My Father Was a Bit Player
, by Cunningham, Joan M.- ISBN: 9781582441450 | 1582441456
- Cover: Hardcover
- Copyright: 11/1/2000
During the Depression, the motion picture industry spun timeless fantasies of romance and adventure through the silvery images of its glamorous stars. The movie theatre was a house of dreams; a place of refuge for a population struggling with economic hardship and emotional despair. We continue to study and adulate the icons of Hollywood's golden era, but what do we know of the lives of the hard-working, middle class people that made Los Angeles a unique and thriving community? My Father was A Bit Player gives us an engaging glimpse into that other, and far more real, Hollywood of the past.
In 1933, Joe Cunningham, a struggling Philadelphia journalist, got his shot at realizing the Hollywood dream. Hired as a screenwriter at Fox Studios, he was confident that he had a lucrative and secure future in the movie business when he moved his large family to California. However, when his contract was not renewed, his ambitions were redesigned by necessity. The family's fortunes consequently began to rise and fall as Cunningham strove to carve a professional niche as