The captivating lives and groundbreaking accomplishments of fourteen men who dared to gamble their reputations by appearing in the first motion pictures are explored in a richly researched new book, The First Male Stars: Men of the Silent Era. At a time when other actors in the "legitimate theater" scorned the industry, these amazing men not only defied the odds of success but also received a place at the heights of a fascinating business that was a new form of art. Each made an enduring and important contribution to early cinema, although some are forgotten today. Exhaustive research in...

The captivating lives and groundbreaking accomplishments of fourteen men who dared to gamble their reputations by appearing in the first motion pictures are explored in a richly researched new book, The First Male Stars: Men of the Silent Era. At a time when other actors in the "legitimate theater" scorned the industry, these amazing men not only defied the odds of success but also received a place at the heights of a fascinating business that was a new form of art. Each made an enduring and important contribution to early cinema, although some are forgotten today. Exhaustive research in...

No one will ever forget the scene in D. W. Griffiths Way Down East where Richard Barthelmess as David rescued Anna Moore from certain death on an ice floe as it was about to plummet over a waterfall. The actor risked his life for that stunt, and the exciting sequence still thrills audiences to this day. His effort to fight back and live on became more than the stuff of Hollywood legend. Richard went on to be nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actor for The Noose and The Patent Leather Kid. His signature roles are in many of D. W. Griffiths silent films including Broken Blossoms, Scarlet...

George OBrien thrills audiences today with his signature role in F. W. Murnaus Sunrise, Michael Curtiz Noahs Ark, and John Fords The Iron Horse, The Blue Eagle, Salute, The Seas Beneath, Fort Apache, and Cheyenne Autumn. He was one of Americas most beloved film stars.

His on-screen heroics were more than matched by his real life bravery. For the first time, the story is told about how he survived the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake as a seven-year old to grow up a superb athlete, a decorated hero in World War One, and a stunt double for film idol Rudolph Valentino. OBrien was one of...

Hardback presentation version.

William Thomas, the man known as "Buckwheat," one of the most beloved characters in the history of the Our Gang and Little Rascals films, rose from obscurity to become an American icon. Billys heritage grew to be more than the ninety-three comedies in which he appeared as Buckwheat. He was a husband, father, and soldier. Several generations have come to know Buckwheat as if he was a real person, but few knew Billy, the man behind the myth.

In "Otay!" The Billy "Buckwheat" Thomas Story, William Thomas, Jr., Billys son, joins with acclaimed author David W....

Wallace Reid still rouses excitement today as Jeff, the blacksmith in D. W. Griffith's famous film, The Birth of a Nation. Audiences thrill to the rip-roaring brawl between Jeff and a band of villainous renegades. The fight was largely real, and many people saw Wally for the first time in that immortal film. They said he became "a star overnight," but he had appeared in more than a hundred films before. In Wally, his story is fully told for the first time. He was "born in a trunk" to an actress mother and a famous playwright father. Wally barely survived the infamous St. Louis cyclone when...

Love during war can often end too quickly. Sabrina, a brilliant and young government scientist discovers her world turned asunder one fateful day after falling passionately in love with the man of her dreams. Neither of them expects the winds of war to ensnare them in a whirlpool of tragedy, intrigue, and deception, or that the unrelenting forces of evil will dare to extinguish the magical light of their love. A conspiracy to destroy their fragile lives triggers a desperate mission so intense that nothing but devotion and a fervent drive to reunite can untangle them from a world gone mad....

The forerunner of 12 YEARS A SLAVE: Pulitzer nominated author David W. Menefee's tale about two brothers and their struggle to survive 14 years of slavery. In BROTHERS OF THE STORM, Abraham Lincoln cannot save Americans from war, but when one of the two brothers is condemned to die for a crime he did not commit, the Great Emancipator faces one of the most compelling decisions of his life. In BROTHERS OF THE STORM, the course of Black American history changes through the efforts of Lincoln and many other admirable men and women, such as Frederick Douglass, Sengbe Pieh, John Brown, and Harriet...

NAMED BEST SILENT FILM BOOK OF 2011 by Thomas Gladysz in the San Francisco Examiner. Lou-Tellegan, a youth from the Netherlands, became one of the world's first movie stars. Before he became famous, he was the son of a brave and brilliant Dutch military general. Lou first found work as a boxer, a circus trapeze artist, and as a nude model in Paris for Auguste Rodin. He became an eager, dedicated stage actor with Italy's most famous actress, Eleonora Duse. When France's renowned actress, Sarah Bernhardt, plucked him from obscurity with a four-year contract, she remade him into a rich and...