Download Free The Curse Of Vilma Valentine Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online The Curse Of Vilma Valentine and write the review.

Adored by some, abhorred by others, actress Vilma Valentine is presumed dead after a fiery automobile collision in Mexico, her body never recovered. In the intervening years the fabled star is sighted more often than Bigfoot. Is it her ghost that crashes a party for Ronald Reagan in Juarez, appears at the deathbed of her estranged father in Rome, flees from Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst at the Parthenon? In 1969 Virginia Dofstader wins the Valentine lookalike contest publicizing The Curse of Vilma Valentine by literary heavyweight Gerald Carstairs. In the course of the book's promotion, it is discovered that Virginia's mother looks even more like Vilma than Miss Dofstader does. As notorious in death as in life, Vilma haunts the imagination of aficionados of 1940 movies. Did she really kill all those husbands? Was she a Nazi spy? Was she truly responsible for the bombing of Pearl Harbor? Her story, a suspenseful stew of WWII saboteurs, stolen European artworks, murders and massacres, is told in the words of major Hollywood figures-lovers, friends, enemies, and Vilma herself. It's all seasoned with a knowing dose of romantic comedy.
Fronting a country and western band called Bar-X Boys, Jack Linden wants out. The road is a bitch. Bed bugs and Gideon Bibles. Honky-tonks and tricks. He asks a talented kid thirteen years his junior to fill in on guitar for what he hopes will be the band's last hurrah, last tour. Pecos Farley welcomes the opportunity to hear his songs played live and to stretch his songwriting abilities with Jack. He puts his first year of college and girlfriend Ruth on hold. Can Ruth find solace elsewhere? Pecos does have a twin brother, Gila. Sharing lives, beds, and bodies and collaborating on songs, Pecos and Jack find themselves popular on the podunk circuit. Unexpectedly a single song catapults them to the heights of the politically-oriented rock music scene, and they become heroes of the anti-Vietnam war movement as well as rock stars. Pecos, influenced by zealous Students for a Democratic Society, begins thinking like them, spouting their rhetoric. Jack begins to feel he's just along for the ride, a hypnotic with guitar. The relationship is floundering on a more personal level as well, each knowing an inevitable split is coming, neither guessing how final and traumatic it will be.
Rita Hayworth dancing by candlelight; Elizabeth Taylor tenderly wrapping him in her Pashmina scarf; streaking for Sir Laurence Olivier in a drafty English castle; terrifying a dozing Jackie Onassis; carrying an unconscious Montgomery Clift to safety on a dark New York street... Captured forever in a unique memoir, Frank Langella’s myriad encounters with some of the past century’s most famous human beings are profoundly affecting, funny, wicked, sometimes shocking, and utterly irresistible. With sharp wit and a perceptive eye, Mr. Langella takes us with him into the private worlds and privileged lives of movie stars, presidents, royalty, literary lions, the social elite, and the greats of the Broadway stage. We learn something, too, of Mr. Langella’s personal journey from the age of fifteen to the present day. Dropped Names is, like its subjects, riveting and unforgettable.
Movie publicist Tom Miller, writing under the name Tom Canford, tells of his experience working on films such as Francis Coppola's "The Cotton Club" and Elaine May's "Mikey and Nicky." He provides intriguing insight into the process of movie-making from a privileged position deep inside the productions and also sharp portraits of directors, actors both major and minor, and behind-the-scenes people involved in bringing their films to you. In addition to those mentioned in the subtitle of the work, many other artists and film personnel make their appearance: Robert Mitchum, Paul Newman, Diane Lane, Robert DeNiro, Gregory Hines, Bruce Dern, Lonette McKee, Barrie Osborne, Milena Canonero, Nicolas Cage, Robert Evans, Bobby Zarem, Julian Beck, Gwen Verdon, Herb Ritts, a very young Sophia Coppola. Editor Jonathan May in his introduction and afterword provides further information about the author.
Since 1980, the number of people in U.S. prisons has increased more than 450%. Despite a crime rate that has been falling steadily for decades, California has led the way in this explosion, with what a state analyst called "the biggest prison building project in the history of the world." Golden Gulag provides the first detailed explanation for that buildup by looking at how political and economic forces, ranging from global to local, conjoined to produce the prison boom. In an informed and impassioned account, Ruth Wilson Gilmore examines this issue through statewide, rural, and urban perspectives to explain how the expansion developed from surpluses of finance capital, labor, land, and state capacity. Detailing crises that hit California’s economy with particular ferocity, she argues that defeats of radical struggles, weakening of labor, and shifting patterns of capital investment have been key conditions for prison growth. The results—a vast and expensive prison system, a huge number of incarcerated young people of color, and the increase in punitive justice such as the "three strikes" law—pose profound and troubling questions for the future of California, the United States, and the world. Golden Gulag provides a rich context for this complex dilemma, and at the same time challenges many cherished assumptions about who benefits and who suffers from the state’s commitment to prison expansion.
Story of cinema -- How movies are made -- Movie genres -- World cinema -- A-Z directors -- Must-see movies.