Brando

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Ginger Rogers

She was born Virginia Katherine McMath, but the world would come to know her—and love her—as Ginger Rogers: Broadway star, Academy Award-winning actress, and the ultimate on-screen dancing partner of the inimitable Fred Astaire. In Ginger: My Story, the legendary entertainer shares the triumphs of a remarkable career that began when she won a Texas dancing contest at age fourteen; the joys and heartbreaks of her five marriages; her relationships with some of Hollywood's major leading men, including Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, and damaged daredevil billionaire Howard Hughes; and the strength of her religious convictions that got her through thick and thin. Lavishly illustrated with rare photographs from the author's personal collection, Ginger is an enthralling, behind-the-scenes tour of Hollywood life during the Golden Age of movies by one of its most enduring stars.

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Isabella Rossellini

A fascinating, quirky, and above all personal look at herself and her life by the renowned model/actress, who illuminates her life and her world in a brilliant mosaic of short takes accompanied by scores of pictures ranging from those she keeps on her bedside table to family snapshots and her many Richard Avedon Vogue covers. She writes of her mother, Ingrid Bergman: "Second to acting, Mother loved cleaning, which is not to say she loved even that above me. I'm sure she loved me more than cleaning, but what made her happiest was combining the two." She writes of her father, Roberto Rossellini: "My father was a Jewish mother.... When we were children (there were seven of us), one of our favorite games was throwing ourselves onto Daddy's body. Lying on his side, he pretended to be the sow and we were the piglets.". She writes about her famous nude scene in David Lynch's Blue Velvet and of posing for Avedon, Bruce Weber, and Steven Meisel. About being fired as the face of Lancome because she dared to turn forty. About the two years of scoliosis that blighted her adolescence. About acting as opposed to modeling. About being a daughter, a sister, and a mother. About her children: Elettra, who, when asked by her kindergarten teacher what she would do if she got lost in an airport, answered, "I'd look for my mamma's poster and wait underneath it for help"; and Roberto, her adopted son. About her unforgettable encounters with Anna Magnani (her father's onetime mistress) and Katharine Hepburn, as well as the peculiar behavior of her many pets. About her wardrobe. About lying. She talks - candidly yet discreetly - about the men in her life: her ex-husband Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Gary Oldman. And she conducts intimate and extended dialogues with her beloved dead ones.

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Marsha Mason

"In Journey, Marsha Mason retraces the path she followed out of her difficult childhood. She moved to New York City, where she worked as a waitress and go-go dancer before landing a role in the then popular daytime TV soap opera Love of Life. After that, her world started to change, as one success led to another.". "Marsha Mason's Journey is revealing of the demands and sacrifices of the life of a successful actress, and at the same time inspiring, as she traces a lifetime spent in search of an elusive happiness. As an adult child of alcoholics, she has come to understand the forces that shaped her life and propelled her along a path that was as inevitable as it was debilitating. And now, from her present vantage point, she is able to look back with a new understanding, one that enables her to take comfort in the success she has found and find joy in learning to celebrate life."--BOOK JACKET.

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Barbara Leaming

At last, the definitive biography of Katharine Hepburn - the story she herself has never told. Hollywood has produced many stars, but no one compares to Katharine Hepburn. She is the last of the great ones: a celebrated actress, a brilliant personality, an original. In more than sixty years of public life, countless men have fallen in love with her, women have admired her, and yet only a handful have ever known the real Kate. What drove Katharine Hepburn? Why was she so loved? How could such a fiercely independent woman have given up her life to one man - Spencer Tracy - to the point of curling up on the floor outside his hotel room while he drank himself into unconsciousness behind a locked door? Barbara Leaming has discovered thousands of never-before-seen documents that finally illuminate the mystery of this enigmatic, fascinating woman. Growing up in a family shadowed by suicide and madness, young Kate was unaware of her family's tragic history until the day - she was thirteen - she discovered her brother hanging dead in an attic. His death - and the heritage that might have explained it - was never talked of again, leaving Kate with unresolved questions that have haunted her ever since. It is a love story - though not the one you would expect. It is also a family story that brings alive three generations of fearless women, personal and political crusaders who shaped the history of women in our century.