Maureen O’Hara’s Autobiography ‘Tis Herself
One of my favorite pastimes or guilty pleasures is (as you’d expect) watching movie classics. Old Hollywood, the Golden Age of Hollywood, Hollywood’s Golden Era… whatever name it goes by, it is absolute magic as far as I’m concerned. There’s just nothing quite like curling up in my favorite swivel rocker, with hot chocolate or tea, my favorite throw, and at least one cat nearby.
However, over the years I’ve found that there’s another guilty Old Hollywood-related pleasure that ranks right up there with watching the movies, themselves…. reading about the colorful, larger than life men and women who made the magic happen.
Old Hollywood biographies, autobiographies, and books line my bookshelves and the collection continues to grow. To be perfectly honest, I just can’t get enough of them! (An index of my Old Hollywood Book Reviews is at the end of this post.)
{Continued below Princess Huck admiring Katharine Hepburn…}
I Know Where I’m Going: Katharine Hepburn, A Personal Biography
I Know Where I’m Going is one of the first Old Hollywood book reviews I wrote on Hollywood Yesterday and it remains one of my all-time favorite books.
The review, linked to above, will go into greater detail about exactly what makes this book such a knock out. It isn’t just a MUST read for Katharine Hepburn fans and it isn’t just a MUST read for fans of Old Hollywood… it’s a MUST read for anyone who enjoys a great book.
For my food blog as well as a few of my other blogs, I do a LOT of book reviews. I meticulously plan photo shoots for the books to better show them off to my readers. As you can see from these pictures, I almost always have “help” from at least one of my cats. When it came to I Know Where I’m Going, one of our kittens, Princess Huck, decided she just had to read the book then and there.
I decided, “Fine. You want to be in the pictures… you’ll be in the pictures!” I may or may not spoil my cats. (Narrator: “She absolutely does spoil her cats.”)
I have a LOT of book and biography reviews coming up, so keep an eye or two out for those. You’ll forgive me, I trust, if a cat or two or four make their way into the pictures.
~ Joi (“Joy”)
Old Hollywood Biographies, Memoirs and Autobiographies:
- ‘Tis Herself: Maureen O’Hara’s Autobiography
- Maureen O’Hara: The Biography
- Maureen O’Hara Movie Poster Book
- In Such Good Company by Carol Burnett
- I Know Where I’m Going Katharine Hepburn, A Personal Biography
- The Making of the African Queen by Katharine Hepburn
- Unsinkable: A Memoir by Debbie Reynolds
- Joan Crawford: A Talent for Living
- Renegade Women in Film & TV
- Ball of Fire (Lucille Ball)
- Audrey Hepburn in Words and Pictures
- Feuding Fan Dancers: Faith Bacon, Sally Rand, and the Golden Age of the Showgirl
- Movie Star Chronicles: A Visual History of the World’s Greatest Movie Stars
- Ginger Rogers: My Story
- Barefoot to the Chin: The FANtastic Life of Sally Rand
- The Brief, Madcap Life of Kay Kendall
- The Garner Files
- Jimmy Stewart and His Poems
- Anna Held and the Birth of Ziegfeld’s Broadway
- Hollywood in Kodachrome (Gorgeous Coffee Table Book Packed with Photos)
- The Young Duke: The Early Life of John Wayne
- Lana: The Life and Loves of Lana Turner
- June Allyson: June Allyson’s Autobiography
- Bob Hope: My Life in Jokes
- Smile: How Young Charlie Chaplin Taught the World to Laugh and Cry
- Charlie Chaplin: Intimate Close-ups by Georgia Hale
- Mean… Moody… Magnificent!: Jane Russell and the Marketing of a Hollywood Legend
- Olivia de Havilland: Lady Triumphant
- Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise
- Jane Mansfield: The Girl Couldn’t Help It
- John Gilbert: The Last of the Silent Film Stars
- Truly, Madly: Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, and the Romance of the Century
- Marlene Dietrich Photographs and Memories
- Marlene Dietrich’s ABCs
- Ann Dvorak: Hollywood’s Forgotten Rebel
Film History
- Alfred Hitchcock: The Legacy of Victorianism
- Vitagraph: America’s First Great Motion Picture Studio
- Hitchcock and the Censors
Celebrity Cookbooks
Magazines and Poster Books
- Forever Lucy (Special Collector’s Magazine)
- Closer Magazine (One of the few magazines I still buy!)
Old-Time Radio
Old Hollywood Book Reviews Coming VERY SOON…
- Natalie Wood: A Life
- Maria Montez: The Queen of Technicolor
- Marlene by Marlene Dietrich
- Marlene Dietrich: Life and Legend
- Steps in Time by Fred Astaire
- Cecil B. Demille’s Hollywood
- Enchantment: The Life of Audrey Hepburn
- Love, Lucy
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