopped a plane for New York City, off to pursue my destiny, sure that I'd never look back. This is my story of looking back. Of a journey that took on a whole new meaning and purpose. A year in New York City. A year of discovering the best and worst parts of myself. A year of learning the lessons that you can only learn the hard way.
Cagney
by John MccabeCagney came from a poor Irish-American New York family but once he found his metier as an actor, it was not long before he was recognized as a brilliantly energetic and powerful phenomenon. After the tremendous impact of Public Enemy - in which he notoriously pushed half a grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face - he was typecast as a gangster because of the terrifying violence that seemed to be pent up within him. Years of pitched battle with Warner Brothers finally liberated him from those roles, and he went on to star in such triumphs as the musicals Yankee Doodle Dandy (winning the 1942 Oscar for best actor) and Love Me or Leave Me. Even so, one of his greatest later roles involved a return to crime - as the psychopathic killer in the terrifying White Heat. He retired from films in 1961 after making Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three, only to return twenty years later for Ragtime. But however much Cagney personified violence and explosive energy on the screen, in life he was a quiet, introspective, and deeply private man, a poet, painter, and environmentalist, whose marriage to his early vaudeville partner was famously loyal and happy. His story is one of the few Hollywood biographies that reflect a fulfilled life as well as a spectacular career.
Cagney
by John MccabeFeaturing personal anecdotes and candid observations from James Cagney himself, this entertaining biography profiles the great actor, who had a life as rich and eventful as any movie he ever made.
The Michael Jackson Tapes: A Tragic Icon Reveals His Soul in Intimate Conversation
by Shmuley BoteachIn 2000-2001, Michael Jackson sat down with his close friend and spiritual guide, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, to record what turned out to be the most intimate and revealing conversations of his life. It was Michael's wish to bare his soul and unburden himself to a public that he knew was deeply suspicious of him. The resulting thirty hours are the basis of The Michael Jackson Tapes. There has never been, and never will be, anything like them.In these searingly honest conversations, Michael exposes his emotional pain and profound loneliness, his longing to be loved, and the emptiness of his fame. You discover why he was suspicious of women and how only children provided the innocence for which he so desperately longed.In his own words, he takes us into the jarring moments of his childhood and speaks of the measures he took to try and heal. He divulges how he came to be alienated from his strong religious anchor and describes his views on the nature of faith. Michael brings us into his tortured yet loving relationship with his siblings. He opens up about his father and his yearning for a time when they might finally reconcile. He talks about his most personal friendships and shares with us his terror of growing old.Despite his unprecedented fame and recent death, there remain unanswered questions about his life. The answers, presented here in The Michael Jackson Tapes, will both intrigue and move you. You will be surprised, riveted, and troubled as you peer into the soul of a tragic icon whose life is an American morality tale and whose flame was extinguished much too early.
Faith in Time: The Life of Jimmy Scott
by David RitzBorn in Cleveland in 1925, "Little" Jimmy Scott lost his mother at age thirteen, the same year he was diagnosed with Kallman's syndrome. The disease stunted his growth and earned him his nickname, but it also left him with a haunting voice, a mesmerizing voice. He soon built a following as a singer touring with Lionel Hampton's great orchestra in the '40s, then performed with many of the stars of the '50s, from Lester Young to Charlie Parker to Dinah Washington, and was signed by Savoy Records. He thought he had his big break when, in 1962, Ray Charles produced what was by all accounts Jimmy's best work, Falling in Love Is Wonderful. But when it was forced off the shelves by contract disputes, Scott worked as an orderly and clerk in Cleveland for almost two decades. Fans thought he was dead-until songwriter Doc Pomus's funeral in March of 1991.<P><P> As Pomus had instructed in his will, Jimmy sang over his friend's coffin. High-pitched and androgynous, his voice seemed to come out of thin air, transcending gender and age, evoking pure heartbreak. No one knew who he was-heads turned, celebrities conferred, record executives were reduced to tears-until finally Lou Reed turned around and whispered, "He's Jimmy Scott, the greatest jazz singer in the world." And so he was. By the next morning, he had a record deal with Sire that relaunched his career with the masterpiece All the Way, and he has been performing to packed clubs ever since. With full cooperation from Jimmy, his siblings, spouses, and colleagues from Ray Charles to Ruth Brown, Faith in Time is at once an intimate biography, an invaluable history of a life that spanned big band to bebop to pop, and the poignant story of a man whose voice will live forever.
Precious Metal: Decibel Presents the Stories Behind 25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces
by Albert MudrianThe making of the 25 greatest extreme metal albums of all time, as told via exclusive band-member interviews, drawn and expanded from "Decibel"'s OC Hall of FameOCO"
Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel
by Neil Morgan Judith MorganHorton, Thidwick, Yertle, the Lorax, the Grinch, Sneetches, and the Cat in the Hat are just a handful of the bizarre and beloved characters Theodor S. Geisel (1904-1991), alias Dr. Seuss, created in his forty-seven children's books, from 1937's And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street to 1990's Oh, the Places You'll Go! During his lifetime Dr. Seuss was honored with numerous degrees, three Academy Awards, and a Pulitzer, but the man himself remained a reclusive enigma. In this first and only biography of the good doctor, the authors, his close friends for almost thirty years, have drawn on their firsthand insights as well as his voluminous papers; the result is an illuminating, intimate portrait of a dreamer who saw the world "through the wrong end of a telescope," and invited us to enjoy the view.
Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel: A Biography
by Judith Morgan Neil MorganHorton, Thidwick, Yertle, the Lorax, the Grinch, Sneetches, and the Cat in the Hat are just a handful of the bizarre and beloved characters Theodor S. Geisel (1904-1991), alias Dr. Seuss, created in his forty-seven children's books, from 1937's And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street to 1990's Oh, the Places You'll Go! During his lifetime Dr. Seuss was honored with numerous degrees, three Academy Awards, and a Pulitzer, but the man himself remained a reclusive enigma. In this first and only biography of the good doctor, the authors, his close friends for almost thirty years, have drawn on their firsthand insights as well as his voluminous papers; the result is an illuminating, intimate portrait of a dreamer who saw the world "through the wrong end of a telescope," and invited us to enjoy the view.
Groucho and Me
by Groucho MarxWith impeccable timing, outrageous humor, irreverent wit, and a superb sense of the ridiculous, Groucho tells the saga of the Marx Brothers: the poverty of their childhood in New York's Upper East Si
Bigger Than Life: The History of Gay Porn Cinema from Beefcake to Hardcore
by Jeffrey EscoffierHardcore porn?both the straight and gay varieties?entered mainstream American culture in the 1970s as the sexual revolution swept away many of the cultural inhibitions and legal restraints on explicit sexual expression. The first porn movie ever to be reviewed by "Variety," the entertainment industryOCOs leading trade journal, was Wakefield PooleOCOs "Boys in the Sand" (1971), a sexually-explicit gay movie shot on Fire Island with a budget of $4000. Moviegoers, celebrities and critics?both gay and straight?flocked to see "Boys in the Sand" when it opened in mainstream movie theaters in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Within a year, "Deep Throat," a heterosexual hardcore feature opened to rave reviews and a huge box office?exceeding that of many mainstream Hollywood features. Almost all of those involved in making ?commercialOCO gay pornographic movies began as amateurs in a field that had virtually never existed before, either as art or commerce. Many of their ?undergroundOCO predecessors had repeatedly suffered arrest and other forms of legal harassment. There was no developed gay market and any films made commercially were shown in adult x-rated theaters. After the Stonewall riots and the emergence of the gay liberation movement in 1969, a number of entrepreneurs began to make gay adult movies for the new mail order market. The gay porn film industry grew dramatically during the next thirty years and transformed the way men?gay men in particular?conceived of masculinity and their sexuality. "Bigger Than Life" tells that story. "
When the Shooting Stops . . .The Cutting Begins: A Film Editor's Story
by Robert Karen Ralph RosenblumThe story of one of the most important and least-understood jobs in moviemaking?film editing?is here told by one of the wizards, Ralph Rosenblum, whose credentials include six Woody Allen films, as we
The Naked And The Undead
by Cynthia FreelandHorror is often dismissed as mass art or lowbrow entertainment that produces only short-term thrills. Horror films can be bloody, gory, and disturbing, so some people argue that they have bad moral effects, inciting viewers to imitate cinematic violence or desensitizing them to atrocities. In The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror, Cynthia A. Freeland seeks to counter both aesthetic disdain and moral condemnation by focusing on a select body of important and revealing films, demonstrating how the genre is capable of deep philosophical reflection about the existence and nature of evil-both human and cosmic. In exploring these films, the author argues against a purely psychoanalytic approach and opts for both feminist and philosophical understandings. She looks at what it is in these movies that serves to elicit specific reactions in viewers and why such responses as fear and disgust are ultimately pleasurable. The author is particularly interested in showing how gender figures into screen presentations of evil.The book is divided into three sections: Mad Scientists and Monstrous Mothers, which looks into the implications of male, rationalistic, scientific technology gone awry; The Vampire's Seduction, which explores the attraction of evil and the human ability (or inability) to distinguish active from passive, subject from object, and virtue from vice; and Sublime Spectacles of Disaster, which examines the human fascination with horror spectacle. This section concludes with a chapter on graphic horror films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Written for both students and film enthusiasts, the book examines a wide array of films including: The Silence of the Lambs, Repulsion, Frankenstein, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Alien, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Interview with the Vampire, Frenzy, The Shining, Eraserhead, Hellraiser, and many others.
Smart Girls Marry Money: How Women Have Been Duped Into the Romantic Dream--And How They're Paying For It
by Ford Elizabeth Drake DanielaWhen did gold-digging become a four-letter word?
I'm Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High Times in Stand-Up Comedy's Golden Era
by William KnoedelsederIn the mid-1970s, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Andy Kaufman, Richard Lewis, Robin Williams, Elayne Boosler, Tom Dreesen, and several hundred other shameless showoffs and incorrigible cutups from all across the country migrated en masse to Los Angeles, the new home of Johnny CarsonOCOs "Tonight Show. " There, in a late-night world of sex, drugs, dreams and laughter, they created an artistic community unlike any before or since. It was Comedy Camelot?but it couldnOCOt last. William Knoedelseder, then a cub reporter covering the scene for the "Los Angeles Times," was there when the comedians?who were not paid for performing?tried to change the system and incidentally tore apart their own close-knit community. In "IOCOm Dying Up Here" he tells the whole story of that golden age, of the strike that ended it, and of how those days still resonate in the lives of those who were there.