Audiobooks

 

Helen Hayes: My Life in Three Acts

Author : Helen Hayes with Katherine Hatch

Performed By : James MacArthur

Publisher : Blackstone Audio Inc

Runtime : 8 hours 30 minutes

Categories : Arts & Drama

Our Price : $32.95 $16.95

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Helen Hayes, acclaimed First Lady of the American Theatre, has been on stage, screen
and television for more than fifty years. In that time she moved among the worlds most famous and
talented: actors, film stars, writers, businessmen. She speaks with wit, wisdom, and candor on topics
both public and private. She offers deft behind-the-sceens portraits of such personalities as Joan Crawford,
William Randolph Hearst, Charlie Chaplin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Richard Burton, Lillian Gish, Dwight D.
Eisenhower, and Gloria Swanson. She tells of the advice older actors gave her and of how she in turn gave
advice, continuing the tradition. She treats us to delightful anecdotes about Ethel Barrymore, John Ford,
Al Capone. At the same time she reflects more seriouslyand with great honestyon the painful parts of
her life: the alcoholism of those close to her; the guilt of having not spent more time with her young children;
the remorse about the fact that her success overshadowed her playwright-screenwriter husband, Charles
MacArthur; the difficulty of being alone after the deaths of her daughter and husband. She tells about the
pleasures and discomforts that go with being a celebrity, about her retirement in Mexico, about her sense
of responsibility to support causes, to help others. And, finally, she expresses her strong views on what
is wrong with the American theatre today and what has always been wrong with Hollywood. An engrossing
account of a rich and productive life.

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Dr Crippen

Author : Not Known

Performed By : Full Cast Production

Publisher : True Crime Audio

Runtime : 34 minutes

Categories : Dramatizations
True Crime
Social & Economic

Our Price : $1.00

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The tale of Dr. Crippen bears all the trademarks of the classic English whodunit. It is a thrilling tale of death, love, sin and virtue. While stereotypical in nature, it is set apart from the ordinary by the motive of its crime, Freudian in nature and, in fact, reminiscent of the Jekyll and Hyde syndrome that fascinated period writers.

"There are two sides of the story - the physical, which is sordid, dreadful and revolting, and the spiritual, which is good and heroic," writes Filson Young, editor for the "Notable British Trial Series," which published the Trial of Hawley Harvey Crippen a decade after the sensational murder and subsequent trial occurred. "Such a story can only be understood by the aid of the imagination; and it should remind us, in the judgments we pass on our fellow men, never to forget the dual nature of the human character and the mystery in virtue of which acts of great moral obliquity may march with conduct above the ordinary standards."

This recording is, in essence, a melodrama tracing the events leading up to and after one of Edwardian London's most publicized crimes - and, definitely, one of the most colorful of the Twentieth Century.

Its cast of characters includes a lovelorn murderer, his wicked wife, a demure heroine, a sharp-as-a-tack Scotland Yard detective and a sleuth-playing sea captain.

Certain histrionics have been very slightly altered, for effect, but the nature of the crime - its mechanics, its motive, its chronology and its results remain intact. Certain patches of dialogue have been constructed to explain a character's inner thoughts and devices. But, the personalities involved, in all their societal and anti-societal form, are as they were.