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American Legends: The Life of Myrna Loy audiobook cover art

  • American Legends: The Life of Myrna Loy

  • By: Charles River Editors
  • Narrated by: Bambi Lynn Augustin
  • Length: 1 hr and 15 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    0 out of 5 stars 0
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It is something of a cliché to say that an actor's life was like a movie he or she might have starred in, but in the case of Myrna Loy, the cliché is true. It is easy to picture her as a little girl, riding the range with her rancher father, sitting around the table and participating charmingly in family discussions of current events. It is not hard to imagine the camera panning to her first and then second visits to Hollywood, her backlot tour, and starry-eyed decision to become an actress.

British Legends: The Life and Legacy of Vivien Leigh audiobook cover art

  • British Legends: The Life and Legacy of Vivien Leigh

  • By: Charles River Editors
  • Narrated by: Sally Martin
  • Length: 1 hr and 32 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4.5 out of 5 stars 12
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars 11
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    4.5 out of 5 stars 11

What made 1939 the watershed year was the release of several critically acclaimed movies, including The Wizard of Oz and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But the most famous of the bunch, and perhaps the most famous movie of all, is Gone With the Wind, and one of the most remarkable aspects of the film is that the quintessential Southern belle was played by Vivien Leigh, a British actress still relatively unknown in Hollywood.

  • 5 out of 5 stars

  • Great bio

  • By cappi lucas on 05-27-16
The Purple Diaries audiobook cover art

  • The Purple Diaries

  • Mary Astor and the Most Sensational Hollywood Scandal of the 1930s
  • By: Joseph Egan
  • Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
  • Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars 148
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 133
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars 133

1936 was a great year for the movie industry - the financial setbacks of the Great Depression were subsiding, so theater attendance was up. Americans everywhere were watching the stars, and few stars shined as brightly as one of America's most enduring screen favorites, Mary Astor. But Astor's personal story wasn't a happy one. Born poor and widowed at 24, Mary Astor had spent years looking for stability when she met and wed Dr. Franklyn Thorpe.

  • 4 out of 5 stars

  • Courtroom Drama

  • By Chris R on 01-03-17
American Legends: The Life of Ava Gardner audiobook cover art

  • American Legends: The Life of Ava Gardner

  • By: Charles River Editors
  • Narrated by: Robin J Sitten
  • Length: 1 hr and 4 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    0 out of 5 stars 0
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A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history's most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees?

The Lonely Life audiobook cover art

  • The Lonely Life

  • An Autobiography
  • By: Bette Davis
  • Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
  • Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4.5 out of 5 stars 31
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 29
  • Story
    4.5 out of 5 stars 27

The Lonely Life details the first 50-plus years of Davis' life - her Yankee childhood, her rise to stardom in Hollywood, the birth of her beloved children, and the uncompromising choices she made along the way to succeed. The book was updated with new material in the 1980s, bringing the story up to the end of Davis' life - all the heartbreak, all the drama, and all the love she experienced at every stage of her extraordinary life.

  • 4 out of 5 stars

  • Bette Davis was a legend

  • By Constantinos on 11-26-17
American Legends: The Life of Rita Hayworth audiobook cover art

  • American Legends: The Life of Rita Hayworth

  • By: Charles River Editors
  • Narrated by: Kelly Rhodes
  • Length: 1 hr and 9 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars 2
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars 2
  • Story
    1.5 out of 5 stars 2

Rita Hayworth's life and career remain fascinating to both the general public and avid movie fans alike. Even people with just a casual interest in movies appreciate her performances in films such as Gilda (1946), The Lady from Shanghai (1947), and Salome (1953), and few actresses could rival Hayworth's popularity during the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Publisher's Summary

"Career is too pompous a word. It was a job, and I have always felt privileged to be paid for what I love doing." - Barbara Stanwyck

In the 1940s, film noir was at its peak, and Hollywood was churning out dark, mysterious, exotic and erotic classics like The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not, which helped turn some of the industry's sultry actresses into superstars. In 1944, the premiere femme fatale was Barbara Stanwyck, who was the highest paid woman in America that year, thanks to roles in films like Double Indemnity (1944), in which she uses her persuasive powers to convince a man to commit murder. That film would earn Stanwyck the first of her four Academy Award nominations. After a nearly 60-year career in acting, the American Film Institute would recognize her as the 11th greatest female screen legend of the 20th century.

If anything, Stanwyck's reputation for being a femme fatale obscured the fact that she played strong women that made her seem modern instead of traditional, and not just in noir films. Her versatility also led to roles in all kinds of genres, including Westerns and traditional dramas, but that should come as no surprise, because she was legendary around Hollywood for being a consummate professional that everyone on set loved to work with. Frank Capra noted, "She was destined to be beloved by all directors, actors, crews and extras. In a Hollywood popularity contest she would win first prize hands down."

©2012 Charles River Editors (P)2015 Charles River Editors

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Great audiobook about a classic star!

What did you love best about American Legends: The Life of Barbara Stanwyck?

I'm a big fan of classic movies on TCM and so I've seen many of Barbara Stanwyck's pictures. I also love audiobooks. I recently bought one about Walter Cronkite and enjoyed the narrator. So when I looked up other books by the same narrator I was delighted to find that he had done one about Stanwyck. I ordered it immediately and was not disappointed.

What did you like best about this story?

The audiobook was revealing about her life and I discovered a number of her movies that I want to see.

Have you listened to any of Charles McKibben’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

As I've mentioned before. I liked the Cronkite book read by Charles McKibben but Stanwyck's life was much more colorful.

Any additional comments?

I hope this narrator will do more on this series of American Legends.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful