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Peter O'Toole: The Definitive Biography
by Robert SellersPeter O'Toole was supremely talented, a unique leading man and one of the most charismatic actors of his generation. Described by his friend Richard Burton as "the most original actor to come out of Britain since the war," O'Toole was also unpredictable, with a dangerous edge he brought to his roles and to his real life.With the help of exclusive interviews with colleagues and close friends, Robert Sellers' Peter O'Toole: The Definitive Biography paints the first complete picture of this complex and much-loved man. The book reveals what drove him to extremes, why he drank to excess for many years and hated authority, but it also describes a man who was fiercely intelligent, with a great sense of humor and huge energy.Giving full weight to his extraordinary career, this is an insightful, funny, and moving tribute to an iconic actor who made a monumental contribution to theater and cinema.
Peter Pan's First XI: The Extraordinary Story Of J. M. Barrie's Cricket Team
by Kevin TelferThe creator of Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie, was a hugely enthusiastic cricketer of very little talent. That didn?t stop him from leading perhaps the most extraordinary amateur cricket team ever to have taken the field. Some of the twentieth century?s most famous writers including A. A. Milne, P. G. Wodehouse and Jerome K. Jerome, regularly turned out for Barrie?s team between 1890 and 1913. This very Edwardian vision of village cricket was only brought to an end by the First World War. Those years of golden summers were recounted in Barrie?s letters and journals, many revealed here for the first time. Cricket lovers will identify with Barrie?s attempts to assemble a team of competent players. In PETER PAN'S FIRST XI, Kevin Telfer weaves together cricket, literature, history, humour and biography to create an entertaining account of this little-known band of cricketing Peter Pans ? and the age in which they lived.
Peter Paul and Mary: Fifty Years in Music and Life
by Peter Yarrow Noel Paul Stookey Mary TraversThis carefully crafted and collectible volume tells the intimate story of Peter, Paul, and Mary and their music, in their words and with iconic images that follow their passionate, fifty-year journey to the center of America&’s heart. Photographs, many rare and never before published, taken over five decades by some of the world&’s top photographers, follow them from their earliest performances in the 1960s, when Mary was the most desired, beautiful, and charismatic performer and a new role model for women. Follow the trio as they lead America to discover the passionate soul of folk music. Join the struggle for racial equality, social justice, and freedom in this memorable journey, from the historic 1963 March on Washington with Martin Luther King, Jr., to the trio&’s appearance before a half million people in 1969 to end the Vietnam War, to their singing at the Hollywood Bowl for Survival Sunday in 1978, helping to launch the anti-nuke movement, the world&’s first international environmental movement. Through these images, readers will feel and almost hear the trio&’s songs calling for a more caring, better world as they performed with a courage and conviction that became for so many the embodiment and soundtrack of their generation&’s awakening to conscience, to activism, and to a new dream for all of humankind. Peter, Paul, and Mary&’s songs of defiant hope and a certain unmasked innocence are still a powerful part of our American consciousness, and this book reenacts the history of how the trio marked many lives with their indelible stamp of honesty of the sort we all yearn to recapture and recreate today—for ourselves, our children, and the generations to come.
Peter Selz: Sketches of a Life in Art
by Paul J. Karlstrom Ann KarlstromThis absorbing biography, often conveyed through Peter Selz's own words, traces the journey of a Jewish-German immigrant from Hitler's Munich to the United States and on to an important career as a pioneer historian of modern art. Paul J. Karlstrom illuminates key historical and cultural events of the twentieth-century as he describes Selz's extraordinary career--from Chicago's Institute of Design (New Bauhaus), to New York's Museum of Modern Art during the transformative 1960s, and as founding director of the University Art Museum at UC Berkeley. Karlstrom sheds light on the controversial viewpoints that at times isolated Selz from his colleagues but nonetheless affirmed his conviction that significant art was always an expression of deep human experience. The book also links Selz's long life story--featuring close relationships with such major art figures as Mark Rothko, Dore Ashton, Willem de Kooning, Sam Francis, and Christo--with his personal commitment to political engagement.
Peter Strickland: New London Shipmaster, Boston Merchant, First Consul to Senegal
by Stephen H. GrantThe first biography of this nineteenth-century sea captain, adventurer, and State Department official: “A vivid picture of [a] unique career.” —The Day (New London, CT)This is the first biography of Capt. Peter Strickland, a little-known Connecticut Yankee who crossed the Atlantic one hundred times in command of a sailing vessel, traded with French and Portuguese colonies during the period 1864-1905, and served as the first American consul to French West Africa for over twenty years. We know about Peter Strickland’s long life because he wrote a daily journal from the age of nineteen until the year he died. He broke away from a long line of farmers to adopt a seafaring life at age fifteen, and his merchant marine career led him from the east coast of the United States to the west coast of Africa. He introduced American tobacco and wood products into French and Portuguese colonies, and on the return trips carried animal hides and peanuts in his 100-ton schooners. Eventually, the U.S. State Department asked him to become the first consul in French West Africa, with residence in Senegal. The captain accepted the terms: He would receive no salary, but he could keep the port fees he collected and continue to practice his import-export business. This book tells his life story, from his accomplishments and adventures to coping with the epidemics of the day and a tragic personal loss—in the process capturing a unique era in American diplomatic history.“Grant’s careful blending of historical hindsight with Strickland’s own words brings enormous value to our understanding of U.S. diplomacy.” —Foreign Service Journal
Peter the Great
by Lindsey HughesPeter the Great (1672-1725), tsar of Russia for forty-three years, was a dramatic, appealing, and unconventional character. This book provides a vivid sense of the dynamics of his life--both public and private--and his reign.Drawing on his letters and papers, as well as on other contemporary accounts, the book provides new insights into Peter's complex character, giving information on his actions, deliberations, possessions, and significant fantasy world--his many disguises and pseudonyms, his interest in dwarfs, his clowning and vandalism. It also sheds fresh light on his relationships with individuals such as his second wife Catherine and his favorite, Alexander Menshikov. The book includes discussions of Peter's image in painting and sculpture, and there are two final chapters on his legacy and posthumous reputation up to the present.
Peter the Great (Lancaster Pamphlets)
by Stephen J. LeePeter the Great, whose reign saw the explosion of Russia onto the European scene, has become a legendary figure in history, as well as the subject of abiding controversy over the past two decades. Does he deserve the title 'The Great'? Was he 'enlightened' or 'barbaric'? Were his domestic reforms planned, or introduced as a direct result of the needs of war? Peter the Great answers key questions about his territorial expansion and domestic reforms. It reflects existing controversies and allows the reader to consider the views of a range of historians - Russian, English and American. The author avoids a narrative approach in order to focus on analysing issues that students are expected to address in their essays.
Peter the Great: His Life And World (Great Lives Ser.)
by Robert K. MassieAgainst the monumental canvas of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe and Russia, unfolds the magnificent story of Peter the Great. He brought Russia from the darkness of its own Middle Ages into the Enlightenment and transformed it into the power that has its legacy in the Russia of our own century.<P><P> Pulitzer Prize Winner
Peter Weir: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers Series)
by John C. TibbettsPeter Weir: Interviews is the first volume of interviews to be published on the esteemed Australian director. Although Weir (b. 1944) has acquired a reputation of being guarded about his life and work, these interviews by archivists, journalists, historians, and colleagues reveal him to be a most amiable and forthcoming subject. He talks about “the precious desperation of the art, the madness, the willingness to experiment” in all his films; the adaptation process from novel to film, when he tells a scriptwriter, “I'm going to eat your script; it's going to be part of my blood!”; and his self-assessment as “merely a jester, with cap and bells, going from court to court.” He is encouraged, even provoked to tell his own story, from his childhood in a Sydney suburb in the 1950s, to his apprenticeship in the Australian television industry in the 1960s, his preparations to shoot his first features in the early 1970s, his international celebrity in Australia and Hollywood. An extensive new interview details his current plans for a new film. Interviews discuss Weir's diverse and impressive range of work—his earlier films Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave, Gallipoli, and The Year of Living Dangerously, as well as Academy Award-nominated Witness, Dead Poets Society, Green Card, The Truman Show, and Master and Commander. This book confirms that the trajectory of Weir's life and work parallels and embodies Australia's own quest to define and express a historical and cultural identity.
Pethick-Lawrence: A Portrait (Routledge Revivals)
by Vera BrittainFirst published in 1963, Pethick-Lawrence is a detailed biography of the life and career of Frederick William Pethick-Lawrence. Written by Vera Brittain, a close friend of Pethick-Lawrence during the last twenty-five years of his life, the book is a thorough and affectionate record of his personality and achievements. It makes extensive use of Pethick-Lawrence’s well-organised personal papers to provide a detailed account of his activities, both public and private, and traces his life from birth, through his schooling, his meeting with Emmeline and involvement with the suffrage movement, his political career and role as Secretary of State for India, his marriage to Helen, and his death in 1961. Pethick-Lawrence is a personal view into the life of Frederick William Pethick-Lawrence, and twentieth-century society and politics.
Petite Anglaise: In Paris. In Love. In Trouble.
by Catherine Sanderson"When Tadpole was born, I spent a sleepless night on the maternity ward gazing intently into her inky, newborn eyes, grappling to come to terms with the indisputable fact that this was an actual person looking back at me, not just a version of Mr. Frog, or me, or both, in miniature. From the outset she seemed to know what she wanted, and I realized I could have no inkling of the paths she would choose to follow. But if I watch her life unfold carefully enough, perhaps I will see clear signposts pointing to who or what she will become. Because when I look backward, ransacking my own past for clues with the clarity that only hindsight can bring, a series of defining moments do stand out. Moments charged with significance; snapshots of myself which, if I join the dots together, lead me unswervingly to where I stand today: from French, to France, to Paris, and to Petite Anglaise." [ed. note - excerpted from Petite Anglaise, p.4]Catherine Sanderson has a beautiful bilingual daughter, an authentic French boyfriend, and a Paris apartment with bohemian charm. She has what she has always wanted -- a life in France.Growing up in Yorkshire amidst a traditional family, Catherine had set her sights on a different life -- a life that would immerse her in an exotic language and culture. From grammar school French lessons to teaching English in Normandy and finally to a permanent job in Paris, she was determined that France would be the place she would call home.But now that she does, things are not so idyllic. Catherine wonders just when her life in Paris turned from wine to vinegar: She's stuck in a dead-end administrative job, her relationship with her boyfriend has settled into a dreary routine, and the birth of their daughter has not helped to reignite the dying fire of her relationship.The remedy to her dissatisfaction arrives in the morning headlines. While scanning the news of the day, Catherine becomes intrigued by a story profiling an internet diarist. After exploring one blog after another, and in one exhilarating moment, Catherine decides to create her own online persona, her jardin secret. At that moment, she is transformed from Catherine to Petite Anglaise, her boyfriend to Mr. Frog, her daughter to Tadpole, and her life to something she could never have predicted.What begins as a lighthearted diversion, a place to discuss the fish-out-of water challenges of ex-pat life in Paris, soon gives way to a raw forum for her to bare her most intimate secrets and impulsive desires. Thousands of readers log-on to the blog and are witness to the ever-widening gulf between Petite Anglaise and Mr. Frog. Those public revelations of her growing frustrations, which play out in each successive post, begin to surreptitiously yet irrevocably erode their relationship.From the Hardcover edition.
Petra
by Shaena LambertInspired by Petra Kelly, the original Green Party leader and political activist who fought for the planet in 1980s Germany, Shaena Lambert brings us a captivating new novel about a woman who changed history and transformed environmental politics--and who, like many history-changing women, has been largely erased. Award-winning novelist Madeleine Thien calls Petra "a masterpiece--a fierce, humane and powerful novel for our times."January, 1980. At the height of the Cold War, Petra Kelly inspires hundreds of thousands to take to the streets to protest the placement of nuclear missiles on West German soil--including a NATO general named Emil Gerhardt, who shocks the establishment by converting to the cause. Petra and her general not only vault to fame as the stars of the Green Party, but they also fall in love. Then Manfred Schwartz, an ex-lover, urges Petra to draw back the curtain on Emil's war record, and they enter a world both complicated and threatening.Told by Manfred Schwartz, from his place in a present world even more beset by existential threats, Petra is an exploration of love, jealousy, and the power of social change. A woman capable of founding a new and world-changing politics and taking on two superpowers, Petra still must grapple with her own complex nature and a singular and fatal love.
Petroleum Venus
by Alexander SnegirevThis is the tragicomic story of a successful young architect, Fyodor, the reluctant single father of an adolescent son with Down syndrome. The son is a terrible embarrassment to Fyodor, who relies on his own parents to take care of him. Fyodor has fraught relationship with them as well. But then a fatal car crash and the accidental discovery of a mystical painting, "Petroleum Venus," force this self-involved father to ultimately embrace his troubled son, his parents' moral values, and the real things in life.Petroleum Venus won the Debut Prize, was shortlisted for the National Bestseller Prize, nominated for the Russian Booker, and sat on the www.ozon.ru bestseller list for a year.
Pets and the City: True Tales of a Manhattan House Call Veterinarian
by Dr. Amy AttasNew York City&’s premier &“house call veterinarian&” takes you into the exclusive penthouses and four-star hotel rooms of the wealthiest New Yorkers and shows that, when it comes to their pets, they are just as neurotic as any of us.When a pet is sick, people—even the rich and famous—are at their most authentic and vulnerable. They could have a Monet on the wall and an Oscar on the shelf, but if their cat gets a cold, all they want to talk about are snotty noses and sneezing fits. That&’s when they call premier in-home veterinarian Dr. Amy Attas.In Pets and the City, Dr. Amy shares all the funny, heartbreaking, and life-affirming experiences she&’s faced throughout her thirty-year career treating the cats and dogs of New Yorkers from Park Avenue to the projects. Some of her stories are about celebs, like the time she saw a famous singer naked (no, her rash was not the same as her puppy&’s). Others are about remarkable animals, like the skilled service dog who, after his exam was finished, left the room and returned with a checkbook in his mouth. Every tale in this rollicking, informative, and fun memoir affirms a key truth about animal, and human, nature: Our pets love us because their hearts are pure; we love them because they&’re freaking adorable. On some level, we know that by caring for them, we are the best version of ourselves. In short: Our pets make us better people.
The Petticoat Skipper
by Josephine Rascoe KeenanMary’s secret wish is to become a riverboat captain, but in the 1890s being a boat captain is a man’s job. One day, Mary meets someone who helps her make her wish come true. Learn more about Captain Mary Greene, the first female riverboat captain, and her steamboat, the Delta Queen.
Peyakow: Reclaiming Cree Dignity
by Darrel J. McLeodFollowing his award-winning debut memoir, Mamaskatch, which masterfully portrayed a Cree coming-of-age in rural Canada, Darrel J. McLeod continues the poignant story of his adulthood. In Mamaskatch, McLeod captured an early childhood full of the stories, scents, and sensations of his great-grandfather’s cabin, as well as the devastating separation from family, ensuing abuse, and eventual loss of his mother that permeated his adolescence. In the equally potent Peyakow, McLeod follows a young man through many seasons of his life, navigating an ever-turbulent personal and political landscape filled with loss, love, addiction, and perseverance. Guided internally by his deep connection to his late grandfather, in a constant quest for happiness, McLeod strives to improve his own life as well as the lives of Indigenous peoples in Canada and beyond. This leads him to a multifaceted career and life as a school principal, chief treaty negotiator, executive director of education and international affairs, representative of an Indigenous delegation to the United Nations in Geneva, jazz musician, and, today, celebrated author. Weaving together the past and the present through powerful, linked chapters, McLeod confronts how both the personal traumas of his youth and the historical traumas of his ancestral line impact the trajectory of his life. With unwavering and heart-wrenching honesty, Peyakow—Cree for “one who walks alone”—recounts how one man carries the spirit of his family through the lifelong process of healing.
The Peyote Religion: A Study in Indian-White Relations
by James Sydney SlotkinThis monograph deals with the ethno-history of Peyotism. This study looks into the background of the Native American religious beliefs, practices and rituals revolving around the psychoactive peyote plant.
The 'Peyton Place' Murder: The True Crime Story Behind The Novel That Shocked The Nation
by Renee MallettThis true crime history examines the surprising connection between an infamous small-town murder and the bestselling novel it inspired. Born and raised in Manchester, New Hampshire, Grace Metalious shocked the nation in 1956 with Peyton Place, her sexually charged debut novel about murder in a small town. It spawned a series of novels, two Hollywood movies, and a long-running television series on ABC. It also made Metalious a pariah in her hometown, where she became tabloid fodder until her untimely death at the age of thirty-nine. Unknown to most readers, the fictional story was inspired by a real crime known as &“The Sheep Pen Murder,&” which took place in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, in the late 1940s. Now historian Renee Mallett skillfully weaves together the lives of Metalious and Barbara Roberts, the confessed killer behind The Sheep Pen Murder. In The &“Peyton Place&” Murder, Mallett explores what happens when true crime and literature meet.
El pez en el agua
by Mario Vargas LlosaUn libro cargado de experiencias que se nos muestran desnudas y sinceras, sin recurrir a la ficción, acompañadas tan sólo de la prosa hipnótica, reveladora y magistral de Mario Vargas Llosa. El pez en el agua recorre dos épocas en la vida de Mario Vargas Llosa que enmarcan buen parte de su producción literaria. En la primera, desde sus primeros años hasta su partida a Europa, asistimos al nacimiento de una vocación literaria y descubrimos muchas de aquellas vivencias que serán el mimbre de tantas novelas. La segunda es la crónica de la aventura política en la que el autor se embarcó entre los años 1987 y 1990, cuando se presentó como candidato a las elecciones presidenciales del Perú. Reseña:«Hay que leer El pez en el agua, un libro capital en su bibliografía en el que está la sustancia de lo que dice el jurado que le concede el Nobel: el Vargas Llosa que mira al poder desde dentro o desde sus orillas, y el que sigue maravillado y aterrado ante algunos de los elementos más sobresalientes de su niñez y de su juventud.»Juan Cruz, El País
El Pez en el Agua
by Mario Vargas Llosa«Se escribe para llenar vacíos, para tomarse desquites contra la realidad, contra las circunstancias.» La obra del escritor peruano se sustenta en numerosos acontecimientos personales que transcurrieron en su juventud. La difícil relación con un padre duro y violento, el nacimiento de la vocación de escritor como oposición a esa autoridad, los años del colegio militar Leoncio Prado, la precoz vida bohemia, la precipitada boda con «la tía Julia» o la existencia real de «La casa verde». Además, y a modo de contrapeso, conocemos la corta pero intensa carrera política del escritor. Esos tres años que transcurrieron desde la improvisada movilización popular de la Plaza de San Martín en oposición a la política de Alan García hasta la definitiva derrota ante Fujimori. Un libro cargado de experiencias que se nos muestran desnudas y sinceras, sin recurrir a la ficción, acompañadas tan sólo de la prosa hipnótica, reveladora y magistral de Mario Vargas Llosa.
El pez en el agua
by Mario Vargas LlosaEDICIÓN ESPECIAL 30.º ANIVERSARIO El libro más autobiográfico de Vargas Llosa: la memoria del surgimiento de sus vocaciones literaria y política. «La escritura de Mario Vargas Llosa ha dado forma a nuestra imagen de Sudamérica y tiene su propio capítulo en la historia de la literatura contemporánea. En sus primeros años, fue un renovador de la novela; hoy, un poeta épico». Per Wästberg, presidente del Comité Nobel «Se escribe para llenar vacíos, para tomarse desquites contra la realidad, contra las circunstancias».La obra de Vargas Llosa se sustenta en numerosos acontecimientos personales que transcurrieron en su juventud. La difícil relación con un padre duro y violento, el nacimiento de la vocación de escritor como oposición a esa autoridad, los años del Colegio Militar Leoncio Prado, la precoz vida bohemia, la precipitada boda con «la tía Julia» o la existencia real de «la Casa Verde». Además, y a modo de contrapeso, conocemos la corta pero intensa carrera política del autor. Esos tres años que transcurrieron desde la improvisada movilización popular de la plaza San Martín en oposición a la política de Alan García hasta la definitiva derrota ante Fujimori. El pez en el agua es un libro cargado de experiencias que se nos muestran desnudas y sinceras, sin recurrir a la ficción, acompañadas tan sólo de la prosa hipnótica, reveladora y magistral de Mario Vargas Llosa. Críticas: «Entre nuestros contemporáneos, nadie mejor que el premio Nobel de 2010 ha sido capaz de seducir amablemente a una gran masa de lectores contándoles historias llenas de sentido con una prosa tan bella como eficaz. Y con un dominio de las estrategias narrativas que la evolución de la literatura del siglo XX instrumentó para superar la manera de hacer novela en el siglo anterior». Darío Villanueva«Sus libros contienen la más compleja, apasionada y persuasiva visión de la novela y del oficio de novelista de la que tengo noticia; también contienen el mejor estímulo que un novelista puede encontrar para escribir, un estímulo solo inferior al que contienen las propias novelas de Vargas Llosa». Javier Cercas, El País «Hay que leer El pez en el agua, un libro capital en su bibliografía en el que está la sustancia de lo que dice el jurado que le concede el Nobel: el Vargas Llosa que mira al poder desde dentro o desde sus orillas, y el que sigue maravillado y aterrado ante algunos de los elementos más sobresalientes de su niñez y de su juventud». Juan Cruz, El País
Phallic Frenzy: Ken Russell and His Films
by Joseph LanzaA biography of director Ken Russell that details the wild ideas, surreal moments, personal faith, and cavalcade of colorful personalities surrounding this eccentric filmmaker--on and off the set. Best known for the acclaimed movies Altered States, The Devils, Gothic, The Music Lovers, Tommy, and Women in Love, Russell redefined cinema in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, working with magnetic actors like Jack Nicholson, Michael Caine, Ann-Margret, William Hurt, Gabriel Byrne, and Vanessa Redgrave. Moments of Russell's career are highlighted in this intimate biography, including how creative differences between Russell and producer Robert Stigwood stopped production of a movie version of Evita, how he creatively staged the love duet between Faust and Helen over a bowl of pasta in the opera Mephistopheles, and how Alan Bates and Oliver Reed compared their penis size for the nude wrestling scene in Women in Love.
Phantom Boys: True Tales from UK Operators of the McDonnell Douglas F-4
by Richard Pike&“A cracking read&” on the twin-engined supersonic long-range fighter bomber from the bestselling author of the Hunter Boys and Lightning Boys volumes (Britain at War). Originally developed for the US Navy, the McDonnell Douglas F-4 fighter-bomber first flew in the spring of 1958. It then entered service for the US Navy in 1961, and in 1969 with the Fleet Air Arm and RAF in the UK. Regarded as one of the most versatile fighters ever built, the Phantom F-4 was the US Navy&’s fastest and highest-flying aircraft. It was flown by both US military demonstration teams (Navy Blue Angels and the Air Force Thundercats) from 1969 to 1973. It ended its service in 1991 with the RAF. But it continues to serve a variety of air forces across the world, with some still in service fifty years after its first flight. Throughout the twenty chapters of this book, thirteen contributors will take readers across the world with adventures in the Falkland Islands, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, the Far East and Germany. There are anecdotes of reconnaissance missions, encounters with the Russian Tupolevs, record-breaking flights and life on HMS Ark Royal. The scope, flair and pace of the writing in this book will appeal to the general reader as well as to the enthusiast.
Phantom Boys Volume 2: More Thrilling Tales From UK and US Operators of the McDonnell Douglas F-4
by Richard PikeThe highly anticipated follow-up has &“more scintillating stories from both the front and rear cockpits of one of the world&’s most legendary jet fighters&” (Air Classics). Once again Richard Pike has brought together brilliant, hitherto unpublished accounts across eighteen chapters. And now there is coverage of the Americans. So, with both British and American perspectives, Phantom Boys 2 is packed with exhilarating action. From combat in the Vietnam War to life after the Falklands War, readers will experience a variety of wartime and peacetime tales. An array of narratives from air and ground crew cover adventures across the world; from the UK, US and Germany to the Far East. It also includes the fascinating story of one female fighter controller&’s chance to fly in a Phantom during the 1970s. Throughout the book Richard Pike captures the drama and emotion of life in the cockpit. With such detailed stories, readers will be gripped by this captivating book.&“Pike has done an excellent job of drawing the reader into the cockpit and then into the skies. The shared tales are engaging and quickly read. While each tale is relatively short—typically less than fifteen pages—all are packed with the detalis, sights, and sounds of flying one of the modern age&’s most iconic jet fighters.&” —Air Power History
Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock
by Christina LaneIn 1933, Joan Harrison was a twenty-six-year-old former salesgirl with a dream of escaping both her stodgy London suburb and the dreadful prospect of settling down with one of the local boys. A few short years later, she was Alfred Hitchcock's confidante and one of the Oscar-nominated screenwriters of his first American film, Rebecca. Harrison had quickly grown from being the worst secretary Hitchcock ever had to one of his closest collaborators, critically shaping his brand as the "Master of Suspense." Forging her own public persona as the female Hitchcock, Harrison went on to produce numerous Hollywood features before becoming a television pioneer as the producer of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. A respected powerhouse, she acquired a singular reputation for running amazingly smooth productions— and defying anyone who posed an obstacle. She built most of her films and series from the ground up. She waged rough-and-tumble battles against executives and censors, and even helped to break the Hollywood blacklist. She teamed up with many of the most respected, well-known directors, writers, and actors of the twentieth century. And she did it all on her own terms. Author Christina Lane shows how this stylish, stunning woman became Hollywood's most powerful female writer-producer—one whom history has since overlooked.