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About Face cover art

About Face

Written by: Dorothy Ponedel, Meredith Ponedel, Danny Miller
Narrated by: Kathy Garver
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Publisher's Summary

Dottie Ponedel knows how to amuse with rouge. Her autobiography, the story of a pioneering woman makeup artist, whose career spanned the entire length of Hollywood's Golden Era from silent movies to the great films of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, puts a new foundation on the stars.

Sinners and saints without greasepaint make for memorable close-ups. Enjoy Dottie's confidential revelations about Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Mae West, Carole Lombard, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Joan Blondell, Paulette Goddard, Barbara Stanwyck, and others.

"No stranger is going to pat this puss," Mae West once declared. Mae, and Dottie's other clients, often demanded her services, but tomcats and contracts seldom blended. Dottie constantly fought all-male makeup departments at the studios to get the recognition she deserved. Amazing challenges facing a woman at the top of her craft play poignantly against her straight-talking, heartwarming, hilarious encounters with famous faces.

Dottie Ponedel. The designer with eye liner.

©2018 Dorothy Ponedel and Meredith Ponedel (P)2018 BearManor Media

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Really quite interesting

I don’t normally go for celebrity biographies but as this was free in the Plus Catalog until February 22, 2022 only, I decided to give it a try. The fact that it was the biography of the the makeup artist, rather than the stars, was more appealing. Of course there were stars and the stories from this era were enjoyable.
I quite liked the fact that the author only really learned that their family friend Judy was a huge star after her death - and that she didn’t know much about her grandmother’s life until she was an adult. This added a touch of charm.

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