The Golden Girls of MGM: Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly, and Others by Jane Ellen Wayne
The Golden Girls of MGM: Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly, and Others by Jane Ellen Wayne
Garbo and Crawford, Ava, Hedy, Judy, Liz. They epitomized Hollywood's golden era. With a trembling lip or sultry eye, with a tear or song or husky whisper, they held moviegoers across America in their sway from the hard times of the 1930s through the booming postwar years to the early sixties. They were royalty, they were box office. They led pampered public lives -- the furs, the jewels, the designer gowns, limousines, flashbulbs, handsome escorts -- that captured the national imagination. They also signed seven-year contracts with a morals clause, and the more they slipped, the more the secret abortions, efficient cover-ups, legal legerdemain, and dropped charges bound them to the wizard in their Oz, Louis B. Mayer.
The slips are here, in these intimate insider biographies of the most radiant stars in movie mogul Mayer's galaxy, along with the successes, the personal triumphs along with the private tragedies. Here, too, are the Blonde Bombshell Jean Harlow, who made movie history (at nineteen) with the line "Do you mind if I slip into something more comfortable?"; Sweater Girl Lana Turner, whose career spanned four decades even if "she couldn't act her way out of a paper bag"; and bad girl Ava Gardner, whose screen test prompted Mayer to famously respond, "She can't act. She can't talk. She's terrific." From Jeanette MacDonald and Norma Shearer to Princess Grace, Dame Elizabeth Taylor, and Million Dollar Mermaid Esther Williams, the sixteen portraits in this volume, each accompanied by the star's filmography, tell the tales that have long lay hidden behind the gossip and the glories of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's glamorous golden girls.
Carroll & Graf, Hardcover, 1st Edition, 2002
THIS IS A USED BOOK IN LIKE NEW CONDITION. THE DUST WRAPPER IS ALSO IN LIKE NEW CONDITION.