#KATE ANDERSEN BROWER

[bargainsleuthbooks]

#ElizabethTaylor: The Grit & Glamour of an Icon by #KateAndersenBrower #BookReview #December2022Books #Hollywood #AudiobookReview

I couldn't wait to get my hands on the first authorized biography of #ElizabethTaylor. I've read a few other books about her, so I was curious if I'd find out anything new. #KateAndersenBrower #December2022Books #BookReview #Hollywood #AudiobookReview

No celebrity rivals Elizabeth Taylor’s glamour and guts or her level of fame. She was the last major star to come out of the old Hollywood studio system and she is a legend known for her beauty and her magnetic screen presence in a career that spanned most of the twentieth century and nearly sixty films. But her private life was even more compelling than her Oscar-winning on-screen performances.…

[judgingbooksbycovers]

The Hill: Inside the Secret World of the U.S. Capitol

By Kate Andersen Brower.

[deadpresidents]

Who would you say are some exceptional female historians who've written about the US presidency?

There are scores of great female Presidential historians, so any quick list that I make will invariably leave deserving historians out and I apologize ahead of time. Before I begin the list, I want to give special recognition to one of the very best: Doris Kearns Goodwin's bibliography measures up against the books of any and all Presidential historians. Her first book, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream: The Most Revealing Portrait of a President and Presidential Power Ever Written (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) was originally published in 1976 but, in my opinion, remains one of the greatest Presidential biographies EVER written.

Others, in no particular order: •Margaret Leech •Amy S. Greenberg •Elizabeth Drew •Brenda Wineapple •Candice Millard •Amity Shlaes •Jan Jarboe Russell •Annette Gordon-Reed •Alexis Coe •Lady Bird Johnson (her diaries are priceless first-person accounts of her husband's Presidency and life in the White House) •Joanne B. Freeman •Lynne Cheney (surprisingly to most people, the wife of former Vice President Dick Cheney is a respected historian who has written excellent books on James Madison and the early Presidents from Virginia) •Fawn Brodie •Aida D. Donald •Kate Andersen Brower •Elizabeth Brown Pryor •Peggy Noonan •Nancy Gibbs •Nancy Isenberg •Susan Swain •Margaret Truman •Edna Greene Medford

[rockislandadultreads]

In Memoriam: Rosalynn Carter (1927-2023)

First Lady From Plains by Rosalynn Carter

The former first lady's memoir covers her small-town childhood, her life as a wife and mother, her role in the family business, her public and political efforts, and her years near the center of power.

First Women by Kate Andersen Brower

One of the most underestimated—and challenging—positions in the world, the First Lady of the United States must be many things: an inspiring leader with a forward-thinking agenda of her own; a savvy politician, skilled at navigating the treacherous rapids of Washington; a wife and mother operating under constant scrutiny; and an able CEO responsible for the smooth operation of countless services and special events at the White House. Now, as she did in her smash #1 bestseller The Residence, former White House correspondent Kate Andersen Brower draws on a wide array of untapped, candid sources—from residence staff and social secretaries to friends and political advisers—to tell the stories of the ten remarkable women who have defined that role since 1960.

Brower offers new insights into this privileged group of remarkable women, including Jacqueline Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson, Patricia Nixon, Betty Ford, Rosalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, and Michelle Obama. The stories she shares range from the heartwarming to the shocking and tragic, exploring everything from the first ladies’ political crusades to their rivalries with Washington figures; from their friendships with other first ladies to their public and private relationships with their husbands. She also offers a detailed and insightful new portrait of one of the most-watched first ladies of all time, Hillary Clinton, asking what her tumultuous years in the White House may tell us about her own historic presidential run.

Leading Ladies by Kay Bailey Hutchison

In a series of skillfully drawn biographical portraits, United States senator and bestselling author Kay Bailey Hutchison examines the lives of sixty-three pioneers in military service, journalism, public health, social reform, science, and politics—all American women.

From the courtroom to the halls of Congress, these female trailblazers have battled tremendous odds to achieve success—if not always recognition—in their respective fields. Senator Hutchison, a trailblazer herself, became the first woman from the state of Texas elected to the United States Senate. Following in the footsteps of her bestselling book American Heroines, Senator Hutchison continues to celebrate female accomplishment in all walks of life. Whether committed to a chosen cause or thrust into a public role by personal circumstance, the women profiled in Leading Ladies have all woven thin threads of opportunity into sweeping tapestries of achievement.

Mixing historical portraits with modern success stories, Senator Hutchison shows how American women from all periods of history have contributed to the strength and progress of our nation. With courage, purpose, and compassion, the women of Leading Ladies continue to blaze trails for thousands of American women to follow—and no history of the nation can be written without them.

Within Our Reach by Rosalynn Carter

In Within Our Reach: Ending the Mental Health Crisis, Rosalynn Carter and coauthors Susan K. Golant and Kathryn E. Cade render an insightful, unsparing assessment of the state of mental health. Mrs. Carter has been deeply invested in this issue since her husband’s gubernatorial campaign when she saw firsthand the horrific, dehumanizing treatment of people with mental illnesses.

Using stories from her 35 years of advocacy to springboard into a discussion of the larger issues at hand, Carter crafts an intimate and powerful account of a subject previously shrouded in stigma and shadow, surveying the dimensions of an issue that has affected us all. She describes a system that continues to fail those in need, even though recent scientific breakthroughs with mental illness have potential to help most people lead more normal lives.

[dankusner]

Jennifer Lopez Is Becoming an Elizabeth Taylor for a New Generation

Ms. Weiner, a novelist, writes frequently about gender and culture.

Nothing gold can stay.

Children grow up.

Parents grow old.

Summer’s warmth gives way to winter’s chill.

Add to this list of sad inevitabilities the Jennifer Lopez-Ben Affleck breakup.

After months of speculation and internet chatter, on Wednesday the news broke that Ms. Lopez had officially moved to dissolve her union with Mr. Affleck — on the anniversary of their 2022 wedding ceremony at a recreation of a Georgia plantation, no less.

“She was done waiting and the date she did it speaks a ton,” a source told People Magazine.

This marriage was, of course, the second time around for Ben and Jen, who’d first been engaged in the early aughts, and who had found their way back to each other in 2021.

It was a love story for the ages — or, at least, for second-chance-loving pop-culture fans of a certain age seeking pandemic-era distractions. Had romance conquered all?

Or was another of JLo’s relationships destined to take a turn on Fortuna’s wheel? The reports that the couple did not sign a prenup suggest they were of the former belief.

Call it the triumph of hope over lawyers.

This will be Ms. Lopez’s fourth divorce, which puts her at risk of becoming an Elizabeth Taylor for a new generation: a multitalented female celebrity who is best known not for her vast creative output nor even for her undeniable beauty and charm, but, instead, for her many marriages.

Over her eight decades, Ms. Taylor was married eight times to seven men (the discrepancy owing to her two walks down the aisle with Richard Burton).

At 55, Ms. Lopez has married, in addition to Mr. Affleck, the producer Ojani Noa, the backup dancer Cris Judd and the singer Marc Anthony; she was also once engaged to the baseball player Alex Rodriguez.

Which means she’s just a few Larry Fortenskys away from hitting what future historians may refer to as the Taylor line, where what gets covered is your love life, and not your life’s work.

But there’s a big difference between JLo and La Liz.

Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, I was too young to know Ms. Taylor as the violet-eyed phenom who first dazzled in “National Velvet” and went on to be perhaps the most famous, the most glamorous movie star in the world. I was, however, just the right age to experience her as a pop culture mainstay and occasional punchline. This was Ms. Taylor’s frosted-tips-and-caftans era, when she appeared in front of a camera only to make soft-focus perfume ads, parodied by “Saturday Night Live.” It was the time of her union with Mr. Fortensky, a construction worker she’d met in rehab, and whom she married at her friend Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch. The news media that had once so eagerly built her up was all too happy to lavish attention on her decline, as well.

But here’s the thing. In between getting married, divorced and married again, Ms. Taylor found time to leverage her brand for an unglamorous but utterly urgent cause: She put her fame in service of people with AIDS.

She did it early, in 1985, when many still wrongly feared that H.I.V. could be transmitted through casual contact, and people with AIDS were pariahs. Some hospitals didn’t want to treat them. Some landlords didn’t want to rent to them. Some schools didn’t want to teach them. Religious conservatives called the disease God’s judgment.

And there was Elizabeth Taylor, holding fund-raisers, giving money, urging Ronald Reagan to make a speech about AIDS (a word he had for years been reluctant even to say in public), rallying Hollywood friends and lovers to the cause, even when some colleagues warned her that aligning herself with such a reviled disease and the strident activism that was associated with it could end her career.

Who cares about careers, she demanded, “when the people, without whom we wouldn’t have a career, are dying?”

“I resented my fame,” her biographer, Kate Andersen Brower, has quoted her as saying, “until I realized I could use it.” She used it, and changed the world.

Jennifer Lopez could do it, too.

Unlike Ms. Taylor, who’d retired from movies in her latter decades, Ms. Lopez is still a fantastically successful entertainer. This has not been her best year — there was a much-mocked, self-financed multimedia project, a hastily canceled world tour, and a spate of think pieces about where it all went wrong and why social media had turned on her. But let’s not forget that in 2023 Ms. Lopez starred in top-streaming movies on two separate platforms. In 2020 she performed at the Super Bowl, and in 2021 she performed at the Biden inauguration. Even during this, her annus horribilis, she found time to serve as a co-chair of the Met Gala, where she appeared in a stunning Schiaparelli gown. She’s got beauty and charisma for days, work ethic for weeks.

“Here’s an entertainer determined to enter-freaking-tain,” Wesley Morris wrote, in his review of “This Is Me … Now: A Love Story.” “Her sort of generosity shouldn’t be taken for granted.”

With that generosity, she could be fighting the good fight on behalf of any number of worthy endeavors and making a tremendous impact. But so far, her most celebrated victories are those against Mother Nature and Father Time.

Read enough about Ms. Lopez and two things are quickly evident: She wants to control her own narrative, and she yearns for love and affirmation. “In Jennifer’s case, I don’t think there’s enough followers, or — or movies or records,” Ben Affleck says in the behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of Ms. Lopez’s latest album, “to still that part of you that still feels a longing and a pain. Ultimately that’s the work that you got to do on your own.”

“When I was a girl they’d ask me what I’d be/A woman in love is what I grew up wanting to be/It’s my melody/The symphony I sing,” Ms. Lopez sings in the “This is Me … Now” title track. “True love does exist, and some things are forever,” she told USA Today. “ Please don’t give up on that because that’s all that matters in life … love.” Ms. Lopez is hardly the only woman who wants to fall in love (and to look amazing while she’s doing it). But she is one of a very few who can also command the attention of millions of fans, whose voice can draw attention to the plight or oppressed group of her choosing, whose words could change the world.

I wouldn’t be presumptuous enough to tell Ms. Lopez which cause to embrace, nor to trot out the hoary old advice about how you’ll fall in love not when you’re looking, but when you are pursuing your passions, living your best life. She’s a queen — and she’s already pursuing her passions and living her best life. I hope she gets her heart’s desire.

Meanwhile, I hope she knows that the kind of cultural capital she wields can be a tremendous force, reaching far beyond the bounds of the movie theaters and the tabloids and the satellite-radio broadcasts. If JLo is going to be our generation’s Elizabeth Taylor, I hope she’ll lean into the best, most empowering parts of that story — Ms. Taylor as world-changer, speaking truth to power, not Ms. Taylor as the eternal bride.

[ncisladaily]

Shut down by the WGA strike months ago, Shondaland‘s murder-mystery drama The Residence had been gearing up to resume production. Today, the Netflix series lost one of its stars, Emmy winner André Braugher, who died at the age of 61 after a brief illness.

The Residence, from executive producer/showrunner Paul William Davies and executive producers Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers, shot four episodes of its eight-episode order before suspending filming during the writers strike.

The series had been slated to return to production Jan. 2, sources tell Deadline. In light of Braugher’s untimely death, it is unclear whether The Residence will keep that date or give cast and crew more time to mourn. It also is too soon to speculate whether Braugher’s character will be written off or recast for the remaining four episodes.

Using Kate Andersen Brower’s book The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House as a jumping off point, the Netflix series is described as “a screwball whodunnit set in the upstairs, downstairs, and backstairs of the White House, among the eclectic staff of the world’s most famous mansion.”

After a dead body is found, one wildly eccentric detective (Uzo Aduba) comes in to investigate 157 suspects attending a State Dinner.

Braugher plays one of the main characters opposite Aduba, White House Chief Usher A.B. Wynter. 

The cast also includes Susan Kelechi Watson, Ken Marino, Jason Lee, Bronson Pinchot, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Edwina Findley, Molly Griggs, Al Mitchell, Dan Perrault and Mary Wiseman.

Braugher, two-time Emmy winner for Homicide: Life on the Street and Thief, segued to The Residence after a series regular stint on the sixth and final season of Paramount+’s The Good Fight and an eight-season starring turn on Fox/NBC’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

[andronetalks]

Rosalynn Carter, mental health activist, humanitarian and former first lady, dies at 96

CNN Politics By Keith Allen and Kate Andersen Brower, CNN16 minute read Updated 7:25 PM EST, Sun November 19, 2023 Rosalynn Carter, who as first lady worked tirelessly on behalf of mental health reform and professionalized the role of the president’s spouse, died Sunday at the age of 96, according to The Carter Center. Rosalynn Carter passed away peacefully with family by her side at her home in…

[lovelyloveday]

Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit & Glamour of an Icon by Kate Andersen Brower presents a mesmerizing depiction of an exceptional woman. Elizabeth's life was a more captivating saga than any film could ever be.

Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit & Glamour of an Icon by Kate Andersen Brower  https://bit.ly/3EKUKKr  

[abcnewspr]

ABC NEWS’ ‘SUPERSTAR’ SERIES PROFILES LEGENDARY ACTRESS ELIZABETH TAYLOR 

Star-Studded Program Features Interviews With Fran Drescher, Rosie O’Donnell and More 

‘Superstar: Elizabeth Taylor’ Airs Sunday, May 14 (10:00-11:00 p.m. EDT), on ABC  

ABC News* 

Legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor is the blueprint for modern celebrity culture. She was the original influencer ― the first to use her fame to create a fragrance empire and forge frontiers in social activism. On and off the screen, she was larger than life. Known for her striking beauty, she was married eight times to seven different men, pursued by paparazzi around the globe, and even denounced by the Vatican. She also broke the glass ceiling by negotiating the first million-dollar salary in Hollywood. In an exclusive interview with Barbara Walters, she once said, “I know I’ve had an extraordinary life. I realized that it’s like a soap opera. It’s not like an ordinary life at all.” Over a decade after her death, ABC News’ “Superstar” series explores the iconic figure’s life, career and marriages. 

The star-studded television event features interviews with celebrities such as Fran Drescher, Rosie O’Donnell, Camilla Belle, Melissa Rivers, Dita von Teese and Kathy Ireland, a close friend of Taylor who still considers her a mentor. The program also includes conversations with Kate Andersen Brower, who wrote Taylor’s biography; Larry Hackett, the former editor of People and an ABC News contributor; Hal Rubenstein, the former fashion editor at InStyle; and José Eber, celebrity hairstylist and friend of Taylor. “Superstar: Elizabeth Taylor” airs Sunday, May 14 (10:00-11:00 p.m. EDT), on ABC and available next day on Hulu. 

“Superstar” is produced by ABC News. David Sloan is senior executive producer. Muriel Pearson is executive producer. 

*COPYRIGHT ©2023 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. All photography is copyrighted material and is for editorial use only. Images are not to be archived, altered, duplicated, resold, retransmitted or used for any other purposes without written permission of ABC. Images are distributed to the press to publicize current programming. Any other usage must be licensed.  

ABC News Media Relations  

For more information, follow ABC News PR on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. 

-- ABC -- 

[suchananewsblog]

‘The Residence’: Randall Park Cast As Series Regular; Spencer Garrett To Recur In Netflix’s Shondaland Drama

EXCLUSIVE: Randall Park has been cast as a series regular and Spencer Garrett is set to recur opposite Uzo Aduba in Netflix’s Shondaland murder-mystery drama The Residence, from writer Paul William Davies. Using Kate Andersen Brower’s book The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House as a jumping off point, the eight-episode series is described as “a screwball whodunnit set in the…

[don-lichterman]

How Elizabeth Taylor Redefined Celebrity Activism – Deadline

How Elizabeth Taylor Redefined Celebrity Activism – Deadline

Kate Andersen Brower’s Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit and Glamour of An Icon is billed as the first-ever authorized biography of the legendary actress, as her family and estate gave her access to Taylor’s private letters, photos and diaries. What Brower found was new insight into Taylor’s later-in-life emergence as an influential activist, using her star power to help push forward legislation to…

[newzzwired]

Elizabeth Taylor’s Campaign Against AIDS

Elizabeth Taylor’s Campaign Against AIDS

On this week’s episode of Inside the Hive, author Kate Andersen Brower joins Emily Jane Fox to discuss her new authorized biography, Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit & Glamour of an Icon. Andersen Brower takes us inside the lesser-known sides of one of the most famous women of all time. Andersen Brower, who interviewed 250 people for the book and combed through thousands of never-before-seen personal…

[deadpresidents]

VICE PRESIDENTS/VICE PRESIDENCY •Crapshoot: Rolling the Dice on the Vice Presidency by Jules Witcover (BOOK) •Veeps: Profiles in Insignificance by Bill Kelter and Wayne Shellabarger (BOOK) •The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power by Jules Witcover (BOOK | KINDLE) •First in Line: Presidents, Vice Presidents, and the Pursuit of Power by Kate Andersen Brower (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Very Strange Bedfellows: The Short and Unhappy Marriage of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew by Jules Witcover (BOOK | KINDLE) •Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr by Nancy Isenberg (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency by Barton Gellman (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America by Jared Cohen (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Breckinridge: Statesman, Soldier, Symbol by William C. Davis (BOOK | KINDLE) •Calhoun: American Heretic by Robert Elder (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Bag Man: The Wild Crimes, Audacious Cover-Up & Spectacular Downfall of a Brazen Crook in the White House by Rachel Maddow and Michael Yarvitz (BOOK | KINDLE)

OTHER PRESIDENTS | CONFEDERATE PRESIDENT JEFFERSON DAVIS •Jefferson Davis, American by William J. Cooper Jr. (BOOK | KINDLE) •Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour by William C. Davis (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief by James M. McPherson (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •An Honorable Defeat: The Last Days of the Confederate Government by William C. Davis (BOOK | AUDIO) •Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln's Corpse by James L. Swanson (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

OTHER PRESIDENTS | TEXAS PRESIDENT SAM HOUSTON •The Raven: A Biography of Sam Houston by Marquis James (BOOK) •Sword of San Jacinto: A Life of Sam Houston by Marshall De Bruhl (BOOK) •Sam Houston: American Giant by M.K. Wisehart (BOOK) •Exiled: The Last Days of Sam Houston by Ron Rozelle (BOOK | KINDLE)

[scarluxia]

11 November 2016 | Veteran's Day

11 November 2016 | Veteran’s Day

Checked out a yoga DVD from the library yesterday since I can’t afford a gym membership quite yet. I also checked out First Women by Kate Andersen Brower, who writes about American history in a very palatable way. I’m starting to get more easily annoyed by my friends. Eli’s flakiness, obsession with memes, and insistence that everyone coddle the hurt and fearful instead of accepting that life…