My Father Was A Bit Player

During the Depression, the motion picture industry spun timeless fantasies of romance and adventure through the silvery images of its glamorous stars. The movie theater 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 he lives of the hardworking middle class 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. In1933 Joe Cunningham, a struggling Philadelphia journalist, got his shot at realizing the Hollywood dream. Hired as a screenwriter by 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 a characer actor, while continuing his writing career. In this way he kept his lively family afloat and on the fringes of the excitement entertainment industry. In "My Father Was a Bit Player" Joe Cunningham's daughter, Joan, remembers her extraordinary childhood with a clear eye and a fond heart. She writes with beautiful clarity and graceful humor to relate her recruitment to attend Shirley Temple's fifth birthday party; how she came to witness the legendary back lot burning of Atlanta, and what it was like to cheer her own dad's larger-than-life appearances on the big screen. "My Father Was a Bit Player" vividly evokes a childhood experience that is uniquely American. Joan Cunningham transports us to a time and place that continues to captivate us as she tells the story of a man who was far more intriguing than any character he depicted on film.
About the Author: In the middle '50s Joan Cunningham was part of the live television scene in New York City, writing original TV dramas for a number of half-hour anthologies. Among them: Justice, Appointment With Adventure, True Story and others. Several of her one-hour TV scripts were produced by the pioneering NBC Matinee Theater, Albert McCleery's daily daytime drama series which introduced color television to the nation. Joan spent a year as Associate Story Editor for the Kaiser Aluminum Hour produced by Unit Four-- the famous four being George Roy Hill, Franklin Schaffner, Fielder Cook and Jerry Hellman, later Oscar winners all. In the late '70s Joan joined the two-year old cable network Home Box Office as publisher of their assorted program guides.In the ten years that followed, working with the programming and marketing people, she witnessed and war part of the incredible growth of HBO. Her writing career includes advertising, publicity and sales promotion for various agencies and companies.