Résultats Éditeur "Charles River Editors" dans Divertissement et célébrités

In the middle of the 20th century, there was perhaps no leading man as famous and popular as Rock Hudson, who would remain a star over the course of four decades. Today, however, Rock Hudson might be better known for his personal life. Acting in a more conservative era, Hudson struggled to keep his homosexuality out of the news, for fear it would destroy his career, even though many of his Hollywood contemporaries were aware of it.

In the 1940s it was William Holden who became America's first choice among films requiring a shy, cynical, and sexually potent "broken hero" on the screen, less thoughtful, perhaps, than Gregory Peck, and less rigid than Gary Cooper. Perhaps Holden's many unwilling heroes filmed over a 40 year career were aided by the reality that Holden was much like them, an actor who was uncomfortable on the set and terrified of screen intimacy.

This audiobook analyzes the themes and progression of the composers' most famous works, comparing and contrasting them to each other and other composers' great works.

Recent research has revealed that the richest person of all time lived in the 14th century in West Africa and went by many names, including Kankan Musa Keita, Emir of Melle, Lord of the Mines of Wangara, Conqueror of Ghanata, and the Lion of Mali II, but today he is usually referred to as Mansa Musa. Adjusting his wealth to modern values, he was worth about an estimated $400 billion as the Sultan of ancient Mali, which controlled the trade routes across the Sahara Desert.

Today, the name Clint Eastwood conjures up many different and unforgettable images. While many will always associate him as the quintessential Western hero in classics like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, new generations know him as a critically acclaimed director and even an outspoken conservative firebrand.

Like many pop cultural icons (and rock icons in particular), Freddie Mercury is one of the most recognizable figures of the 20th century and yet one of the more enigmatic personalities as well. To be sure, anyone who was alive during the reign of Queen is well aware of who Mercury was and the sound of his music (even those who despise rock music are familiar with the blasting, deliriously over-the-top rhythms of songs like "We Are the Champions").

Etta James, the legendary jazz, gospel, rhythm & blues, and soul singer, was perfectly positioned to reign as the supreme artist in the emerging soul genre of the '40s and '50s in America. No one ever doubted her talent, the highly distinctive and versatile nature of her voice, or her drive to succeed, and yet, she has been "woefully overlooked" in the history of indigenous rock and blues music in the United States.

A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history's most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees?

It is something of a cliché to say that an actor’s life was like a movie he or she might have starred in, but in the case of Myrna Loy, the cliché is true. It is easy to picture her as a little girl, riding the range with her rancher father, sitting around the table and participating charmingly in family discussions of current events.

In 1940, the 4th most popular star in the US was a foreign actor from Australia, and unlike other movie stars, he was more notorious for his pursuits off the screen than on it. In an era long before social media, Errol Flynn represented the epitome of a swashbuckling playboy, with enough mystery and intrigue surrounding him and his background to fascinate even those who didn’t see his movies.

In the 1960s and 1970s, no actor personified cool, calm and collected like Steve McQueen, whose suave anti-hero protagonists made men jealous and women swoon. As actor Donald Logue puts it in The Tao of Steve, “Steve is the prototypical cool American male. He's the guy on his horse, the guy alone."

By the turn of the 20th century, American entertainment was still preoccupied with European-style operetta, as embodied in the works of cellist-composer Victor Herbert. Traditional dance forms moved from European stories to the American prairie in Oklahoma by the late 1940s, and what was once the property of Bavarian princes became the singing standards of cowboys riding through the corn fields in "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" and "Out of My Dreams".

Hollywood has never lacked leading men who could captivate viewers with dramatic performances that depict them as suave romantics or dashing heroes, especially during the Golden Age of Hollywood, when stars like Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, and Cary Grant graced screens. But in the mid-20th century, one of the most popular stars was a man who’s been frequently overlooked.

Exhibitionism and narcissism coupled with talent are not the sole property of modern entertainment, as some might suppose. From the beginnings of American theater and film, various personality types prone to self-intoxication by the status of their own careers have acted-out at will in their public lives. For them, there is no barrier between the professional and the private.

In terms of original choreography, it was the age of Jerome Robbins that marked the first real departure from traditional dance on stage and in film. Only 10 years Robbins’ junior, Robert Louis Fosse, better known as Bob Fosse, followed his colleague’s example by mixing daring new jazz forms with virtually every traditional and popular genre to produce previously unseen modes of dance expression on Broadway and in film. Fosse forever changed the way the modern audience viewed dance on stage and film.

The “Golden Age” of American film that began in the pre-World War II years has never truly ended, moving from its early connection with “film noir” to the epics of the 1960s and beyond. Similarly, movie stars still enjoy a degree of exoticism they have possessed since the days of silent film. However, in the modern day, the screen actor is not so narrowly constrained by public image as to prevent the leading of a double life, once impermissible for powerful studio heads.

By the mid-20th century, a musical revolution was stirring, and a generation that had not fought in the wars was ready to put the sorrows of the previous 50 years away. Requiring a commentary on modern life all its own, the first post-war generation went for self-expressed rock and roll, with Elvis Presley leading the movement. Jazz, incubated within America, grew into an increasingly sophisticated harmonic and rhythmic language, even though older generations were not able or willing to so easily follow.

Patty, LaVerne, and Maxene Andrews created their “unique sound” in part through the development of a “very bright harmonic sense,” first achieved by the older sister, LaVerne. The trio mastered a virtuosic use of close, intricate harmonies, coupled with a precise and a seemingly telepathic rhythmic sense that could be honed for performance in a short period of rehearsal time. These qualities were enveloped in a timbral sheen reminiscent of multiple trumpets.

Despite her distinction and other more notable accomplishments, many people today are not familiar with the groundbreaking actress Dorothy Dandridge, even though she was among the most charismatic and beautiful actresses of the era. Her alluring nightclub acts set pulses pounding across the globe, and she was Hollywood’s first black leading actress. Sadly, all of it came at a high price.

He was a pioneering film director who had 518 films to his credit. His work spanned the silent and sound eras. Most of his films were completed in a span of 15 years. But today he is known only for one of his films, one considered by historians to be a landmark in cinema as well as the most controversial ever made. He could not escape the controversy of this one film before he died in relative obscurity, his contributions to the motion picture industry forever marred.