As Roger Rosenblatt put it, ”What makes Serious Business a special treat is that it is like the best of the cartoons itselffunny, touching, and infused with thoughtful joy.” This generously illustrated history of animation looks at the creation and celluloid careers of such American icons as Felix the Cat, Jiminy Cricket, Mickey and Minnie, Popeye and Olive Oyl, Goofy, Yogi Bear, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Daffy Duck, Tom and Jerry, and the Pink Panther. Art and commerce collide again and again as Stefan Kanfer wittily probes the origins of such diverse cartoon families as the Flintstones, the Jetsons, and the Simpsons and looks at the phenomenal success of feature-length animated films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and The Lion King. Serious Business is itself a classic of animation, bringing to life an art and an industry whose creations have now worked their way into every corner of American life.

Serious Business: The Art And Commerce Of Animation In America From Betty Boop To Toy Story

Kanfer, Stefan

Business & Money

Da Capo

Humphrey Bogart: it’s hard to think of anyone who’s had the same lasting impact on the culture of movies. Though he died at the young age of fifty-seven more than half a century ago, his influence among actors and filmmakers, and his enduring appeal for film lovers around the world, remains as strong as ever. What is it about Bogart, with his unconventional looks and noticeable speech impediment, that has captured our collective imagination for so long? In this definitive biography, Stefan Kanfer answers that question, along the way illuminating the private man Bogart was and shining the spotlight on some of the greatest performances ever captured on celluloid. Bogart fell into show business almost by accident and worked for nearly twenty years before becoming the star we know today. Born into a life of wealth and privilege in turn-of-the-century New York, Bogart was a troublemaker throughout his youth, getting kicked out of prep school and running away to join the navy at the age of nineteen. After a short, undistinguished stint at sea, Bogart spent his early twenties drifting aimlessly from one ill-fitting career to another, until, through a childhood friend, he got his first theater job. Working first as a stagehand and then, reluctantly, as a bit-part player, Bogart cut his teeth in one forgettable role after another. But it was here he began to develop a work ethic; deciding that there were “two kinds of men: professionals and bums,” Bogart, for the first time in his life, wanted to be the former. After the Crash of ’29, Bogart headed west to try his luck in Hollywood. That luck was scarce, and he slogged through more than thirty B-movie roles before his drinking buddy John Huston wrote him a part that would change everything; with High Sierra, Bogart finally broke through at the age of forty—being a pro had paid off. What followed was a string of movies we have come to know as the most beloved classics of American cinema: The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Big Sleep, The African Queen . . . the list goes on and on. Kanfer appraises each of the films with an unfailing critical eye, weaving in lively accounts of behind-the-scenes fun and friendships, including, of course, the great love story of Bogart and Bacall. What emerges in these pages is the portrait of a great Hollywood life, and the final word on why there can only ever be one Bogie.

Tough Without a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart

Literature & Fiction

Dramas & Plays

KNOPF

In this comprehensive biography of one of the great movie icons of our time, Stefan Kanfer, the acclaimed biographer of Lucille Ball, Groucho Marx, and Marlon Brando, illuminates the life and career of Humphrey Bogart. Along the way, Kanfer gives us a wide-reaching cultural appraisal of the movies many of us know and love as masterpieces of American cinema: The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, To Have and Have Not, and countless others. He appraises each of the films with an unfailing critical eye, weaving in lively accounts of behind-the-scenes fun and friendships, including, of course, the great love story of Bogart and Lauren Bacall. What emerges in these pages is a portrait of a great Hollywood life, and the final word on why there can only ever be one Bogie.

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

The Last Empire De Beers, Diamonds, and the World

The Last Empire: South Africa, Diamonds and De Beers from Cecil Rhodes to the Oppenheimers

Economics

Farrar. Straus & Giroux

Chronicles the history of the De Beers diamond mines, from Johannes De Beer's humble South African ranch to the Oppenheimers' vast empire. By the author of A Journal of the Plague Years.

The Last Empire: De Beers, Diamonds, and the World

History

Africa

The story of the attempt to build a Jewish Eden in the Catskills, from the days of the ghetto to the rise and decline of the great resorts.

A Summer World: The Attempt to Build a Jewish Eden in the Catskills, from the Days of the Ghetto to the Rise and Decline of the Borscht Belt

Americas

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

"Timely corporate history--as exciting and poignant as any good tale of derring-do against great odds by all-too-flawed giants. " - Kirkus Reviews
With a scholar's precision and a novelist's eye, Stefan Kanfer tells the inside story of De Beers Consolidated Mines - from the nineteenth century diamond rush that transformed Johannes De Beer's humble South African farm into an exotic klondike, to the Oppenheimers' shadow empire that has achieved umatched global reach.

Biography & History

The temptation is to start with a classic wisecrack: One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I don't know. But Groucho Marx, like Stefan Kanfer's superb biography, consists of much more than just jokes. Underneath the most famous Marx brother's oneliners and carefree attitude was a life dominated by deep sadness, professional dissatisfaction, and personal turmoil. Beginning with the Marx Brothers' family heritage and their youth in turn-of-the-century New York, we see Julius and his brothers Adolph and Leonard become Groucho, Harpo, and Chico. We go backstage as they develop their routines in vaudeville, on Broadway, and, finally, in Hollywood. Groucho's story unfolds against the backdrop of the changing world around him and his star-studded milieu, which includes other classic comic figures such as Charlie Chaplin and W. C. Fields, as well as great names like Ben Hecht, George Gershwin, and even T. S. Eliot. Kanfer delves into Groucho's complicated relationships with the people around him — his failed marriages, his destructive behavior toward his children, his clashes with the self-indulgent Chico. The Brothers become the biggest movie stars in the world — a success bitterly followed by slow decline as age, years of profligacy, and ego all catch up with them. Finally, we witness Groucho's extraordinary resurrection — coming back from the career-dead to host the television quiz show You Bet Your Life, which cements his legendary status in American culture. Groucho Marx proved that comedy could be raucous, sophisticated, and wildly unexpected — all at once. Groucho raises the curtain on this icon of twentieth-century cynicism and irreverence in an authoritative, affectionate, and unsparingly honest look behind the cigar.

Groucho: The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

For more than fifty years Lucille Ball has been television's most recognizable and beloved face. As Lucy Ricardo she was the ultimate screwball housewife, getting herself into and out of scrapes with unmatched comic finesse. Indeed, she was so funny, and so central to the cultural landscape, that we often overlook Ball's role in shaping that turf: as producer of her own show and a cofounder of a major studio, she was a pioneer, rewriting the rules and forging new paths for women in the boardroom and on the sound stage. In Ball of Fire, Stefan Kanfer goes beyond the icon to examine the difficult life and enduring work of the most influential woman in modern American comedy. Kanfer traces the arc of her career from its unlikely beginnings in a lonely and desolate childhood in upstate New York. There she discovered that making people laugh could ease the pains of a fragmented family life. But she was more than amusing. She was also beautiful, and when Lucy's adolescent attempts to crack Broadway ended in failure, she became a runway model and on a fluke, journeyed out to California to be an extra in one film. That led to another, and another, and another bottom-of-the-bill movie, until she became, in her own words, "The Queen of the B's". Ball of Fire tracks Lucy's pursuit of the superstardom that eluded her on the big screen and follows the actress through a series of disappointing affairs and sorrows until she meets a Cuban conga drummer six years her junior, and falls headlong in love with Desi Arnaz. Working with her husband, Lucille Ball becomes a different kind of comic artist in a program called I Love Lucy, the show that is still running in more than eighty countries around the globe. Taking us through the development of television both as technology and cultural phenomenon, Kanfer chronicles the difficult birth of the sitcom that changed the world. He details the early executive meetings, the rocky first productions, the shaky first weeks and the unpredicted triumph. We see all of Lucy's behind-the-scenes battles for creative control of the show; her surprising confrontation with the House Un-American Activities Committee when it was discovered that she had once registered to vote as a Communist; her groundbreaking on-air pregnancy; and a series of in-depth analyses of the classic scenes and Chaplinesque slapstick that guarantee her a permanent place in the pantheon of American comedy. Finally, we see the aftermath of her hard-won fame: the turbulent marriage and painful split from Desi, the man she never stopped loving; her second marriage; and her sad last years out of the limelight and away from the applause. This is the first biography to examine the legendary Lucille Ball in all her many dimensions: her personal struggles and the torments that forged a comic genius; and, at last, her posthumous influence on television comedy, on feminist scholars and cultural critics, and on the public at large. Ball of Fire is the definitive biography Lucy fans have been waiting for.

Ball of Fire: The Tumultuous Life and Comic Art of Lucille Ball

Humor & Entertainment

This definitive biography of one of the world’s greatest comedians unflinchingly yet affectionately uncovers the man behind the cigar. Here is the amazing career of the man the world recognized as Groucho: the improbable disasters of the vaudeville years; the Marx Brothers, an act so funny W.C. Fields refused to follow it; the unprecedented Broadway success of The Cocoanutsand Animal Crackers; the cinematic triumphs of Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera; and the marvelous come-back career as king of the game show hosts with You Bet Your Life. Here, too, is the man himself: a lonely middle child who aspired to be a doctor; a man who sabotaged three marriages; a father alternately indulgent and cruel. Intelligent and thorough, hilarious and sad, Groucho is a spectacular biography of the century’s most influential comedian.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kanfer, Stefan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Kanfer, Stefan

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kanfer, Stefan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Serious Business: The Art And Commerce Of Animation In America From Betty Boop To Toy Story

Tough Without a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart

Tough Without a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart

The Last Empire: South Africa, Diamonds and De Beers from Cecil Rhodes to the Oppenheimers

The Last Empire: De Beers, Diamonds, and the World

A Summer World: The Attempt to Build a Jewish Eden in the Catskills, from the Days of the Ghetto to the Rise and Decline of the Borscht Belt

The Last Empire: De Beers, Diamonds, and the World

Groucho: The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx

Ball of Fire: The Tumultuous Life and Comic Art of Lucille Ball

Groucho: The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx