Author: Richard Stoddard Aldrich
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Author: Richard Stoddard Aldrich
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Richard Stoddard Aldrich
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Actors
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description

Author: Janet Wallach
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1474603378
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
The life of Gertrude Bell is now the subject of the major motion picture Queen of the Desert, starring Nicole Kidman, James Franco and Damian Lewis Turning away from privileged Victorian Britain, Gertrude Bell explored, mapped and excavated the world of the Arabs, winning the trust of Arab sheiks and chieftains along the way. When the First World War erupted and the British needed the loyalty of Arab leaders, Gertrude Bell provided the intelligence for T.E. Lawrence's military activities. After the war, she played a major role in creating the modern Middle East, and was generally considered the most powerful woman in the British Empire. In this major reassessment of Bell's life, Janet Wallach reveals a woman whose achievements and independent spirit were especially remarkable for her times, and who brought the same passion and intensity to her explorations as she did to her rich and romantic life.

Author: Daphne Du Maurier
Publisher: Samuel French Limited
ISBN: 9780573019050
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 127

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In a Cornish house lives the widowed Stella, a woman of considerable gifts and beauty who regularly rejects proposals of marriage from her neighbour Robert Hanson. Cherry, Stella's daughter, brings home her artist husband Evan for the first time and Stella is shocked by the bohemian incompleteness of their marriage. She finds herself attracted to Evan and soon they are passionately in love: although much is left unspoken, Evan eventually compels Stella to admit her feelings.3 women, 3 men

Author: Bruce D. Mcclung
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199725128
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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When Lady in the Dark opened on January 23, 1941, its many firsts immediately distinguished it as a new and unusual work. The curious directive to playwright Moss Hart to complete a play about psychoanalysis came from his own Freudian psychiatrist. For the first time since his brother George's death, Ira Gershwin returned to writing lyrics for the theater. And for émigré composer Kurt Weill, it was a crack at an opulent first-class production. Together Hart, Gershwin, and Weill (with a little help from the psychiatrist) produced one of the most innovative works in Broadway history. With a company of 101 and an astronomical budget, Lady in the Dark launched the career of a young nightclub performer named Danny Kaye and starred Gertrude Lawrence in the greatest triumph of her career. With standees at many performances, Lady in the Dark helped establish the practice of advance ticket sales on the Great White Way, while Paramount Pictures' bid for the film rights broke all records. New York Times drama critic Brooks Atkinson hailed the production as "splendid," anointed Kurt Weill 'the best writer of theatre music in the country,' and worshiped Gertrude Lawrence as "a goddess." Though Lady in the Dark was a smash-hit, it has never enjoyed a Broadway revival, and a certain mystique has grown up around its legendary original production. In this ground-breaking biography, bruce mcclung pieces together the musical's life story from sketches and drafts, production scripts, correspondence, photographs, costume and set designs, and thousands of clippings from the star's personal scrapbooks. He has interviewed eleven members of the original company to provide a one-of-a-kind glimpse into the backstage story. The result is a virtual ticket to opening night, the saga of how this musical play came to be, and the string of events that saved the experimental show at every turn. Although America was turned upside down by Pearl Harbor after the production was on the boards, Lady in the Dark played an important role for the war effort and rang up 777 performances in 12 cities. In what may be the most illuminating study of a single Broadway musical, this biography brings Lady in the Dark back to the spotlight and puts readers in the front row.

Author: Margaret Landon
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 150403855X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Based on the incredible true story of one woman’s journey to the exotic world of nineteenth-century Siam, the riveting novel that inspired The King and I. In 1862, recently widowed and with two small children to support, British schoolteacher Anna Leonowens agrees to serve as governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam (present-day Thailand), unaware that her years in the royal palace will change not only her own life, but also the future of a nation. Her relationship with King Mongkut, famously portrayed by Yul Brynner in the classic film The King and I, is complicated from the start, pitting two headstrong personalities against each other: While the king favors tradition, Anna embraces change. As governess, Anna often finds herself at cross-purposes, marveling at the foreign customs, fascinating people, and striking landscape of the kingdom and its harems, while simultaneously trying to influence her pupils—especially young Prince Chulalongkorn—with her Western ideals and values. Years later, as king, this very influence leads Chulalongkorn to abolish slavery in Siam and introduce democratic reform based on the ideas of freedom and human dignity he first learned from his beloved tutor. This captivating novel brilliantly combines in-depth research—author Margaret Landon drew from Siamese court records and Anna’s own writings—with richly imagined details to create a lush portrait of 1860s Siam. As a Rodgers & Hammerstein Broadway musical and an Academy Award–winning film, the story of Anna and the King of Siam has enchanted millions over the years. It is a gripping tale of cultural differences and shared humanity that invites readers into a vivid and sensory world populated by unforgettable characters.

Author: Liora Lukitz
Publisher: I. B. Tauris
ISBN: 9781780766812
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Gertrude Bell was a commanding figure: scholar, linguist, archaeologist, traveler and 'orientalist'. A remarkable woman in male-dominated Edwardian society, she shunned convention by eschewing marriage and family for an academic career and extensive traveling. But her private life was marred by the tragedy, vulnerability and frustration that were key to her quest both for a British dominated Middle East and relief from the torture of her romantic failures. Through her vivid writings, she brought the Arab world alive for countless Britons. Alongside T.E. Lawrence, she was hugely instrumental in the post-war reconfiguration of the Arab states in the Middle East. In Iraq she became friend and confidante of the new King Faisal, and a prime mover in drawing up the country's boundaries and establishing a constitutional monarchy there, with its parliament, civil service and legal system. She was influential in creating the state which had all the trappings of independence while remaining a virtual British colony. The legacy of her work is still being played out in the conflicts of today. Yet behind her public success was a backdrop of personal passions, desires and the relationships that drove this extraordinary woman. Embroiled in an unsuccessful love affair with Charles Doughty-Wylie, a married man, she found peace in the solitude of the desert. But the seemingly intractable problems of the newly independent Iraq led her to write of the 'weariness of it all'. Shortly afterwards she took her own life with a lethal dose of sleeping pills. Using previously unseen sources, including Gertude Bell's own diaries and letters, Lukitz provides a deeper political and personal biography of this influential character.

Author: Richard Eyre
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9780747552543
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
An authoritative, spirited account of the history of twentieth century theatre by two of its most distinguished practitioners.

Author: Cole Porter
Publisher: Samuel French, Inc.
ISBN: 9780573627736
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 80

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Book Description
This famous "lost" musical, a hit in London in the thirties and later a triumph for Gertrude Lawrence and Elizabeth Welch, was recently restaged to bravos in London. Its whimsical story follows innocent Evangeline Edwards as she bids farewell to a Swiss finishing school and sets off across Europe and looking for love and adventure. She gets into one scrape after another and is rescued by a series of unsuitable men (a French producer, Russian musician, Austrian nudist, Italian count, Greek magnate, Turkish Pasha and a eunuch all played by the same actor).