Search Results: Biography from Royal Books, Inc.

London: N.p., 1953. Original film script, an unofficial "without permission" adaptation of George Sidney's "Young Bess" (1953). Simpson's presentation copy, a maroon composition notebook with the script filling rectos of over 70 leaves in the author's own manuscript ink, and a dedication on the front endpaper: "Everything I have to say, has already been said. I'll dedicate this, my first film to [memories], to you, and I hope you [appreciate] the honour / Herladyship x / 1953." No recipient is mentioned. The mysterious and unseen ladyship Simpson based her adaptation on the film, itself based on Margaret Irwin's 1953 eponymous novel and nominated for two Academy Awards. She includes her own embellished "title card" and a cast list of all credited members except Lester Matthews, and follows the film closely in dialogue and action, with slight differences, mostly spelling, grammar, and word replacing. Presumably Simpson watched the film incessantly to master the dialogue and scene changes, or may have… Read More

Los Angeles: Twentieth Century-Fox, 1965. Vintage studio still photograph of Charlton Heston from the 1965 film. The film follows the quarrels between Michelangelo and Pope Julius II over the painting of the Sistine Chapel. It was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction. Shot on location in Italy. 8 x 10 inches. Fine.

Los Angeles: Twentieth Century-Fox, 1965. Collection of five vintage color British front-of-house cards from the 1965 UK film. The film follows the quarrels between Michelangelo and Pope Julius II over the painting of the Sistine Chapel. It was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction. Shot on location in Italy. 8 x 10 inches. Fine.

Culver City, CA: Columbia Pictures, 2001. For Your Consideration script for the 2001 film. Facsimile signature of director Michael Mann on the title page. A biography of boxing champion Muhammad Ali, from his famed 1964 match against Sonny Liston, criticism of the Vietnam War and subsequent banishment from boxing, to his return to the ring in 1974 for the Rumble in the Jungle fight. Shot on location in Florida, California, New York, Illinois, and Texas in the US, and in Ghana and Mozambique. Pictorial titled wrappers. Title page present, dated 8/7/2000, with credits for screenwriters Stephen J. Rivele, Christopher Wilkinson, Eric Roth, and Michael Mann. 131 leaves, with last page of text numbered 130. Xerographic duplication, rectos only. Pages Fine, wrapper Fine, with perfect binding.

Los Angeles: Twentieth Century-Fox, 1956. Final draft script for the 1956 film. Wrappers trimmed to conform to text block, separating spine from wrapper abd cropping copy number stamp "650" and re-written in manuscript ink. Production number adjusted in manuscript pencil with ."5." "#3" in manuscript in on edge of spine. Based on Marcelle Maurette's 1952 stage play, about a scheme to conspiracy to extort ten million pounds from a bank by teaching a homeless girl to impersonate the missing Russian princess Anastasia. Ingrid Bergman won an Academy Award for her lead role. Blue titled wrappers, noted as FINAL on the front wrapper, rubber-stamped copy No. 650 and production No. 2677, dated June 7, 1956. Title page present, dated June 7, 1956, noted as Final Script, with credits for screenwriter Arthur Laurents. 139 leaves, with last page of text numbered 136. Mimeograph duplication, rectos only. Pages Near Fine, wrapper Very Good plus, trimmed to conform to text block with spine separate, bound with… Read More

N.p.: N.p., 1966. Vintage reference photograph from the 1966 Russian film, showing actress Irma Raush. Director Andrei Tarkovsky's sprawling 15th-century drama, capturing seven episodes in the life of revered Russian iconographer Andrei Rublev, from his humble origins as a traveling monk to his later years returning to painting after a long and meditative sabbatical. Set in medieval Russia, shot on location in Moscow. 10 x 8 inches. Near Fine. Criterion Collection 34. Rosenbaum 1000. Vogel, Film as a Subversive Art.

Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1998. First Edition. First Edition. A biography of Vincent Van Gogh, focusing on his religious upbringing and spiritual life, and how this informed his work. Corners and top edge with minor bumps, else Near Fine in a strong Very Good plus jacket. Jacket lightly rubbed, with a shallow horizontal crease to the top front panel, and taps to the corners.

Universal City, CA: Universal Pictures, 1990. Revised script for the 1992 film. A biography of famed baseball legend Babe Ruth, who was born in Baltimore and given to an orphanage there by his father. He soon demonstrates his amazing hitting ability and adopted by a scout who has him play for the Orioles until he is sold to the Red Sox, and consequently angers the owner and is sold to the Yankees, for whom he helps win the 1932 World Series. He is soon pushed out of the spotlight by Lou Gehrig and eventually sold to the Braves. At the end, a boy he met at the start of his career is all grown up and reminds him that Ruth is still his hero and that he's the best. Set in Baltimore, New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, Chicago, shot on location in Chicago and California. Title page present, dated November 22, 1990, noted as Revised, with credits for screenwriter John Fusco. 132 leaves, with last page of text numbered 131. Later generation photocopy. Pages Very Good plus, wrapper missing bound with two gold brads. Read More

Universal City: Universal Pictures, 1956. Second Revised Final Draft script for the 1957 film. Presentation copy belonging to producer, Ross Hunter, bound in navy full calf with gilt titles on cover and spine, with Hunter's name on the front board. Based on the 1956 autobiography of the same name by Colonel Dean E. Hess, a real-life United States Air Force fighter pilot in the Korean War. Hess was a technical advisor for the film and the gold flying helmet Rock Hudson wears was his personal possession. A poster for "Battle Hymn" appears outside the movie theater in the 1959 pilot episode of The Twilight Zone, "Where Is Everybody?" Set in 1950s Westhampton, Ohio and Seoul, shot on location in Seoul, South Korea and Nogales, AZ. Navy full calf binding without paper wrappers as issued. Title page present, noted as Second Revised Final, with credits for screenwriter Charles Grayson. 137 leaves, with last page of text numbered 123-A. Multilith duplication, with pink, blue, white, revision pages… Read More

Los Angeles: Twentieth Century-Fox, 1956. Vintage reference photograph from the 1956 film, showing actors Jacques D'Amboise and Sheree North in a deep dancer's dip. With a mimeo snipe on the verso, along with manuscript pencil annotations regarding layout. Based on the careers of Broadway songwriting trio DeSylva, Brown, and Henderson, who rose to popularity in the early 20th century. Set in New York. 10 x 8 inches. Very Good plus overall.

Tunbridge Wells: Spellmount, 1987. First Edition. First Edition. Published simultaneously in the United States. Illustrated in black-and-white throughout; Holiday is well represented. Part of the "Jazz Life and Times" series. Near Fine and unread in a Near Fine dust jacket. Spine ends lightly bumped. Jacket extremities lightly toned, with light wrinkles at the spine ends, and a few tiny dings to the rear panel.

Los Angeles: Harold Hecht Productions, 1960. Vintage reference photograph of director John Frankenheimer and a camera crew capturing a scene with Burt Lancaster on the set of the 1962 film. A fictionalized account of the life of Robert Stroud, a prison inmate who develops an intense interest in ornithology while in Alcatraz. Nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Burt Lancaster. Shot on location in San Francisco and Alcatraz Island. 8 x 10 inches. Near Fine.

New York: Coward McCann, 1931. First Edition. First Edition. The author's fifth book. Jacket illustration by Glenn Cravath. Very Good plus in a bright, Very Good plus example of the scarce dust jacket. Some fading to the book's quarter binding, and jacket has a tiny, nearly undetectible hole at the center of the spine panel. A bright, attractive copy overall.

New York: Coward McCann, 1931. First Edition. UNCORRECTED PROOF, preceding the First Edition. The author's fifth book. Very Good in printed wrappers. Spine faded, light dampstain to the lower front wrapper, separation on the front hinge.

Various American Cities: New Line Cinema / Spanky Pictures, 2001. For Your Consideration script for the 2001 film. Loosely based on Bruce Porter's 1993 book "Blow: How a Small Town Boy Made $100 Million with the Medellin Cocaine Cartel and Lost It All," and on the true stories of US drug trafficker George Jung. Set and shot on location in California and Illinois in the US, and in Guerrero, Mexico. Metallic orange untitled United Talent Agency wrappers. Title page present, dated August 27, 1999, noted as Third Draft, with credits for screenwriters David McKenna and Nick Cassavetes. 63 leaves, with last page of text numbered 125. Xerographic duplication, rectos and versos. Pages Near Fine, wrapper Near Fine, bound internally with two gold brads.

New South Wales: Embassy Pictures, 1963. Collection of 16 vintage studio still photographs from the 1963 film. Based on French serial killer Henri Desire Landru. During World War I, Henri Landru (Charles Denner) supplements his income by luring middle-class women through newspaper ads, to a villa outside Paris where he seduces and kills them, burns their bodies, then helps himself to their bank accounts, keeping himself, his wife, his mistress, and his four children in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed. Shot on location in Paris and Gambais, France. 8 x 10 inches. Very Good plus. Light creasing in margins, three with pinholes to corners, one with notable creasing in left margin. Grant France.

Burbank, CA: Warner Brothers, 1967. Vintage studio still photograph of director Arthur Penn and actors Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty resting between takes while filming on location for the 1967 film, with cinematographer Burnett Guffey looking on to the right. With manuscript pencil and ink annotations regarding cropping on the verso, along with a provenance stamp. From the archive of film historian and author Joel Finler. Perhaps the most significant film for the New Hollywood generation, with its mix of graphic violence, sex, and humor, and a glamourous take on disaffected youth. Its moral ambiguity and bloody ending divided audiences, leading critic Pauline Kael to come to its rescue: "in a sense, it is the absence of sadism... it is the violence without sadism... that throws the audience off balance at Bonnie and Clyde. The brutality that comes out of this innocence is far more shocking than the calculated brutalities of mean killers." Nominated for eight Academy Awards, winning two,… Read More

Paris: Paris Match, 1968. Vintage borderless press photograph, with bottom margin, of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in a Paris cafe, having arrived in Paris for the January 24, 1968 Moulin Rouge Premiere of the 1967 film. Six "Paris Match" stamps and an "International Magazine Service" stamp, dated "28 Jan 1968" on verso. Perhaps the most significant film for the New Hollywood generation, with its mix of graphic violence, sex and humor, and a glamourous take on disaffected youth. Its portrayal of violence and ambiguity in regard to moral values, and 'shock' ending, divided critics. One critic, Pauline Kael, came to its rescue, stating that "in a sense, it is the absence of sadism... it is the violence without sadism... that throws the audience off balance at Bonnie and Clyde. The brutality that comes out of this innocence is far more shocking than the calculated brutalities of mean killers." Winner of two Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Supporting Actress, nominated for eight… Read More

Burbank, CA: Warner Brothers, 1967. Vintage oversize borderless double weight reference photograph of Faye Dunaway, Warren Beatty, and Michael J. Pollard from the 1967 film. With a German address stamp to the verso. Perhaps the most significant film for the New Hollywood generation, with its mix of graphic violence, sex, and humor, and a glamourous take on disaffected youth. Its moral ambiguity and bloody ending divided audiences, leading critic Pauline Kael to come to its rescue: "in a sense, it is the absence of sadism... it is the violence without sadism... that throws the audience off balance at Bonnie and Clyde. The brutality that comes out of this innocence is far more shocking than the calculated brutalities of mean killers." Nominated for eight Academy Awards, winning two for Best Cinematography and Best Supporting Actress for Estelle Parsons. Shot on location in Texas and California. 11.75 x 9.25 inches. Very Good plus, with lightly bumped corners and faint soil to the verso.… Read More

Los Angeles: United Artists / The Bound for Glory Company, 1975. Revised script for the 1976 film. Actor David Carradine's manuscript ink signature and annotation reading "This land is your land!" and a yin yang symbol on title page. Manuscript ink annotation on verso of back wrapper. A fictionalized account of Woody Guthrie's life, based on Guthrie's autobiography. Guthrie hitchhikes from Texas to California during the 1930s dust bowl to find a job to support his family. When he realizes how bad wages and conditions are he begins to pursue music as a means of fighting for worker's rights. Director Hal Ashby's version of Woody Guthrie is a complex one, showing the legendary proletarian singer and activist as a man with contradictory virtues and faults. Set in Florida, California and New York, shot on location in California and Tucson, Arizona. Brown titled wrappers, with an annotation noting copy No. 23 on the front wrapper. Title page present, dated August 11, 1975, noted as Revised, with… Read More