Women Film

In this cultural biography, New York Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson examines Joan Didion's influence through the lens of American mythmaking. As a young girl, Didion was infatuated with John Wayne and his on-screen bravado, and was fascinated by her California pioneer ancestry and the infamous Donner Party. The mythos that preoccupied her early years continued to influence her work as a magazine writer and film critic in New York, offering glimmers of the many stories Didion told herself that would come to unravel over the course of her career. But out west, show business beckoned.

In the tradition of The Devil Wears Prada comes Rosie Nixon's debut novel, which follows a young woman who is thrown into the fast-paced world of fashion and glamour as she’s forced to navigate the treacherous Hollywood red carpets…while finding a fairytale love of her own. “A stylish, fun...

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Dressmaker comes a blockbuster novel that takes you behind the scenes of the filming of Gone with the Wind, while turning the spotlight on the passionate romance between its dashing leading man, Clark Gable, and the blithe, free-spirited actress...

The highly anticipated first book by a widely respected entertainer whose career highlights include The Right Stuff, Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives, and former Miss America When Vanessa Williams was growing up, she had a plan: She’d go to college and major in musical theater; afterward...

#1 New York Times bestseller! For seven decades Katharine Hepburn played a leading role in the popular culture of the twentieth century—reigning as an admired actress, a beloved movie star, and a treasured icon of the modern American woman. She also remained one of the most private of all...

An NPR Best Book of the Year A dazzling debut novel following the lives of three groundbreaking women--Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, and Leni Riefenstahl--cinema legends who lit up the twentieth century At a chance encounter at a Berlin soirée in 1928, the photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt...

A forty-ton truck hurtles out of control on a snowy country road, a teenage girl on horseback in its path. In a few terrible seconds the life of a family is shattered. And a mother's quest begins -- to save her maimed daughter and a horse driven mad by pain. It is an odyssey that will...

A charming and timely tribute to the women who broke glass ceilings in film and television, debuting during an historic time of change in the entertainment industry. Renegade Women in Film and TV blends fascinating biographical profiles and exclusive interviews with icons like Barbra...

Hedy Lamarr's life was punctuated by salacious rumors and public scandal, but it was her stunning looks and classic Hollywood glamour that continuously captivated audiences. Born Hedwig Kiesler, she escaped an unhappy marriage with arms dealer Fritz Mandl in Austria to try her luck in Hollywood, where her striking appearance made her a screen legend.

At the very end of the Ladies’ Frocks Departments, past Cocktail Frocks, there was something very special, something quite, quite wonderful; but it wasn’t for everybody: that was the point. Because there, at the very end, there was a lovely arch, on which was written in curly letters Model Gowns. Written by a superb novelist of contemporary manners, Ladies in Black is a fairytale which illuminates the extraordinariness of ordinary lives. The women in black are run off their feet, what with the Christmas rush and the summer sales that follow.

A propulsive and daring new novel by the author of Very Nice about a woman on the run from catastrophe, searching for love, home, a swimming pool, and for someone who can perhaps stop the bleeding from her head. “The novel surprises us by blending visceral horror with laugh-out-loud humor...

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: The Barbara Payton Story is the only family-authorized biography of the late Hollywood actress whose promising film career in the 1950s was quickly overtaken by a disastrous and scandal-ridden personal life that left her career in ashes. Barbara Payton’s story has long been considered one of the saddest and most potent cautionary tales the town has ever known.

A brutally honest look at the systemic exclusion of women in film—an industry with massive cultural influence—and how, in response, women are making space in cinema for their voices to be heard. Generation after generation, women have faced the devastating reality that Hollywood is a system...

Emma Klar war eine leidenschaftliche Polizistin. Bis ein Einsatz gegen Mädchenhändler furchtbar schieflief. Sie wurde tagelang gefangen gehalten und wäre fast getötet worden. Nun hat sie sich ins beschauliche Wismar zurückgezogen - angeblich als Privatdetektivin. In Wahrheit jedoch hat man sie angewiesen, verdeckt zu ermitteln. Ihr erster Fall erscheint harmlos. Ein Mann glaubt nicht, dass seine sechzehnjährige Tochter sich umgebracht hat. Routiniert macht sich Emma an die Arbeit.

Vivien Leigh was perhaps the most iconic actress of the 20th century. As Scarlett O’Hara and Blanche Du Bois she took on some of the most pivotal roles in cinema history. Yet she was also a talented theatre actress with West End and Broadway plaudits to her name. In this ground-breaking new biography, Alan Strachan provides a completely new full-life portrait of Leigh, covering both her professional and personal life.

When cinema's hottest superhero, Matt Bane, enters Clare's store to buy some personalized notecards, it's hard not to be starstruck. But when Clare sees the police leading Matt out of The Fountain hotel in handcuffs only a few hours later, she can't believe her eyes. The affable actor is accused of killing his sister, but Clare's convinced he's wrong for that role. Now it's open call for suspects as Clare tries to reel in the killer before another victim fades to black....

From her starring roles as a skeptical child in the perennial classic Miracle on 34thStreet and a troubled adolescent in Rebel Without a Cause to mature roles in Splendor in the Grass and West Side Story, actress Natalie Wood transfixed the world with her hypnotic brown eyes. Yet behind the beautiful façade lurked a fragile, sparkling, generous, funny woman traumatized by her childhood and beset by personal demons.

This is the true story of Florence Foster Jenkins—now the basis of a major motion picture starring Academy Award-winning actress Meryl Streep! She was a woman with a dream. Nobody believed in her talent. But nothing could stop her. . . She had no pitch, no rhythm, and no tone. Still, Florence...

Hollywood was born just over a century ago, at a time of huge forward motion for women's rights. With no rules in place to stop them, there were women who forged ahead in many areas of filmmaking. Yet, despite the work of early pioneers like Dorothy Arzner, Mabel Normand, Mary Pickford and Alice Guy-Blaché, it soon came to embody the same old sexist standards. Women found themselves fighting a system that fed on their talent, creativity and beauty but refused to pay them the same respect as their male contemporaries - until now....

Two iconic dynasties whose glamour and ambition define an era. For nearly a century, two families an ocean apart have captured the world’s collective imagination: the British Windsors and the American Kennedys. Much ink has been spilled on their individual trysts, tragedies, and triumphs over...