Joan Blondell: A Life between Takes (Hollywood Legends) |
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| Title: | Joan Blondell: A Life between Takes (Hollywood Legends) |
| Author: | Matthew Kennedy |
| Publisher: | University Press of Mississippi |
| Type: | Book / Hardcover |
| Publication Date: | 25 September, 2007 |
| ISBN / ISBN-13: | 1578069610 / 9781578069613 |
| List Price: | $30.00 |
| You Save: | $10.20 |
| Amazon Price: | $19.80 |
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Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes is the first major biography of the effervescent, scene-stealing actress (1906-1979) who conquered motion pictures, vaudeville, Broadway, summer stock, television, and radio. Born the child of itinerant vaudevillians, she was on stage by age three. With her casual sex appeal, distinctive cello voice, megawatt smile, luminous saucer eyes, and flawless timing, she came into widespread fame in Warner Bros. musicals and comedies of the 1930s, including Blonde Crazy, Gold Diggers of 1933, and Footlight Parade. Frequent co-star to James Cagney, Clark Gable, Edward G. Robinson, and Humphrey Bogart, friend to Judy Garland, Barbara Stanwyck, and Bette Davis, and wife of Dick Powell and Mike Todd, Joan Blondell was a true Hollywood insider. By the time of her death, she had made nearly 100 films in a career that spanned over fifty years. Privately, she was unerringly loving and generous, while her life was touched by financial, medical, and emotional upheavals. Meticulously researched, expertly weaving the public and private, and featuring numerous interviews with family, friends, and colleagues, Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes traces the changing face of Twentieth Century American entertainment through the career of this extraordinary actress.
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Customer Reviews:
• Not An Inside Life
15 July, 2008
The book gives a chronological guide to Joan Blondell's career and life. However, the amount of perusal of her private life is limited, perhaps inevitably so. There are some intimations and allusions about Joan's thoughts and opinions but not many. Did her third husband, Michael Todd, take much of her money? It is only alluded to that it was the case. Why did her first husband cruelly insist on serial abortions while he had children with other women? Why did her marriage to Powell end while her love for him didn't? There is a chapter heading quote from Joan concerning the hardships of an acting career, but no further elaboration. On the other side of the coin, working for Warner Bros. in the 1930's was no day at the beach, and this is adequately detailed. Perhaps, any deep examination of personal issues cannot be expected in any biography.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Biographing Blondell
17 July, 2008
A long-overdue treatment of a wonderful star, lovingly rendered and meticulously researched. It's about time this lady gets the attention she so richly deserves.
- Amazon Customer Review
• One Of The Good Ones.
20 September, 2008
This is one of the good celeb bios. When you're through, you feel you know something about Blondell. When I was young, Joan Blondell was a houseohold word. Everybody knew who she was, even though she wasn't as big a star as Davis, Crawford et. al. Yet she was a touchstone of sorts -- she's a regular Joan Blondell, or she's the Joan Blondell type. Those were quips I remember hearing. It was always a treat to see her in a movie or on TV, and she had a way of cropping up where you least expected to see her. And when she did, everybody knew who she was and everybody loved her. There wasn't a phony bone in her body and that came across in everything she did and said. I remember reading an interview with her in the Sunday New York Times back when she was doing the Moon Marigolds (or whatever it was), the part she didn't like. But she handled it like a pro and in the article, the writer stated that Joan Blondell was one of the few celebrities she had ever interviewed who was not a disappointment in real life. That says it all, really. For all of her misfortunes, she never lost track of who she was, and it never made her bitter or self-pitying. In this day of nonsense publicity and mud-slinging and back-biting, it is refreshing to read about someone who handled fame as well as Joan Blondell. This book gives you the details and let's you see the woman she was.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Joan Blondell Was A Tough Cookie With A Heart Of Gold Who Was A Great Lady Of Stage, Screen And Tv Screen
06 February, 2009
Miss Dallas 1926. Raped at least once. Endured seven abortions many at the request of her weird first husband. She was in show business for over seventy years and was seen in over 100 films and television productions.She was great in comedy, drama and could tug at your heart strings. She was blonde, seductively buxom and sported a great pair of legs. Her voice was sexy and her heart for people and animals was as wide as the Texas sky. Her baby blues and smile are part of movie history.
And yet Joan Blondell (1906-1979) never won an Oscar or major award. She never made the huge bucks of such gal pals as Bette Davis or Judy Garland. She was just there to do her work as a well-skilled professional actress.
Joan was born to a vaudeville family in New York. She traveled the world with her family's act. When she became a Broadway and later Hollywood actress she often supported her impecunious parents and sister Gloria and brother June.
Blondell was a staple of Warner Brother's 1930s pre-code films. She was featured in such classics as"Blonde Crazy,"; "Goldiggers of 1933", "Footlight Parade" (with her frequent co-star James Cagney) and other musicals and dramas of the era. Later she would appear in such classics as "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,"; "Grease" and the tv series "Here Come the Brides."
Blondell had three husbands. First on the docket was George Barnes a cameraman who was unfaithful and drank. She was wed to star Dick Powell from 1936-1944. He left her for June Allyson; she left him for showman Mike Todd. Todd was a vocal and physical abuser. Joan never married after this disastrous marriage. Her children Norman and Ellen had many problems including drugs, mental illness and multiple marriage. Joan was an animal lover who was protective and tender to her many pets. She had a sparkling personality but depression often assailed her as she aged. She had many ailments but refused to stop practicing her craft. She wrote a novel " Center Stage Fancy" loosely based on her life. She died of leukemia.
Joan Blondell was a good person who loved her fans, family, work and animals. She was an excellent actress and comedienne.
Matthew Kennedy's book is at times a dry recitation of Joan's roles but he leavens this with enough family information to keep you turning the pages. The book is well illustrated and researched. All fans of Joan Blondell will enjoy this classy celebrity biography of a classy dame-JOAN BLONDELL!
- Amazon Customer Review
• Far More Than A Passing Fancy
26 February, 2010
Having enjoyed Matthew Kennedy's exhaustive bio on Marie Dressler I dragged my feet re: ordering it from Amazon until a fellow moviephile waxed melodiously about this book long-distance. Her enhanced admiration for Joan Blondell had me sold.
This book was not disappointing and I might add, just as wonderful as the Marie Dressler book had been. This book, while not a glossed over love note from its author, hits the heart and makes you love Blondell for all sorts of reasons.
If you are a fan of Blondell and you think you know everything about her life which seemingly had been played out in public, think again. This lady had it hard. She worked very hard from early childhood and carried the responsibility for her entire family by herself. She had 3 unsatisfying marriages which ended in divorce when one suspects that she would have been very happy having one loving husband and a house full of kids. Well, at least she had two nice kids that she was devoted to. As a young woman she had been physically and emotionally abused, and carried the end effects of that abuse until her death. If I had to characterize Blondell in a few short words they'd be 'resillient','determined','cheerful', and 'loving'. Aside from that, she was a performer with a far greater range than she is normally credited with. Matthew Kennedy has done a wonderful job with his latest leading lady. Since I've read this book it's hard not to see Joan Blondell in a different light.
- Amazon Customer Review
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