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Nobody's Girl Friday
- The Women Who Ran Hollywood
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
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Publisher's summary
The first comprehensive history of Hollywood's high-flying career women during the studio era, Nobody's Girl Friday covers the impact of the executives, producers, editors, writers, agents, designers, directors, and actresses who shaped Hollywood film production and style, led their unions, climbed to the top during the war, and fought the blacklist.
Based on a decade of archival research, author J. E. Smyth uncovers a formidable generation working within the American film industry and brings their voices back into the history of Hollywood. Their achievements, struggles, and perspectives fundamentally challenge popular ideas about director-based auteurism, male dominance, and female disempowerment in the years between First and Second Wave Feminism.
Nobody's Girl Friday is a revisionist history, but it's also a deeply personal, collective account of hundreds of working women, the studios they worked for, and the films they helped to make. For many years, historians and critics have insisted that both American feminism and the power of women in Hollywood declined and virtually disappeared from the 1920s through the 1960s. But Smyth vindicates Bette Davis's claim. The story of the women who called the shots in studio-era Hollywood has never fully been told - until now.
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Sames Sex Couples Through History
- By Susie on 12-11-12
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When Women Invented Television
- The Untold Story of the Female Powerhouses Who Pioneered the Way We Watch Today
- By: Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
- Narrated by: Nan McNamara
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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It was the Golden Age of Radio and powerful men were making millions in advertising dollars reaching thousands of listeners every day. When television arrived, few radio moguls were interested in the upstart industry and its tiny production budgets, and expensive television sets were out of reach for most families. But four women - each an independent visionary - saw an opportunity and carved their own paths, and in so doing invented the way we watch TV today.
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Must Read T.V.
- By cindy on 05-18-21
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Orson Welles's Last Movie
- The Making of The Other Side of the Wind
- By: Josh Karp
- Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 1970, legendary but self-destructive director Orson Welles returned to Hollywood from years of self-imposed exile in Europe and decided it was time to make a comeback movie. It was about a legendary self-destructive director who returns to Hollywood from years of self-imposed exile in Europe. Welles swore it wasn't autobiographical.
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Engaging and human portrait of Welles
- By TrevorTrujillo on 06-20-20
By: Josh Karp
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The Sound of Music Story
- How a Beguiling Young Novice, a Handsome Austrian Captain, and Ten Singing Von Trapp Children Inspired the Most Beloved Film of All Time
- By: Tom Santopietro
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Now Tom Santopietro has written the ultimate Sound of Music fan audiobook with all the inside dope, from behind-the-scenes stories of the filming in Austria and Hollywood to new interviews with Johannes von Trapp and others. Santopietro looks back at the real-life story of Maria von Trapp, goes on to chronicle the sensational success of the Broadway musical, and recounts the story of the near cancellation of the film when Cleopatra bankrupted 20th Century Fox.
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A must for super-fans
- By Simone on 07-29-17
By: Tom Santopietro
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Ayn Rand and the World She Made
- By: Anne C. Heller
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 19 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Ayn Rand is the author of two phenomenally best-selling ideological novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, which have sold over 12 million copies in the United States alone. Through them, she built a right-wing cult following in the late 1950s and became the guiding light of Libertarianism and of White House economic policy in the 1960s and '70s. Her defenses of radical individualism and of selfishness as a "capitalist virtue" have permanently altered the American cultural landscape.
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Great history of both Rand and her era
- By Mark on 08-07-10
By: Anne C. Heller
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Age of Cage
- Four Decades of Hollywood Through One Singular Career
- By: Keith Phipps
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Nicolas Cage is many things, but love him, or laugh at him, there's no denying two things: You've seen one of his many films, and you certainly know his name. But who is he, really, and why has his career endured for over 40 years, with more than a hundred films, and birthed a million memes? Age of Cage is a smart, beguiling book about the films of Nicolas Cage and the actor himself, as well as a sharp-eyed examination of the changes that have taken place in Hollywood over the course of his career.
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Excellent filmography of a successful career
- By Pamela Plimpton on 04-04-22
By: Keith Phipps
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The Collaboration
- Hollywood's Pact with Hitler
- By: Ben Urwand
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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To continue doing business in Germany, Hollywood studios agreed not to make films attacking Nazis or condemning persecution of Jews. Ben Urwand reveals this collaboration and the cast of characters it drew in, ranging from Goebbels to Louis B. Mayer. At the center was Hitler himself - obsessed with movies and their power to shape public opinion.
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Making mountains out of molehills
- By M. S. Cohen on 11-05-13
By: Ben Urwand
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Steve McQueen
- A Biography
- By: Marc Eliot
- Narrated by: Marc Eliot
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the top box-office draws of the 1960s and '70s with now-classics such as The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, The Thomas Crown Affair, and Bullit, Steve McQueen is renowned as one of the most exciting actors ever to come out of Hollywood. Now, in Steve McQueen: A Biography, best-selling author Marc Eliot gives unique insight into McQueen's life, from his films to his three marriages, many affairs, and struggles with addictions.
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Snooze
- By Cill on 10-27-11
By: Marc Eliot
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Mr. & Mrs. Hollywood
- Edie and Lew Wasserman and Their Entertainment Empire
- By: Kathleen Sharp
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 18 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Ever wonder why so many B actors wind up as A-grade politicians? Or how the casting couch worked? Acclaimed author Kathleen Sharp traces the influence of show business through the lives of its first power couple. Edie and Lew Wasserman built the world’s largest talent agency, MCA, created the multibillion-dollar Universal Studios, and helped shape Washington, DC.
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Best Book I Have Heard In A Long Time!!!
- By James M. Patton on 09-25-16
By: Kathleen Sharp
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Possessed
- The Life of Joan Crawford
- By: Donald Spoto
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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New York Times best-selling author Donald Spoto has brilliantly explored the lives and careers of numerous Hollywood stars and entertainment icons. In Possessed, his subject is the inimitable Joan Crawford, one of the most electrifying divas of the Golden Age of American film. A more thorough, revealing, and sympathetic portrait of the often maligned movie star - most notably lambasted, perhaps, in the scandalous best seller, Mommie Dearest - Possessed is a fascinating study of the real Joan Crawford, a remarkable actress, businesswoman, mother, and lover.
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An concise assessment of Joan's life
- By Walter Solley on 10-17-20
By: Donald Spoto
What listeners say about Nobody's Girl Friday
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Boxing Fan
- 06-02-23
Mixed Review
There's much great info here on women in film in the U.S. studio days. But the writer far too often pits women vs, women. The last chapter that pits Katharine Hepburn vs. Bette Davis is awful. Why put two of the great women of film history against each other? There's much to like in this book, but the bias of the author comes through often and distracted me in every chapter. It could have been a much better book, but I took what I could from it.
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- Buretto
- 08-12-18
An excuse for a hatchet job on Katharine Hepburn
This book is 1/3rd phone directory, 1/3rd resume reading, and only 1/3rd story. I wish that were a joke.
I also wish that the actual story had been told better. I was intrigued by the promises of the summary, but it sadly fails to fulfil any of that promise. I was hoping to hear about the contributions of women in the film industry. I didn't care about their politics, nor whether they identified as a feminist (of whatever wave), and I certainly didn't care about the author's opinion about who was legitimately feminist and who wasn't. The first two chapters of the book is filled with, quite literally, readings of studio phone books. When the book does start to get into details, it mostly just relays a string of resumes of prominent women in various departments of filmmaking.
Rather unintentionally, it reveals that self-importance, as well as mediocrity, in Hollywood knows no gender. When it does refer to work quality, it's almost always in terms of box office and awards (naturally, filmmakers deciding on whom among themselves to glorify). I believe that I learned that women were responsible for an over-reliance on closeups, along with interminable music bridges to give the audience the appropriate cue on how they should be feeling. That may be a bit of an exaggeration on my part, but it does reflect the kind of outsized claims that the author makes.
But, where it really goes wrong is the dreadful hatchet job on Katharine Hepburn. Throughout the book (when it chooses to actually relate facts about women in Hollywood) there is a lot of condescension regarding who was not a feminist, who wasn't feminist enough, who was a 1st wave versus 2nd wave feminist.... And it culminates in a shameful takedown of Katharine Hepburn as self-serving and anti-woman, stopping just short of calling her a female version of an Uncle Tom. Even the tepid efforts by the author for redemption for Hepburn in later years, specifically in The African Queen, are ironically given in relief to her male co-star Humphrey Bogart, and later dismissing her as nothing more than Spencer Tracy's facilitator and flunkie. To make historical commentary, and perhaps feeling that the record is being straight is one thing. But this last chapter was mean-spirited, particularly when the woman is so prominently featured on the cover.
I was merely disappointed up to the last chapter. Mostly names and resumes, without much substance. A few notable actors, writers, editors, costume designers were given notice, and that was welcome. But too little to salvage it from the books ignoble ending.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Aer Aktis
- 03-20-23
A Fantastic resource on the Studio Era
A great look at the Hollywood Studio System from an angle that it is rarely seen. I really appreciated J.E. Smyth's commitment to showing the breadth of work that women in the 30s, 40s and 50s did in the film industry, and that women working in these roles were the rule, not the exception. She goes in depth on a few women in each chapter (Mary MacCall Jr, Barbara McLean, Edith Head, Harriet Parsons, Ida Koverman to name a few, but many more), but also makes sure to list the others who were working in similar roles, really driving home the sheer number of women working then, and the fact that the numbers don't necessarily look better today than they did in the 40s.
This book isn't really for people wanting marquee names, though she does devote the first and last chapters to stars Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn respectively, and their complex relationships with the system, women behind the scenes, and feminism, but the majority of the book is about secretaries, script supervisors, editors, costume designers, writers, and producers. I did want a little more interrogation into the conflicting experiences women had with Harry Cohn at Columbia, because, as Smyth details, he hired and promoted an unprecedented number of women producers, which is interesting, but that fact does not cancel out his predatory behavior towards women under contract to him. I'd love to have had more acknowledgement of these two conflicting sides of him, though I guess the predatory side has been much better publicized than the number of women working behind the scenes at Columbia under him.
All in all a fascinating listen, and definitely worth your time if you are at all interested in classic Hollywood history.
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