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Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams

Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams
Your Price: $24.95 CDN
Author: Donald Bogle
Publisher: One World/Ballantine
Format: Softcover
# of Pages: 411
Pub. Date: 2006
ISBN-10: 0345454197
ISBN-13: 9780345454195

About the Book:

In Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams, noted film historian Donald Bogle tells – for the first time – the story of a place both mythic and real: Black Hollywood. Spanning sixty years, this deliciously entertaining history uncovers the audacious manner in which many blacks made a place for themselves in an industry that originally had no place for them.

Through interviews and the personal recollections of Hollywood luminaries, Donald Bogle pieces together a remarkable history that remains largely obscure to this day. We discover that Black Hollywood was a place distinct from the studio-system-dominated Tinseltown – a world unto itself, with unique rules and social hierarchy. It had its own talent scouts and media, its own watering holes, elegant hotels, and fashionable nightspots, and of course its own glamorous and brilliant personalities.

Along with famous actors including Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Hattie McDaniel (whose home was among Hollywood's most exquisite), and, later, the stunningly beautiful Lena Horne and the fabulously gifted Sammy Davis, Jr., we meet the likes of heartthrob James Edwards, whose promising career was derailed by whispers of an affair with Lana Turner, and the mysterious Madame Sul-Te-Wan, who shared a close lifelong friendship with pioneering director D. W. Griffith. But Donald Bogle also looks at other members of the black community – from the white stars' black servants, who had their own money and prestige, to gossip columnists, hairstylists, and architects – and at the world that grew up around them along Central Avenue, the Harlem of the West.

In the tradition of Hortense Powdermaker's classic Hollywood: The Dream Factory and Neal Gabler's An Empire of Their Own, in Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams, award-winning author Donald Bogle re-creates a vanished world that left an indelible mark on Hollywood – and on all of America.

What people say:

"Mr. Bogle continues to be our most noted black-cinema historian." — Spike Lee

"Donald Bogle [is a] pioneering safe-keeper of the history of blacks in film." — Vogue

About the Author:

Donald Bogle is the foremost authority on African Americans in film and television. His numerous books have won awards and wide critical acclaim. He has taught at Rutgers University, University of Pennsylvania and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

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