NNELS Upgrade

This special bundle contains seven books that detail Canada’s long and storied history in the performing arts. We learn about Canada’s early Hollywood celebrity movie stars; Canadians’ vast contributions to successful international stage musicals; the story of The Grand, a famous theatre in London, Ontario; reminiscences from the early days of radio; the history of the renowned Stratford Festival; and a lavish history of the famous National Ballet of Canada. Canada’s performing artists blossomed in the twentieth century, and you can learn all about it here.

The colourful story of Don Harron’s 77-year career in the entertainment business. After 15 books about somebody else (mostly alter ego Charlie Farquharson) plus one book by his drag-queen character, Charlie’s rich city cousin Valerie Rosedale, Don Harron now presents the story of his 77-year stint in the entertainment business.

Did you know that the idea behind the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes was first tried out in Toronto? That Canada produced the world’s longest-running annual revue? Few people realize the Canadian influences that are at the heart of American and British culture.

"A fascinating history of a wonderful old theatre." - Hume Cronyn In September of 1901 London's New Grand Opera House flung open its doors. Boasting a beautiful interior design, and with the most modern stage equipment available, the theatre was large enough to accommodate over 1,700 patrons and the largest touring shows of the time. With impresario Ambrose J. Small at the helm, a new era in theatrical entertainment began.

"You’ll like Louis Mayer," Mary Pickford told Charles Foster in 1943. "He is from Canada, too." As Foster was soon to discover, Mayer was not alone: a great many of those who helped shape Hollywood into the movie capital of the world were Canadian. Stardust and Shadows brings together the stories of 18 Canadians who were celebrities during Hollywood’s formative years.

Romancing the Bard offers a look at the Stratford Festival in its first fifty years as it developed from a bold venture driven by vision of a handful of eager enthusiasts to its present status as a multi-million dollar cultural and commercial enterprise. With profiles of Stratford personalities from founder Tyrone Guthrie to current artistic director Richard Monette, it provides glimpses of intrigue and conflict both offstage and on.

Do you know which televised awards show gives a prize for "Favourite Smile"?Or which Oscar host announced that he was going to raffle off a car during the ceremony?Do you know who won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress of the 20th Century? In Reel Winners, Richard Crouse, Reel to Real movie critic and CBC Radio’s "titan of trivia," gives you the lowdown on movie awards, from eight decades of Hollywood self-congratulation to international awards to the toasts from the fringe (like The Skinnies, which celebrate actors and their skin conditions).

When sound arrived in Hollywood in the late 1920s, Canadians were already holding some of the most important roles in the motion picture industry. Louis B. Mayer, from New Brunswick, was boss at MGM; Jack Warner, from Ontario, was head of Warner Bros. Studio; and Mack Sennett, from Quebec, was still King of Comedy. Canadians like Mary Pickford, Marie Dressler, and Norma Shearer moved easily from silents to talkies - this illustrious trio won the first three Academy Awards for Best Actress.

Radio made its debut in the early twentieth century, and the world was never the same. The mysterious magic box brought people together as no other communication medium had ever done. In Nothing On but the Radio, author Gil Murray tells how the new household toy put voices and music into millions of homes. In the 1920s, families gathered around the crystal set; in the 1930s, radio comedians helped offset the Depression; in the wartime 1940s, radio kept up morale; in the 1950s and 1960s, its music, news, and information spread knowledge and entertainment.

By the time Amelia Hall died suddenly in December 1984 she had become one of Canada's most respected and well-loved actresses. In this book she has left an incomparable record of her early years in the professional theatre in Canada. In particular, these memoirs chronicle the history of the Canadian Repertory Theatre of Ottawa, one of the first professional repertory theatres in Canada.