The Irish peacock;: The confessions of a legendary talent agent - Hardcover

Grady, Billy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0870001744 ISBN 13: 9780870001741

Publisher: Arlington House, 1972

Synopsis

"Grady, I hate Catholics and agents," said W.C. Fields when he first met William "Billy" Grady, Jr. (1890 - 1973). In spite of being both, Grady went on to become Fields' manager and close friend joining in many of The Great One's wildest hijinks and escapades. As a famed talent agent on Broadway, and later as casting director at MGM, Billy Grady had to act as Father confessor, Bootlegger, Bail Bond Broker and even Best Man for some of the best known names in show business. And as a man who has touched base at every celebrity spa from Dinty Moore's in Manhattan to Dave Chasen's in Hollywood, he has scores of stories to tell about them. How he discovered Van Johnson, Donna Reed, Dan Dailey, Howard Keel. How he played matchmaker for Jimmy Stewart. How his client, Ruby Keeler, was bothered by a guy named Al Jolson. How he signed up Marilyn Monroe for Asphalt Jungle and Elizabeth Taylor for National Velvet. Crowding the pages of The Irish Peacock are people like Enrico Caruso, Billy Rose, Walter Winchell, John Barrymore, Earl Carroll, Louis B. Mayer, Joe Pasternak, George M. Cohan, Flo Ziegfeld, Irving Berlin, Irving Thalberg, Will Rogers, Burgess Meredith and Henry Fonda. Gray knew them all, and in one of the most entertaining books about the heyday of the entertainment business written a year before his death, he tells all.

About this edition

• Publisher: Arlington House
• Publication date: 1972
• ISBN 10: 0870001744
• ISBN 13: 9780870001741
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288