Central Kansas Library System

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes delivers a remarkable story of science history: how a ravishing film star and an avant-garde composer invented spread-spectrum radio, the technology that made wireless phones, GPS systems, and many other devices possible.
 
Beginning at a Hollywood dinner table, Hedy's Folly tells a wild story of innovation that culminates in U.S. patent number 2,292,387 for a "secret communication system."

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Robert Evans's The Kid Stays in the Picture is universally recognized as the greatest, most outrageous, most unforgettable show business memoir ever written. The basis of a groundbreaking, award-winning documentary film, it remains the gold standard of Hollywood storytelling. The only actor ever to run a Hollywood studio, Evans emerged from near-obscurity in the mid-1960s to rescue Paramount, one of the great studios of the Golden Age, from near-bankruptcy....

"Lugosi, the tragic life story of one of horror's most iconic film stars, tells of a young Hungarian activist forced to flee his homeland after the failed Communist revolution in 1919. Reinventing himself in the U.S., first on stage and then in movies, he landed the unforgettable role of Count Dracula in what would become a series of classic feature films. From that point forward, Lugosi's stardom would be assured...but with international fame came...

Of all the celebrities who served their country during World War II-and they were legion-Jimmy Stewart was unique. On December 7th, when the attack on Pearl Harbor woke so many others to the reality of war, Stewart was already in uniform-as a private on guard duty south of San Francisco at the Army Air Corps Moffet Field. Seeing war on the horizon, Jimmy Stewart, at the height of his fame after Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and his Oscar-winning turn...

The legendary comedian, actor, and film producer and director traces his rise from a Depression-era kid in Brooklyn to his stellar film career, offering insight into the inspiration for his ideas and the many close friendships and collaborations behind his success. Brooks shares never-before-told, behind-the-scenes anecdotes and remembrances as he charts his rise from a Depression-era kid in Brooklyn to the recipient of the National Medal of Arts....

"The raw, candid, unvarnished memoir of an American icon Several years before he died in 2008, Paul Newman commissioned his best friend to interview actors and directors he worked with, his friends, his children, his first wife, his psychiatrist, and Joanne Woodward, to create an oral history of his life. After hearing and reading what others said about him, Newman then dictated his own version of his life. Now, this long-lost memoir-90% Newman's...

Recounts the remarkable life of leading lady Katharine Hepburn, presenting a portrait of the four-time Academy Award winner through her intimate conversations and private reflections on love, family, friendship, and show business.

Shirley Temple Black, child star of the 1930s and 1940s, tells the story of her life as an actress.

A portrait of Oscar award-winning actress Elizabeth Taylor examines her struggles with drugs and alcohol in the 1960s and 1970s, her philanthropic work as an AIDS activist, and her successes as a businesswoman.