Bøger af Gerald Nachman

When Robert Preston shouted "e;Ya got trouble!"e; in River City, when Carol Channing glided down a gilded staircase while waiters serenaded her with "e;Hello, Dolly!,"e; when Barbra Streisand defied us to rain on her parade in Funny Girl, audiences were instantly enchanted. Showstoppers! is all about Broadway musicals' most memorable numbers-why they were so effective, how they were created, and why they still resonate. Much of it is told through the eyes of the performers, songwriters, directors, and choreographers who first built these explosive numbers and lit the fuse. Gerald Nachman interviewed dozens of iconic musical theater figures, including Patti LuPone, John Raitt, Jerry Herman, Edie Adams, Dick Van Dyke, Joel Grey, Marvin Hamlisch, John Kander, Tommy Tune, Sheldon Harnick, and Harold Prince, uncovering priceless untold anecdotes and details.

In the late 1920s radio exploded almost overnight into being America's dominant entertainment, just as television would do 25 years later. This text takes us back to the heyday of radio, bringing to life the great performers and shows, as well as the no-so-great and not-great-at-all.

Before the advent of cable and its hundreds of channels, before iPods and the Internet, three television networks ruled America's evenings. And for twenty-three years, Ed Sullivan, the Broadway gossip columnist turned awkward emcee, ruled Sunday nights. It was Sullivan's genius to take a worn-out stage genre-vaudeville-and transform it into the TV variety show, a format that was to dominate for decades. Right Here on Our Stage Tonight! tells the complete saga of The Ed Sullivan Show and, through the voices of some 60 stars interviewed for the book, brings to life the most beloved, diverse, multi-cultural, and influential variety hour ever to air. Gerald Nachman takes us through those years, from the earliest dog acts and jugglers to Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and beyond. Sullivan was the first TV impresario to feature black performers on a regular basis-including Nat King Cole, Pearl Bailey, James Brown, and Richard Pryor-challenging his conservative audience and his own traditional tastes, and changing the face of American popular culture along the way. No other TV show ever cut such a broad swath through our national life or cast such a long shadow, nor has there ever been another show like it. Nachman's compulsively readable history, illustrated with classic photographs and chocked with colorful anecdotes, reanimates The Ed Sullivan Show for a new generation.