Books about Stardom from Amazon.com

Pure Dynamite is a blow by blow account of the career of Tom Billington, who wrestled solo as The Dynamite Kid, and with Davey Boy Smith as half of the British Bulldogs tag team. Twice world champion, Billington was featured in the pages of Playboy magazine and was an international celebrity. Although he should have been a millionaire when he retired in 1993, after 16 years of professional wrestling, he had little but memories are scar tissue to show for it.

As one of the first bona fide superstars in the World Wrestling Federation, Billington's career parallels the development of the WWF, from the early days to the decade following the first Wrestlemaina event at Madison Square Gardens in 1985. He worked with every major promoter, and wrestled with some of the biggest names in the sport. His story is a candid expose of the highs and lows of a cultural phenomenon that is still growing today.

Now confined to a wheelchair as a result of serious damage to his back and legs, his years of steroid use have also damages Billington's heart and personal life. Pure Dynamite is as much a cautionary tale as it is a glimpse into the world of a wrestling legend..
Price: $16.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This user-friendly workbook, including a two hour DVD, features the best practical information on making it in the entertainment business from Christina Ferra-Gilmore, the founder of one of Hollywood's leading acting schools, and produced by Wink Martindale, the legendary host of 19 TV game shows. Included is vital information on: * How to network * Finding an agent and avoiding scams * Making a living while looking for acting jobs and creating a budget * Taking appropriate headshot photos, with examples of good and bad * Writing an actor's resume * The business side of acting * Developing your skills..
Price: $12.28 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Price: $11.25 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Being the frontman of a popular band is a high-risk profession. Richard Barone, former lead singer of indie rock pioneers the Bongos, survived two decades in the spotlight to tell the tale. From dallying with the glitterati in the trendiest night spots, to learning recording tricks from some of the top names in the music industry, to innovating the intimate chamber-pop genre and emerging as an A-list solo artist and producer, he continues to push the boundaries of modern rock and inventive self-expression. In Frontman, Barone tells his story in a frank and charmingly funny style. We are along for this ride as he recounts the supernova express of New York City stardom and endless parties; sexual politics, divas, disappointments, and drugs; his journey of self-discovery through music; and a lifetime's worth of hard-gained advice for anyone interested in getting into the music business or just surviving in it..
Price: $11.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Newspapers, magazines, TV talk shows, album covers -- all display a proliferation of film star images. In the past we have tended to see celebrities as cogs in a mass entertainment industry selling desires and ideologies But since the 1970s, new approaches have explored the active role of the star in producing meanings, pleasures and identities for a diversity of audiences. Stardom brings together some of the best recent writing which represents these new approaches. Drawn from film history, sociology, textual analysis, audience research, psychoanalysis and cultural politics, the essays raise important questions for the politics of representation, the impact of the star on society and the cultural limitations and possibilities of stars.

Contributors: Christine Gledhill; Janet Staiger; Richard de Cordova; Charles Eckert; Thomas Harris; Karen Alexander; Richard Dyer; Charlotte Cornelia Herzog; Jane Marie Gaines; Charles Wolfe; Behroze Ghandy; Rosie Thomas;Jackie Stacey; Barry King; John O. Thompson; Andrew Britton; Michael Mourlet; David Lusted; Tessa Perkins; Miriam Hansen; Andrea Weiss; Kobena Mercer..
Price: $31.50 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Who was Rita Hayworth? Born Margarita Carmen Cansino, she spent her life subjected to others' definitions of her, no matter how hard she worked to claim her own identity Although there have been many "revelations" about her life and career, Adrienne McLean's book is the first to show that such disclosures were part of a constructed image from the outset.

McLean explores Hayworth's participation in the creation of her star persona, particularly through her work as a dancer—a subject ignored by most film scholars. The passive love goddess, as it turns out, had a unique appeal to other women who, like her, found it extraordinarily difficult to negotiate the competing demands of family, domesticity, and professional work outside the home. Being Rita Hayworth also considers the ways in which the actress has been treated by film scholarship over the years to accomplish its own goals, sometimes at her expense. Several of Hayworth's best-known star vehicles—among them Gilda (1946), Down to Earth (1947), The Lady from Shanghai (1948), and Affair in Trinidad (1952)— are discussed in depth..
Price: $20.96 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Essential vocal instruction for the pop singer, with a terrific companion CD of a dozen warm-up exercises specific to men and women. Each exercise begins with a sung example, then the piano plays the exercise for you to sing. The exercises address: warming up your lower and upper voice, connecting the two voices, loosening the throat, placing the sound forward, relaxing the tongue, breath and volume control, increasing your range, pitch accuracy, stabilizing the tone, and more. The book shows the practical objectives of each exercise and gives helpful pointers for success. Ideal for singers who aspire to American Idol!.
Price: $8.74 [Notify me when price goes down.]

From Annette Tapert, the coauthor of the popular The Power of Style, comes a book that is just as beautiful and entertaining but that redefines an attribute even more intangible. In word and image, it evokes a unique Hollywood era and eleven of its goddesses who lived, and left as their legacy, the Power of Glamour.
        
When the Glamour Era met the Golden Age of cinema, it cast a spell on a public beaten by the Depression and the threat of war. But the key ingredient in 1930s glamour was personality. Annette Tapert's movie-queen profiles, rich with fresh insights, reach beyond the star-making machinery, fan magazines, fashions, and cosmetics to the essence of each women: the carefully molded image of Gloria Swanson, who started it all . . . Marlene Dietrich's siren persona on and off screen . . . the "reverse glamour" of Katharine Hepburn and Greta Garbo. Their power--and that of Joan Crawford, Carole Lombard, Norma Shearer, Claudette Colbert, and the long-neglected Kay Francis, Dolores Del Rio, and Constance Bennett--lay in using style, wit, and guile to outsmart the studio system and enchant the world. In these pages we see how, veiled in intrigue and mystery, they brought glamour very close to its original meaning: witchcraft..
Price: $28.97 [Notify me when price goes down.]

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Price: $9.58 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Off-White Hollywood investigates how the "ethnicity" of white European-American actresses has played a key role in the mythology of American identity and nation building. Embodying national fantasies and "assimilation myths," ethnic female film stars symbolized the promise of American multiculturalism and proved the desirability and reliability of the American Dream. Through case studies of stars spanning cinema's history, Diane Negra examines Hollywood films and promotional material as a vehicle through which American culture expresses and negotiates gender and ethnic identities. Tracing processes of transformation, containment and resistance, from the assimilation imperatives of the early twentieth century to the current ethnic revival, Off-White Hollywood shows how star personae have reflected the changing meanings of whiteness in US culture..
Price: $33.20 [Notify me when price goes down.]