Hollywood in the 1920s sparkled with talent, confidence, and opportunity. Enter Irving Thalberg of Brooklyn, who survived childhood illness to run Universal Pictures at twenty; co-found Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at twenty-four; and make stars of Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, and Jean Harlow. Known as Hollywood's “Boy Wonder,” Thalberg created classics such as Ben-Hur, Tarzan the Ape Man, Grand Hotel, Freaks, Mutiny on the Bounty, and The Good Earth, but died tragically at thirty-seven. His place in the pantheon should have been assured, yet his films were not reissued for thirty years, spurring critics to question his legend and diminish his achievements. In this definitive biography, illustrated with rare photographs, Mark A. Vieira sets the record straight, using unpublished production files, financial records, and correspondence to confirm the genius of Thalberg's methods. In addition, this is the first Thalberg biography to utilize both his recorded conversations and the unpublished memoirs of his wife, Norma Shearer. Irving Thalberg is a compelling narrative of power and idealism, revealing for the first time the human being behind the legend.

Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince

Biographies & Memoirs

Vieira, Mark A.

Arts & Literature

University of California Press

George Hurrell (19041992) was the creator of the Hollywood glamour portrait, the maverick artist who captured movie stars of the most exalted era in Hollywood history with bold contrast and seductive poses. This lavishly illustrated book spans Hurrell's entire career, from his beginnings as a society photographer to his finale as the celebrity photographer who was himself a celebrity, and a living legend. 
From 1929 to 1944 Hurrell was the Rembrandt of Hollywood,” creating portraits of Marlene Dietrich, Norma Shearer, Bette Davis, Carole Lombard, and Joan Crawford that were a blend of the ethereal and the erotic. His photos of Jane Russell sulking in a haystack made the unknown girl a starwithout a film credit to her name. He immortalized leading males stars of the day from the Barrymores to Clark Gable and Gary Cooper. Latter photo shoots magnified the glamour of the likes of Warren Beatty and Sharon Stone. 
Through newly acquired photos and in-depth research, photographer and historian Mark A. Vieira, author of Hurrell's Hollywood Portraits, offers not only a wealth of new images but a compelling sequel to the story presented in his earlier book on Hurrell. Hurrell was himself a starrich, famous, successful. Then, at the height of his career, he suffered a vertiginous fall from grace. George Hurrell's Hollywood recounts, for the first time anywhere, Hurrell's rise from the asheshow movie-still collectors and art dealers pulled the elderly artist into a nefarious world of theft and fraud; how his undiminished powers gave him a second career; and how his mercurial nature nearly destroyed it. 
The photographs that motivate this tale are luminous, powerful, and timeless. This book showcases more than four hundred, most of which have not been published since they were created. George Hurrell's Hollywood is the ultimate work on this trailblazing artist, a fabulous montage of fact and anecdote, light and shadow.

George Hurrell's Hollywood: Glamour Portraits 1925-1992

Arts & Photography

Individual Artists

Running Press Adult

1939 was a watershed year. The Great Depression was barely over; economics, politics, and culture braced for war. There was a lull before the storm and Hollywood, as if expecting to be judged by posterity, produced a portfolio of masterpieces. No year before or since has yielded so many beloved works of cinematic art: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Gunga Din, Only Angels Have Wings, Destry Rides Again, Beau Geste, Wuthering Heights, The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, Ninotchka, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Dark Victory, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Women, and of course, Gone With the Wind. 
Majestic Hollywood showcases fifty films from this landmark year, with insightful text on the cultural significance of each movie and entertaining plot descriptions. Also included are stories from the legendary artists who made the films: directors William Wellman and John Ford; cinematographers Arthur Miller and Lee Garmes; actors Judy Garland, Rosalind Russell, Ray Milland, Sir Laurence Olivier, and Olivia de Havilland. 
This world of entertainment is illustrated by rarely seen images. Made during the most glamorous era in movie history, whether scene stills, behind-the-scenes candids, portraits, or poster art, the photos are as distinctive, evocative, and powerful as the films they were meant to publicize. Presenting the best of these images and the stories behind them, this book is a cavalcade of unforgettable films from 1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year.

Majestic Hollywood: The Greatest Films of 1939

Photography & Video

Colossal. Stupendous. Epic. These adjectives, used by movie companies to hawk their wares, became clichés long ago. When used to describe the films of one director, they are accurate. More than any filmmaker in the history of the medium, Cecil B. DeMille mastered the art of the spectacle. In the process, he became a filmland founder. One hundred years ago, he made the first feature film ever shot in Hollywood and went on to become the most commercially successful producer-director in history. DeMille told his cinematic tales with painterly, extravagant images. The parting of the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments was only one of these. There were train wrecks (The Greatest Show on Earth); orgies (Manslaughter); battles (The Buccaneer); Ancient Rome (The Sign of the Cross); Ancient Egypt (Cleopatra); and the Holy Land (The Crusades). The best of these images are showcased here, in Cecil B. DeMille: The Art of the Hollywood Epic. This lavish volume opens the King Tut's tomb of cinematic treasures that is the Cecil B. DeMille Archives, presenting storyboard art, concept paintings, and an array of photographic imagery. Historian Mark A. Vieira writes an illuminating text to accompany these scenes. Cecilia de Mille Presley relates her grandfather's thoughts on his various films, and recalls her visits to his sets, including the Egyptian expedition to film The Ten Commandments. Like the director's works, Cecil B. DeMille: The Art of the Hollywood Epic is a panorama of magnificence-celebrating a legendary filmmaker and the remarkable history of Hollywood.

Cecil B. DeMille: The Art of the Hollywood Epic

de Mille Presley, Cecilia

You know film noir when you see it: the shadowed setting; the cynical detective; the femme fatale; and the twist of fate. Into the Dark captures this alluring genre with a cavalcade of compelling photographs and a guide to 82 of its best films. Into the Dark is the first book to tell the story of film noir in its own voice. Author Mark A. Vieira quotes the artists who made these movies and the journalists and critics who wrote about them, taking readers on a year-by-year tour of the exciting nights when movies like Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, and Sunset Boulevard were sprung on an unsuspecting public. For the first time, we hear the voices of film noir artists speak from the sets and offices of the studios, explaining the dark genre, even before it had a name. Those voices tell how the genre was born and how it thrived in an industry devoted to sweetness and light. Into the Dark is a ticket to a smoky, glamorous world. You enter a story conference with Raymond Chandler, visit the set of Laura, and watch Detour with a Midwest audience. This volume recreates the environment that spawned film noir. It also displays the wit and warmth of the genre's artists. Hedda Hopper reports on Citizen Kane, calling Orson Welles Little Orson Annie.” Lauren Bacall says she enjoys playing a bad girl in To Have and Have Not. Bosley Crowther calls Joan Crawford in Possessed a ghost wailing for a demon lover beneath a waning moon.” An Indiana exhibitor rates the classic Murder, My Sweet a passable program picture.” Illustrated by hundreds of rare still photographs, Into the Dark conveys the mystery, glamour, and irony that make film noir surpassingly popular. About TCM: Turner Classic Movies is the definitive resource for the greatest movies of all time. It engages, entertains, and enlightens to show how the entire spectrum of classic movies, movie history, and movie-making touches us all and influences how we think and live today.

Into the Dark: The Hidden World of Film Noir, 1941-1950 (Turner Classic Movies)

Turner Classic Movies

Filled with rare images and untold stories from filmmakers, exhibitors, and moviegoers, Forbidden Hollywood is the ultimate guide to a gloriously entertaining era when a lax code of censorship let sin rule the movies. Forbidden Hollywood is a history of "pre-Code" like none other: you will eavesdrop on production conferences, read nervous telegrams from executives to censors, and hear Americans argue about "immoral" movies. You will see decisions artfully wrought, so as to fool some of the people long enough to get films into theaters. You will read what theater managers thought of such craftiness, and hear from fans as they applauded creativity or condemned crassness. You will see how these films caused a grass-roots movement to gain control of Hollywood-and why they were "forbidden" for fifty years. The book spotlights the twenty-two films that led to the strict new Code of 1934, including Red-Headed Woman, Call Her Savage, and She Done Him Wrong. You'll see Paul Muni shoot a path to power in the original Scarface; Barbara Stanwyck climb the corporate ladder on her own terms in Baby Face; and misfits seek revenge in Freaks. More than 200 newly restored (and some never-before-published) photographs illustrate pivotal moments in the careers of Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, and Greta Garbo; and the pre-Code stardom of Claudette Colbert, Cary Grant, Marlene Dietrich, James Cagney, and Mae West. This is the definitive portrait of an unforgettable era in filmmaking.

Forbidden Hollywood: The Pre-Code Era (1930-1934): When Sin Ruled the Movies (Turner Classic Movies)

In this official centennial history of the greatest studio in Hollywood, unforgettable stars, untold stories, and rare images from the Warner Bros. vault bring a century of entertainment to vivid life. The history of Warner Bros. is not just the tale of a legendary film studio and its stars, but of classic Hollywood itself, as well as a portrait of America in the last century. It's a family story of Polish-Jewish immigrants--the brothers Warner--who took advantage of new opportunities in the burgeoning film industry at a time when four mavericks could invent ways of operating, of warding off government regulation, and of keeping audiences coming back for more during some of the nation's darkest days. Innovation was key to their early success. Four years after its founding, the studio revolutionized moviemaking by introducing sound in The Jazz Singer (1927). Stars and stories gave Warner Bros. its distinct identity as the studio where tough guys like Humphrey Bogart and strong women like Bette Davis kept people on the edge of their seats. Over the years, these acclaimed actors and countless others made magic on WB's soundstages and were responsible for such diverse classics as Casablanca, A Streetcar Named Desire, A Star Is Born, Bonnie & Clyde, Malcolm X, Caddyshack, Purple Rain, and hundreds more. It's the studio that put noir in film with The Maltese Falcon and other classics of the genre, where the iconic Looney Tunes were unleashed on animation, and the studio that took an unpopular stance at the start of World War II by producing anti-Nazi films. Counter-culture hits like A Clockwork Orange and The Exorcist carried the studio through the 1970s and '80s. Franchise phenomena like Harry Potter, the DC universe, and more continue to shape a cinematic vision and longevity that is unparalleled in the annals of film history. These stories and more are chronicled in this comprehensive and stunning volume. Copyright © 2023 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Warner Bros.: 100 Years of Storytelling

The definitive biography and photographic record of George Hurrell, the famed photographer who shot the most iconic images of classic Hollywood legends--now in paperback and featuring 50% new and 100% upgraded images. &nbsp; George Hurrell was called the "Rembrandt of Hollywood." Before his arrival, movie star portraits were "soft focus" and undistinguished, derivative of the Main Street USA portrait salon. Hurrell instituted a sharp, dramatic look. The vibrant, temperamental artist was an original, loved by the subjects he glamorized. For these performers, a Hurrell portrait was the passport to immortality. &nbsp; In this paperback edition of photographer and historian Mark A. Vieira's original volume, the author offers a wealth of new images to illustrate a compelling narrative. Featuring rare and never-before-published portraits and behind-the-scenes shots, George Hurrell's Hollywood covers Hurrell's entire career, from his beginnings as a Los Angeles society photographer to his finale as the celebrity photographer who became a celebrity himself. More than 400 pristine images showcase his work with Hollywood icons from 1929 to 1992. Vieira's text recounts the artist's life, from his childhood to the heyday of his career as a starmaker, through untold stories of his fall from grace and eventual comeback. &nbsp; Filled with previously unseen photos of the biggest stars across more than six decades and abounding with fresh insight, this volume is not only the ultimate showcase of the trailblazing artist's work but an indispensable treasury of Hollywood lore.

George Hurrell's Hollywood: Glamour Portraits, 1925-1992

A collection of movie stills, taken by some of Hollywood's great cinematographers and portrait photographers, along with notes on the movies for which they were taken and anecdotes about the cinema

Hollywood Portraits: Classic Scene Stills 1939-1951

Humor & Entertainment

Mallard Press

During Hollywood's Golden Era, publicity photos had the same power to make or break stars as the films in which they appeared. The most sought-after photographer of the time was George Hurrell, who perfected the "glamour" portrait. Here, 275 of his classic duotone photos are brilliantly reproduced, using archival prints that preserve his dramatic lighting effects.

Hurrell's Hollywood Portraits: The Chapman Collection

Harry N. Abrams

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Books by Vieira, Mark A.