Simon Louvish Bücher

'I used to be Snow White, but I drifted...' Drawing on unpublished material from Mae West's personal papers, acclaimed biographer Simon Louvish offers us the first comprehensive book on West's legendarily sassy life and work. He examines her early vaudeville career, her transgressive and controversial Broadway plays (such as Sex), and her film career. The book also tracks Mae's later career from the 1940s through the 1970s, with new material on her larger-than-life Las Vegas and nightclub acts, and fascinating insight into her life with her companion-till-death, Paul Novak. Louvish, having inspected reams of West's private writings, also provides a completely new perspective on her as an original writer and creator, and traces the origin and development of the famous 'Mae West quips'. This is certainly the first book to tell West's tale with verifiable accuracy, as one of the great showbiz sagas of the twentieth century. It is both a distinctively American and rambunctiously universal tale.

A study of one of the cinema's most famous artists, Charlie Chaplin, whose Tramp persona is famous the world over, even to those who have never seen his films.

Focusing on the life of W. C. Fields, this biography delves into his journey from vaudeville to film, revealing his comedic genius and personal complexities. Simon Louvish meticulously explores Fields's self-crafted persona, his battles with Hollywood, and his fondness for family, including his grandchildren. The book is celebrated for its rich anecdotes from the vaudeville era and thorough research, positioning Fields as a pivotal figure in comedy. Critics praise it as a definitive and captivating portrayal of the iconic entertainer.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy both passed away in the 1950s, yet their films still have the power to reduce audiences old and new to helpless laughter. Laurel inspired Hardy to forge their famous double act, in which Laurel played the eternal comic fool, Hardy his temperamental master.

It's a Gift is Norman McLeod's classic comedy of disasters, in which W.C. Fields plays a general-store proprietor who buys an orange-ranch by mail and transports his family to California. This study features a brief production history and detailed filmography.

The book offers a comprehensive narrative biography of the iconic comedy duo, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, tracing their lives from birth to death. It fills a gap in the literature by providing a fully researched account of their enduring legacy and popularity since 1927. Celebrated by fans worldwide, this biography delves into both their personal and professional journeys, offering insights into their unique partnership and the impact they had on the world of comedy.

Presents a portrait of the father of American slapstick--the iron worker-turned-actor who pioneered a dizzying vocabulary of on-camera gags, gaffes, and gyrations.

The biography offers a comprehensive and well-researched exploration of the lives and careers of the five Marx Brothers: Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, and Zeppo. It delves into their unique personalities, comedic styles, and the dynamics of their relationships, providing insights into their contributions to entertainment and the cultural impact they had during their era. This detailed account aims to celebrate their legacy and reveal lesser-known aspects of their lives, making it a definitive resource for fans and scholars alike.

With a foreword by the actor, director, and playwright described as “the greatest living exponent of Groucho Marx’s material” by The New York Times, and text by the author of Monkey Business, a biography of the Marx Brothers, this bio brings the wisecracking, cigar-chomping, eyebrow-raising comedian to life on the page. Groucho discusses such issues as the film Duck Soup, the rules of comedy, the directors he worked with, and his talented brothers Harpo and Chico (“You know, of course, those two aren’t really acting when they play those scenes. They’re just being themselves.”).

An essential volume for understanding Charlie Chaplin’s body of work. An Everyman who expressed the defiant spirit of freedom, Charlie Chaplin was first lauded and later reviled in the America that made him Hollywood’s richest man. He was a figure of multiple paradoxes. Simon Louvish’s book looks afresh at the “mask behind the man.” Louvish charts the tale of the Tramp himself through his films, from the early Mack Sennett shorts through the major features (The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times, The Great Dictator, et al.). He retrieves Chaplin as the iconic London street kid who carried the “surreal” antics of early British music hall triumphantly onto the Hollywood screen. Louvish also looks anew at Chaplin’s and the Tramp’s social and political ideas—the challenge to fascism, defiance of the McCarthyite witch hunts, eventual “exile,” and last mature disguises as the serial killer Monsieur Verdoux and the dying English clown Calvero in Limelight. This book is an epic journey, summing up the roots of comedy and its appeal to audiences everywhere, who reveled in the clown’s raw energy, his ceaseless struggle against adversity, and his capacity to represent our own fears, foibles, dreams, inner demons and hopes.