Sunday, October 2, 2011

Love, Ellen: A Mother/Daughter Journey

  • ISBN13: 9780688176884
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
“I didn’t decide to become anorexic. It snuck up on me disguised as a healthy diet, a professional attitude. Being as thin as possible was a way to make the job of being an actress easier . . .”

Portia de Rossi weighed only 82 pounds when she collapsed on the set of the Hollywood film in which she was playing her first leading role. This should have been the culmination of all her years of hard workâ€"first as a child model in Australia, then as a cast member of one of the hottest shows on American television. On the outside she was thin and blond, glamorous and successful. On the inside, she was literally dying.

In this searing, unflinchingly honest book, Portia de Rossi captures th! e complex emotional truth of what it is like when food, weight, and body image take priority over every other human impulse or action. She recounts the elaborate rituals around eating that came to dominate hours of every day, from keeping her daily calorie intake below 300 to eating precisely measured amounts of food out of specific bowls and only with certain utensils. When this wasn’t enough, she resorted to purging and compulsive physical exercise, driving her body and spirit to the breaking point.

Even as she rose to fame as a cast member of the hit television shows Ally McBeal and Arrested Development, Portia alternately starved herself and binged, all the while terrified that the truth of her sexuality would be exposed in the tabloids. She reveals the heartache and fear that accompany a life lived in the closet, a sense of isolation that was only magnified by her unrelenting desire to be ever thinner. With the storytelling skills of a great novelist! and the eye for detail of a poet, Portia makes transparent as! never b efore the behaviors and emotions of someone living with an eating disorder.

From her lowest point, Portia began the painful climb back to a life of health and honesty, falling in love with and eventually marrying Ellen DeGeneres, and emerging as an outspoken and articulate advocate for gay rights and women’s health issues.

In this remarkable and beautifully written work, Portia shines a bright light on a dark subject. A crucial book for all those who might sometimes feel at war with themselves or their bodies, Unbearable Lightness is a story that inspires hope and nourishes the spirit.

"Mom, I'm gay." With three little words, gay sons and daughters can change their parents' lives forever. Twenty years ago, during a walk on a Mississippi beach, Ellen DeGeneres spoke those simple, powerful words to her mother. That emotional moment eventually brought mother and daughter closer than ever, but it was not without a struggle. In Love, Ellen, Betty DeGeneres! tells her story: the complicated path to acceptance and the deepening of her friendship with her daughter, the media's scrutiny of their family life, and the painful and often inspiring stories she's heard on the road as the first nongay spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign's National Coming Out Project.

Insightful, universally touching, and uncommonly wise, Love, Ellen is a story of friendship between mother and daughter and a lesson in understanding for all parents and their children.

"Mom, I'm gay." With three little words, gay children can change their parents' lives forever. Yet at the same times it's a chance for those parents to realize nothing, really, has changed at all; same kid, same life, same bond of enduring love.

Twenty years ago, during a walk on a Mississippi beach, Ellen DeGeneres spoke those simple, powerful words to her mother. That emotional moment eventually brought mother and daughter closer than ever, but not without a strug! gle. Coming from a republican family with conservative values,! Betty n eeded time and education to understand her daughter's homosexuality -- but her ultimate acceptance would set the stage for a far more public coming out, one that would change history.

In Love, Ellen, Betty DeGeneres tells her story; the complicated path to acceptance and the deepening of her friendship with her daughter; the media's scrutiny of their family life; the painful and often inspiring stories she's heard on the road as the first non-gay spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaigns National Coming Out Project.

With a mother's love, clear minded common sense, and hard won wisdom, Betty DeGeneres offers up her own very personal memoir to help parents understand their gay children, and to help sons and daughters who have been rejected by their families feel less alone."Mom, I'm gay." With three little words, gay children can change their parents' lives forever. Yet at the same times it's a chance for those parents to realize nothing, really, has changed at al! l; same kid, same life, same bond of enduring love.

Twenty years ago, during a walk on a Mississippi beach, Ellen DeGeneres spoke those simple, powerful words to her mother. That emotional moment eventually brought mother and daughter closer than ever, but not without a struggle. Coming from a republican family with conservative values, Betty needed time and education to understand her daughter's homosexuality -- but her ultimate acceptance would set the stage for a far more public coming out, one that would change history.

In Love, Ellen, Betty DeGeneres tells her story; the complicated path to acceptance and the deepening of her friendship with her daughter; the media's scrutiny of their family life; the painful and often inspiring stories she's heard on the road as the first non-gay spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaigns National Coming Out Project.

With a mother's love, clear minded common sense, and hard won wisdom, Betty DeGeneres offers up her own ! very personal memoir to help parents understand their gay chil! dren, an d to help sons and daughters who have been rejected by their families feel less alone.More than 20 years have passed since Ellen DeGeneres came out to her mother on a beach in Mississippi. Stunned, Betty DeGeneres could only think of her own disappointed expectations. As she put her arms around her daughter, she was struck by the realization that she would never see Ellen's picture on the engagements page of the Times-Picayune, her local paper. That Ellen would eventually appear on the front page of the Picayune and countless newspapers and magazines around the world is an irony not lost on her mother: "If I had known she was going to grow up to be Ellen DeGeneres," Betty quips, "I would have taken more pictures."

Now the spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign's National Coming Out Project, Betty DeGeneres travels the country explaining how she came to terms with her daughter's sexuality, and how love and acceptance can transform a family.! Love, Ellen is an extension of her warm and much-admired public speaking, providing insight into her own life as well as Ellen's and arguing for further education, compassion, and the passage of antidiscrimination laws. --Regina Marler

Time After Time

  • London 1893 is home to a killer with a macabre nickname. and also to a visionary genius who would write "The Time Machine." But what if H.G. Wells' invention wasn't fiction? And what if Jack the Ripper escaped capture fleeing his own time to take refuge in ours - with Wells himself in pursuit?Running Time: 112 min. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY Rating: PG Age: 88
CROSS CREEK - DVD MovieAcademy Award® winner* Mary Steenburgen and Roddy McDowall star in a pulse-pounding thriller in the tradition of the legendary master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. "You'll find yourself on the edge of your seat" (Los Angeles) with this bone-chilling tale of deception, blackmail and murder in which no one is who they seem to be and any mistake could be your last. When actress Katie McGovern (Steenburgen) is summoned to an isolated estate for a screen test, she finds that her mysterious hosts, Mr! . Murray (McDowall) and Dr. Joseph Lewis (Jan Rubes), have plans for her'that have nothing to do with acting! And when the deadly money-making scheme erupts in a firestorm of double-crosses and cold-blooded murder, Katie realizes she has only one chance at survival: She must turn the tables on her enemies by giving the performance of her life! *1980: SupportingActress, Melvin and HowardThis unofficial remake of the minor film noir classic My Name Is Julia Ross stars Mary Steenburgen as an out-of-work actress lured to the mansion of a crazy millionaire (Roddy McDowall). Once there, she realizes she has been kidnapped and is being groomed to play someone else. While eerie and unsettling, this 1987 film is also wrapped in a thick, anachronistic melodrama, making it hard to see the movie as anything but an instant artifact. The question is, why did director Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde) have anything to do with it? On the plus side, McDowall is quite creepy as a! n elegant psychopath. --Tom Keogh In this clever specul! ative ta le, story collaborators Karl Alexander and Steve Hayes and screenwriter-director Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek II and VI) send two famous historical figures ahead in time. In late 19th century England, writer H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) unwittingly includes Jack the Ripper (David Warner) in his social circle. When one of Wells's dinner parties is crashed by the police looking for the Ripper, Jack uses the author's time machine to escape. But there's one catch--after it has been used, the machine returns to Wells's time. Thus the literary genius bravely sets out to find his evil friend before he can wreak havoc on another time period, and soon arrives in modern-day San Francisco. What follows is a fascinating merger of a suspense thriller--as the charming and polite Wells tries to hunt down the shrewd, brutish Ripper and take him back to the past--and a love story, as Wells befriends and falls in love with a bank administrator (Mary Steenburgen) who acts as his gu! ide through the future. Through its brilliant combination of creepy suspense and tender romance, Time After Time manages to become a classic in two genres at once--a rare cinematic achievement. --Bryan ReesmanStudio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 09/02/2008 Run time: 112 minutes Rating: PgIn this clever speculative tale, story collaborators Karl Alexander and Steve Hayes and screenwriter-director Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek II and VI) send two famous historical figures ahead in time. In late 19th century England, writer H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) unwittingly includes Jack the Ripper (David Warner) in his social circle. When one of Wells's dinner parties is crashed by the police looking for the Ripper, Jack uses the author's time machine to escape. But there's one catch--after it has been used, the machine returns to Wells's time. Thus the literary genius bravely sets out to find his evil friend before he can wreak havoc on another time peri! od, and soon arrives in modern-day San Francisco. What follows! is a fa scinating merger of a suspense thriller--as the charming and polite Wells tries to hunt down the shrewd, brutish Ripper and take him back to the past--and a love story, as Wells befriends and falls in love with a bank administrator (Mary Steenburgen) who acts as his guide through the future. Through its brilliant combination of creepy suspense and tender romance, Time After Time manages to become a classic in two genres at once--a rare cinematic achievement. --Bryan Reesman

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