Film Friday: Mary Wickes

This is first installment of Film Friday, a new feature that will appear in this space on a semi-weekly basis and will highlight UPM's growing list of film studies books. Today's post focuses on the latest addition to the Hollywood Legends Series - Steve Taravella's: Mary Wickes: I Know I’ve Seen That Face Before. 

Moviegoers will remember Mary Wickes as the housekeeper in White Christmas, the nurse in Now, Voyager, and the crotchety choir director in Sister Act. This new biography is the full story of one of Hollywood’s most accomplished character actresses and is now available from UPM.

I Know I’ve Seen That Face Before, filled with never-published behind-the-scenes stories from Broadway and Hollywood, chronicles the life of a complicated woman who brought an assortment of unforgettable nurses, nuns, and housekeepers to life on screen and stage.

Mary Wickes was part of some of the most significant moments in film, television, theatre, and radio history. On that frightening night in 1938 that Orson Welles recorded his earth-shattering “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast, Wickes was waiting on another soundstage for him for a rehearsal of Danton’s Death, oblivious to the havoc taking place outside. When silent film star Gloria Swanson decided to host a live talk show on this new thing called television, Wickes was one of her first guests. When Lucille Ball made her first TV appearance anywhere, Wickes appeared with her—and became Lucy’s closest friend for more than thirty years. Wickes was the original Mary Poppins, long before an umbrella carried Julie Andrews across the rooftops of London. And when Disney began creating 101 Dalmatians, it asked Wickes to pose for animators trying to capture the evil of Cruella de Vil.

The pinched-face actress who cracked wise by day became a confidante to some of the day’s biggest stars by night, including Bette Davis and Doris Day. Bolstered by interviews with almost three hundred people, and by private correspondence from Ball, Davis, Day, and others, Mary Wickes: I Know I’ve Seen That Face Before includes scores of never-before-shared anecdotes about Hollywood and Broadway. In the process, it introduces readers to a complex woman who sustained a remarkable career for sixty years.

In 1952 Mary was the harsh dance instructor Madame Lemond in “The Ballet” one of the best-remembered episodes of I Love Lucy. Here is that memorable scene:

 

A Conversation with Claire Manes

Out of the Shadow of Leprosy: The Carville Letters and Stories of the Landry Family presents a personal, first-hand account of the trauma and impact on one family facing leprosy. 

In 1924 when thirty-two-year-old Edmond Landry kissed his family good-bye and left for the leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana, leprosy, now referred to as Hansen’s Disease, stigmatized and disfigured but did not kill. Those with leprosy were incarcerated in the federal hospital and isolated from family and community. Phones were unavailable, transportation was precarious, and fear was rampant. 

Edmond entered the hospital (as did his four other siblings), but he did not surrender to his fate. He fought with his pen and his limited energy to stay connected to his family and to improve living conditions for himself and other patients. 

Author Claire Manes, Edmond’s granddaughter, lived much of her life gripped by the silence surrounding her grandfather. When his letters were discovered, she became inspired to tell his story through her scholarship and his writing. Out of the Shadow of Leprosy presents her grandfather’s letters and her own studies of narrative and Carville during much of the twentieth century. 

Edmond (right) and an unidentified

man at Carville

For more information about the book, news and events see www.leprosysecrets.com 

Below is a conversation with Claire Manes where she discusses the secrecy surrounding her grandfather, her research into her family's past and the current understanding of leprosy.

How long did it take you to write the book?

I never knew my grandfather who died thirteen years before I was born. I had absorbed my family’s ethos that we did not talk about him, but I always wanted to know him.  From that perspective, I have been working on this story for almost sixty years hoping to discover him despite my family’s silence.

Then thirteen years ago I read letters that my grandfather had written to his family from business college, the Army during WWI, and Carville, Louisiana. His letters inspired me not only to read but also to study the collection. That study of Carville’s history and my family story impelled me to write this book during the last two years.

On the Horizon: Mississippi Hill Country Blues 1967

Today's Music Monday post focuses on a very specific type and year of music. George Mitchell's Mississippi Hill Country Blues 1967 is a collection of photographs that document Mitchell's trip to to Mississippi, where he searched for then unrecorded blues musicians including R. L. Burnside, Jessie Mae Hemphill, and Othar Turner. This journey yielded recordings of music now on cherished and touted albums and CDs. From Mitchell's fieldwork many others discovered the region and its distinctive style of blues.

These over 100 black and white photographs capture  vibrant blues tradition at the moment of its discovery. Intimate, without posturing or pandering, these photographs provide a raw, authentic look at African American blues musicians, their families, and their stomping grounds in the Mississippi Hill Country at a time when blues music remained a lively, though waning, part of their community and blues musicians were viewed with respect and pride. Blues musicians brought pleasure and release to people wrestling with severe poverty and pervasive discrimination. 
 
Mississippi Hill Country Blues 1967 will be available in August and also includes Mitchell's interviews, conducted at the time he took the photos, with four of the musicians who talk about their music, their lives, and the times in which they live. Running throughout is the author's recounting of his experience of the seminal musicological odyssey.

Click through to see for a short excerpt and sample of the photographs and to listen to R.L. Burnside's "Shake 'Em on Down."

Fall Catalog Now Available

UPM's latest catalog, featuring books published between September and February 2014, is now available. Download the catalog here.

Several titles from this catalog are available from NetGalley. Browse our public catalog listing here.

Praise for Scoop

On Wednesday morning Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today, was a guest on MSNBC's The Rundown hosted by Chuck Todd. During the segment "Shameless Plugs" Page ceded her airtime to Scoop: The Evolution of a Southern Reporter by Jack Nelson. Video below

Scoop is now available from UPM.

Ball of Confusion

The following is a guest-post from UPM Director Leila Salisbury. This article, appeared in the issue of Against the Grain. Against the Grain is a great journal for those interested in how academic libraries think and operate and how vendors shape their strategies to work within the changing landscape of scholarly communication.

As I received the deadline reminder for this quarter’s ATG column, I was finishing an email exchange with our marketing and business directors that had begun with celebration over a healthy payment from one of our electronic content vendors and had concluded with something to the effect of: “What’s the sales model for that vendor? Will those checks be getting smaller as the number of new customers diminishes after the initial launch period?” This exchange reminded me that some/much of the time, I couldn’t rattle off the exact terms and offerings of our numerous e-vendors. In-house conversations often go something like: “Ebrary, wait, did they add the STL model that becomes a full purchase after four lends, or am I thinking of EBL?” It might be comical if it also didn’t also seem kind of scary. (In an interesting twist, after I began this article, I learned that ProQuest had just acquired EBL, as it earlier had Ebrary. Mergers and acquisitions may be the ultimate solution to this issue!)

In this burgeoning era of digital content (where talk is rife with acronyms such as PDA, DDA, MUPO, SUPO, STL and the like), I sometimes hear librarians say that there are so many options and models out there that it’s all highly confusing and difficult to determine which vendors and what types of plans will best suit the needs of their library and patrons. To this I say, believe me, I hear you. Or to quote the lyrics to “Ball of Confusion” (pick your favorite version of the song, but they’re all surprisingly applicable to today for something written in 1970): “So round ‘n’ round ‘n’ round we go / Where the world's headed, nobody knows.”

I tend to believe that this profusion of offerings and models is a natural result of the “offer the customer a lot of options, a choice to suit every customer profile” mentality. Perhaps we are like the consumer standing in the cereal aisle at Whole Foods, trying to determine which of the 18 available organic cereals is the right one for us. “Which is more important to me, high protein or fiber? I like that this one has flaxseed, but wait, Jimmy is allergic to strawberries. This one looks good and I like this brand, but can I really justify spending $6.50 on a box of cereal?” Sure, this takes longer and requires more consideration than did simply grabbing the box of All-Bran in days past, but there are upsides as well. There are many tantalizing flavors (user models) to choose from. We have the option to preference either protein (collection/subject based building) or fiber (PDA). We are increasingly romanced by the benefits of flaxseed (STL) but refuse to knowingly cause allergic reactions in our family members (too-quick browsing purchase triggers in PDA plans). Finally, we are lucky to have that $6.50 at all, not to mention that we also have the choice to spend it in the way that best benefits our family (library and patrons).

Website Super Sale

Do you wonder whatever happened to the University Press’s discount book sale? Do you miss coming to Jackson and nabbing unbelievable bargains on UPM titles? 

We still have the sale; it’s just been moved online. Now through June 30, 2013 customers can browse and choose from more than three hundred deeply discounted titles. 

Browse by subject list here. Look for great deals on books in our American Made Music Series, Comics, Film and more.

Terms of sale 

• From May 1 through June 30, 2013, over three hundred titles are discounted from 20% to 85%.
• This is a website-only sale; please, no phone orders.
• Libraries may use prices and ISBNs to build orders and fax (601.432.6217) or email (press@mississippi.edu) purchase order numbers.
• Prepayment is required for all Super Sale orders. This applies to all individuals and booksellers. Libraries may use a purchase order without prepayment.
• No other discounts or special offers apply to the Super Sale price. 
• Sales tax for Mississippi residents will be added at checkout. Shipping charges will be added at checkout.
• Quantities of some titles are limited; however, you may order as many copies of any title as you wish (subject to availability).
• Sales are final. No returns, exchanges, or credits.
• Hardback editions without jackets are specially designated in the book listing as unjacketed cloth.