Research Catalog

Title

Tales of a theatrical guru / Danny Newman ; foreword by Studs Terkel.

Author

Newman, Danny.

Publication

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c2006.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xii, 260 p., [28] p. of plates : ill.; 25 cm.

Series Statement

Music in American life

Subjects

• Singers > Anecdotes
• Entertainers > Anecdotes

Note

• Includes index.

Contents

Milton Berle, show-biz whiz, wins $20,000 and I win $8 betting on General Mowley in eighth race at empire! The 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s -- Good night, Jimmy Durante (and Clayton and Jackson, too), wherever you are! -- Vaudeville headliners Laurel and Hardy return to their roots; also about Roy Rogers, Trigger, early-days movie Cowboy Buck Jones, and other show-biz exotica! -- Harry Bloomfield, free-spending ticket-scalper/theatrical producer; the young, idealistic Frank Sinatra; and Peru's Alberto Vargas, painter of the Ziegfeld girls, the Varga girls, and the Playboy girls -- Tales of Chicago's all-day, all-night Astor theatre and the peerless menu Poet Dario Toffenetti next door -- The Fantastic Sally Rand: the 1933 world's fair Lady Godiva and her trusty adding machine -- Dynamic Sam Wanamaker from Chicago's west side: a Broadway star, internationally famed director/producer, theatrical force in the west end, and restorer of London's old globe theatre -- Francis X. Bushman, king of silent movies worldwide, earned multi-millions before income tax! -- My romantic 1948 transatlantic call results in a fascinating forty-year, five-continent travelog with actress Dina Halpern -- Russia's tempestuous Madame Eugenie Leontovich: actress, director, playwright, producer, teacher, and great artist -- George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein's perfect partnership -- Geraldine Page, a brilliant young actress and casualty of the method -- Samuel Goldwyn (Shmuel Gelbfisz) walks from Warsaw to Hamburg, is a blacksmith in England, a world-champion glove salesman, and wealthy Hollywood producer in America -- Carol Channing parlays "diamonds are a girl's best friend" into a half-century career climaxes by Her hello, dolly! Mega-triumph! -- Danny Kaye, the all-time great who felt that he must, wherever he was, Wow everyone within range! -- They loved me in Scotland (but I didn't love the deathly damp and dreary underheated winters) -- Jan Kiepura, grand opera's high-D specialist, and his wife, the adorable operetta star Marta Eggerth, enchant sentimental audiences everywhere! -- Yul Brynner, macho celebrity, and Dolly Haas, "Wisp of a porcelain actress," star in touring Lute song: thirty-seven days of passionate press-agentry -- Richard Tucker, the great American-born tenor -- Truman, Stalin, and a daring ticket sales strategy for Porgy and Bess -- Audience agape as Don Jose leaves Carmen in onstage lurch; cheapskate impresario evades payment -- Ardis Kranik, the apple-cheeked, all-American girl and award-winning savior of lyric opera -- Boyish Bruno Bartoletti joins lyric opera conductors Dimitri Mitropoulos and Georg Solti in 1956 to become artistic director for four decades -- Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi: two Donnas, both prima! -- Giuseppe Di Stefano, dapper, dashing bon vivant and the tenor darling of opera lovers everywhere! -- Baritone Tito Gobbi, lyric opera's godfather who made the huge civic opera house shrink to intimate size -- Saving Roger Dettmer's life, or, hell hath no fury like a tenor panned! -- The great Jussi Bjorling of the seamless voice (and a bone-crushing arm-wrestler as well) -- Kiril Kondrashin gives Puccini lessons, and adventures with the Russians -- Placido Domingo: tenor, conductor, impresario, and dominant personality of the opera world -- Paradise lost composer Krzysztof Penderecki and Pope John Paul II -- The great Luciano Pacarotti, faithful lyric opera star, turns "serial canceler" and Ardis Krainik reacts -- Tempestuous, controversial Carol Fox, who against all odds founded lyric opera of Chicago.

Call Number

MWER 07-2166

ISBN

• 0252031644 (cloth : alk. paper)
• 9780252031649 (cloth : alk. paper)

LCCN

2006006966

OCLC

64486697

Author

Newman, Danny.

Title

Tales of a theatrical guru / Danny Newman ; foreword by Studs Terkel.

Imprint

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c2006.

Series

Music in American life

Connect to:

Table of contents only

Research Call Number

MWER 07-2166