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After Many A Summer Dies The Swan
''After Many a Summer'' (1939) is a novel by Aldous Huxley that tells the story of a Hollywood millionaire who fears his impending death. It was published in the United States as ''After Many a Summer Dies the Swan''. Written soon after Huxley left England and settled in California, the novel is Huxley's examination of American culture, particularly what he saw as its narcissism, superficiality, and obsession with youth. This satire also raises philosophical and social issues, some of which would later take the forefront in Huxley's final novel ''Island (Huxley novel), Island''. The novel's title is taken from Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Tennyson's poem ''Tithonus (poem), Tithonus'', about a figure in Greek mythology to whom Aurora (mythology), Aurora gave eternal life but not eternal youth. The book was awarded the 1939 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. Plot summary The action revolves around a few characters brought together by a Hollywood millionaire, Jo Stoyte. Each c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books, both novels and non-fiction works, as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with an undergraduate degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine '' Oxford Poetry'', before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times, and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962. Huxley was a pacifist. He grew interested in philosophical mysticism, as well as universalism, addressin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greed
Greed (or avarice) is an uncontrolled longing for increase in the acquisition or use of material gain (be it food, money, land, or animate/inanimate possessions); or social value, such as status, or power. Greed has been identified as undesirable throughout known human history because it creates behavior-conflict between personal and social goals. Nature of greed The initial motivation for (or purpose of) greed and actions associated with it may be the promotion of personal or family survival. It may at the same time be an intent to deny or obstruct competitors from potential means (for basic survival and comfort) or future opportunities; therefore being insidious or tyrannical and having a negative connotation. Alternately, the purpose could be defense or counteractive response to such obstructions being threatened by others. But regardless of purpose, ''greed'' intends to create an inequity of access or distribution to community wealth. Modern economic thought frequen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norman Cousins
Norman Cousins (June 24, 1915 – November 30, 1990) was an American political journalist, author, professor, and world peace advocate. Early life Cousins was born to Jewish immigrant parents Samuel Cousins and Sarah Babushkin Cousins, in West Hoboken, New Jersey (which later became Union City). At age 11, he was misdiagnosed with tuberculosis and placed in a sanatorium. Despite this, he was an athletic youth, and he claimed that as a young boy he "set out to discover exuberance." Cousins attended Theodore Roosevelt High School in the Bronx, New York City, graduating on February 3, 1933. He edited the high school paper, "The Square Deal," where his editing abilities were already in evidence. Cousins received a bachelor's degree from Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York City. His sister Jean married Tom Middleton. Career He joined the staff of the ''New York Evening Post'' (now the ''New York Post'') in 1934, and in 1935 was hired by ''Current History'' as a bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Hale, Sr
Alan Hale Sr. (born Rufus Edward Mackahan; February 10, 1892 – January 22, 1950) was an American actor and director. He is best remembered for his many character roles, in particular as a frequent sidekick of Errol Flynn, as well as films supporting Lon Chaney, Wallace Beery, Douglas Fairbanks, James Cagney, Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, and Ronald Reagan. Hale was usually billed as Alan Hale and his career in film lasted 40 years. His son, Alan Hale Jr., also became an actor and remains most famous for playing " the Skipper" on the television series '' Gilligan's Island''. Early life Hale was born Rufus Edward Mackahan in Washington, D.C. He studied to be an opera singer. Career His first film role was in the 1911 silent movie '' The Cowboy and the Lady''. He became a leading man while working in 1913–1915 for the Biograph Company in their special feature film productions sponsored and controlled by Marc Klaw and Abraham Erlanger. Later, he became ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Henreid
Paul Henreid (November 10, 1908 – March 29, 1992) was an Austrian-British- American actor, director, producer, and writer. He is best remembered for two film roles; Victor Laszlo in '' Casablanca'' and Jerry Durrance in ''Now, Voyager'', both released between 1942 and 1943. Early life Born Paul Georg Julius Hernried in the city of Trieste, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Henreid was the son of Maria-Luise (Lendecke) and Karl Alphons Hernried, an ennobled Viennese banker, born as Carl Hirsch, who had converted in 1904 from Judaism to Catholicism, due to anti-semitism. Henreid's father died in April 1916, and the family fortune had dwindled by the time he graduated from the exclusive Theresianische Akademie. Stage and film careers Henreid trained for the theatre in Vienna, over his family's objections, and debuted there on the stage under the direction of Max Reinhardt. He began his film career acting in German and Austrian films in the 1930s. During that peri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Scribner's Sons
Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner's or Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing American authors including Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Stephen King, Robert A. Heinlein, Thomas Wolfe, George Santayana, John Clellon Holmes, Don DeLillo, and Edith Wharton. The firm published '' Scribner's Magazine'' for many years. More recently, several Scribner titles and authors have garnered Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards and other merits. In 1978 the company merged with Atheneum and became The Scribner Book Companies. In turn it merged into Macmillan in 1984. Simon & Schuster bought Macmillan in 1994. By this point only the trade book and reference book operations still bore the original family name. After the merger, the Macmillan and Atheneum adult lists were merged into Scribner's and the Scribner's children list was merged into Atheneum. The former imprint, no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herman Mankiewicz
Herman Jacob Mankiewicz (; November 7, 1897 – March 5, 1953) was an American screenwriter who, with Orson Welles, wrote the screenplay for ''Citizen Kane'' (1941). Both Mankiewicz and Welles would go on to receive the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film. He was previously a Berlin correspondent for ''Women’s Wear Daily'', assistant theater editor at ''The New York Times,'' and the first regular drama critic at ''The New Yorker''. Alexander Woollcott said that Mankiewicz was the "funniest man in New York". Mankiewicz was often asked to fix other writers' screenplays, with much of his work uncredited. His writing style became valued in the films of the 1930s—a style that included a slick, satirical, and witty humor, in which dialogue almost totally carried the film, and which eventually become associated with the "typical American film" of that period. In addition to ''Citizen Kane,'' he wrote or worked on films including '' The Wizard of Oz'', '' Man of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Citizen Kane
''Citizen Kane'' is a 1941 American drama film produced by, directed by, and starring Orson Welles. He also co-wrote the screenplay with Herman J. Mankiewicz. The picture was Welles' first feature film. ''Citizen Kane'' is frequently cited as the greatest film ever made. The ''Sight & Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * For 50 consecutive years, it stood at number 1 in the British Film Institute's '' Sight & Sound'' decennial poll of critics, and it topped the American Film Institute's 100 Years ... 100 Movies list in 1998, as well as its 2007 update. The film was nominated for Academy Awards in nine categories and it won for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) by Mankiewicz and Welles. ''Citizen Kane'' is praised for Gregg Toland's cinematography, Robert Wise's editing, Bernard Herrmann's music, and its narrative structure, all of which have been considered innovative and precedent-setting. The quasi-biograph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Screenplay For Citizen Kane
The authorship of the screenplay for ''Citizen Kane'', the 1941 American motion picture that marked the feature film debut of Orson Welles, has been one of the film's long-standing controversies. With a story spanning 60 years, the quasi-biographical film examines the life and legacy of Charles Foster Kane, played by Welles, a fictional character based in part upon the American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and Chicago tycoons Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick. A rich incorporation of the experiences and knowledge of its authors, the film earned an Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) for Herman J. Mankiewicz and Welles. Mankiewicz as co-writer Screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz was a notorious personality in Hollywood. "His behavior, public and private, was a scandal," wrote John Houseman. "A neurotic drinker and a compulsive gambler, he was also one of the most intelligent, informed, witty, humane and charming men I have ever known." Orson Well ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RKO Radio Pictures
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO) theater chain and Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) studio were brought together under the control of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in October 1928. RCA chief David Sarnoff engineered the merger to create a market for the company's sound-on-film technology, RCA Photophone, and in early 1929 production began under the RKO name (an abbreviation of Radio-Keith-Orpheum). Two years later, another Kennedy holding, the Pathé studio, was folded into the operation. By the mid-1940s, RKO was controlled by investor Floyd Odlum. RKO has long been renowned for its cycle of musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the mid-to-late 1930s. Actors Katharine Hepburn and, later, Robert Mitchum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. While in his 20s, Welles directed high-profile stage productions for the Federal Theatre Project, including an adaptation of ''Macbeth'' with an entirely African-American cast and the political musical '' The Cradle Will Rock''. In 1937, he and John Houseman founded the Mercury Theatre, an independent repertory theatre company that presented a series of productions on Broadway through 1941, including ''Caesar'' (1937), an adaptation of William Shakespeare's ''Julius Caesar''. In 1938, his radio anthology series ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'' gave Welles the platform to find international fame as the director and narrator of a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel ''The War of the Worlds'', which caused s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marion Davies
Marion Davies (born Marion Cecilia Douras; January 3, 1897 – September 22, 1961) was an American actress, producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. Educated in a religious convent, Davies fled the school to pursue a career as a chorus girl. As a teenager, she appeared in several Broadway musicals and one film, '' Runaway Romany'' (1917). She soon became a featured performer in the '' Ziegfeld Follies''. While performing in the 1916 ''Follies'', the nineteen-year-old Marion met the fifty-three-year-old newspaper tycoon, William Randolph Hearst, and became his mistress. Hearst took over management of Davies' career and promoted her as a film actress. Hearst financed Davies' pictures and promoted her career extensively in his newspapers and Hearst newsreels. He founded Cosmopolitan Pictures to produce her films. By 1924, Davies was the number one female box office star in Hollywood because of the popularity of '' When Knighthood Was in Flower'' and '' Little Old New York'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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