Search results for ""Author Stefan Kanfer""
Faber & Faber Ball of Fire: The Tumultuous Life and Comic Art of Lucille Ball
'Easily the year's best Hollywood biog.' Independent on Sunday'Ball Of Fire reveals all about house- wife superstar Lucille Ball. She made the top-rated TV show in America before her husband's serial adulteries practically sunk it.' Sunday HeraldTo viewers all over the world, Lucille Ball remains the ultimate screwball housewife, getting in and out of outlandish scrapes with hilarous finesse. But Stefan Kanfer's biography looks behind the image, tracing Ball's comedic genius to its beginnings in a lonely childhood in upstate New York. She yearned to make people laugh, to attain stardom and love. Then a Cuban bandleader called Desi came into her life to make her wealthy and famous -- and nearly destroyed her in the process. Kanfer chronicles the runaway success of I Love Lucy, the fiery marriage and eventual split from Desi, and Ball's struggle to manage both a business empire and her own rebellious children. 'A wonderful and poignant book . . . Kanfer portays Lucille Ball as insatiably anxious and insecure, a woman whose search for a father-figure would only ever find the unlikely and unholdable Desi . . . Kanfer pulls no punches over Lucy the pain in the neck but he gives a superb picture of how she and Desi changed television.' David Thomson
£12.99
Penguin Books Ltd The Essential Groucho: Writings by, for and about Groucho Marx
No, Groucho is not my real name, I'm just breaking it in for a friend.' Presenting the greatest and most hilarious examples of Groucho, one of the most influential and well-loved figures in the long and glittering history of comedy. From early scripts to complete screenplays, from magazine funnies to fascinating personal correspondence, via books, greedy banks, even greedier lawyers and the coming of television, Kanfer's collection captures the essence of Groucho's inimitable comic genius. 'I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception...
£10.99
Ivan R Dee, Inc The Voodoo That They Did So Well: The Wizards Who Invented the New York Stage
Manhattanites have always had a disdain for the rearview mirror. That's where trends begin, and the citizens of Gotham are concerned with the here and now rather than the then and there. Yet Manhattan's history is rich, filled with personalities who helped create the modern theater and made Broadway the center of show business-a distinction it still holds. The Voodoo That They Did So Well takes an endearing look at some of these giants. Stefan Kanfer writes about Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, and Stephen Sondheim, and considers the shining stars of New York's vibrant Yiddish theater, the colorful personalities who starred in two-a-day vaudeville, and the astonishing life of Lorenzo Da Ponte, a Renaissance man if ever there was one (Mozart's most brilliant collaborator landed in Manhattan after dazzling Europe, and wound up selling groceries and teaching Italian at Columbia University). Richard Rodgers's first song hit was "Manhattan," with lyrics by Lorenz Hart. The chorus read: "The great big city's a wondrous toy / Just made for a girl and boy / We'll turn Manhattan / Into an isle of joy." Manhattan remains an isle of joy in large part because of the men and women who led the way, and whose lives and art animate every page of this delightful gavotte.
£17.09