Ray Bolger : more than a scarecrow /

"Best remembered for his role as the Scarecrow in the 1939 MGM musical The Wizard of Oz, Ray Bolger led a rich and extraordinary career in the decade before and more than four decades after the creation of the film. 'Ray Bolger: More Than a Scarecrow' is the first biography of this cl...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Van Leuven, Holly (Author)
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: New York ; Oxford : Oxford University Press, [2019]
Subjects:
Description
Summary:"Best remembered for his role as the Scarecrow in the 1939 MGM musical The Wizard of Oz, Ray Bolger led a rich and extraordinary career in the decade before and more than four decades after the creation of the film. 'Ray Bolger: More Than a Scarecrow' is the first biography of this classic American entertainer, covering the luminous and forgotten career of the eccentric dancer outside of his burlap mask. The product of a fragmented, working-class Boston Irish family, Bolger learned tap and eccentric dance steps as solace for a difficult life before running away to repertory theater and vaudeville. From there, he would go on to become a Broadway star, a contract player at Hollywood's major studios, one of the first performers to tour the South Pacific for the USO, a Tony Award winner, an early sitcom star, and the opening headliner of the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas. Using unprecedented access to Bolger's papers and many never-before-published photographs, Ray Bolger: More Than a Scarecrow pieces together the lost story of an itinerant hoofer who survived and thrived during the major media changes of the twentieth century and established himself as a staple of American pop culture."--Book jacket.
Physical Description:xi, 239 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:0190639040
9780190639044