Enss Chris

The curtain rises and authors JoAnn Chartier and Chris Enss shine the spotlight on 14 entertaining women who sang, danced, acted in plays, performed equestrienne feats, and captured the hearts of the miners and homesteaders of the Frontier West. These "gilded girls" who performed in the mining boomtowns were literally showered with gold, but oftentimes their personal lives were marked by unhappiness. Still, their very presence on stage enchanted avid western audiences, and they were rewarded with flowery reviews and sensational editorials by local newspapers, as well as riches. Their every action was commented upon, but rarely did reporters know the whole story. Chartier and Enss now reveal what many people of the times never knew about these sometimes rowdy, sometimes refined female celebrities by providing a unique inside look at their lives via this collection of intriguing biographies.

By the 1950s he was Hollywood's most popular actor - destined to become an American icon. Through previously unpublished photographs and revealing family anecdotes, "The Young Duke" offers an unflinching look at how Marion Morrison became the legend known as John Wayne - from his Iowa boyhood to his days as a college football star, to his box-office success in Westerns and war movies. It uncovers the true stories behind the screen legend's public and private lives.

Amidst mining camps, cow towns, desolate landscapes and filthy boomtowns were a succession of women who survived dangerous gambling games against ruthless rowdy men whose pride was staked on always having the upper hand. In the first book of its kind, author Chris Enss presents an action-filled true portrait of fifteen notorious women gamblers from the Old West. Among those profiled are: “Poker” Alice Ivers, the finest player bar none from Deadwood to Tombstone; Eleanora Dumont, the West’s hottest twenty-one dealer; and Lottie Deno, the beautiful faro dealer who gambled all the way from Texas to Alaska. Enss describes the settings, and the stakes, with vintage photographs, as well as the popular games of the times: Poker, Faro, Dice, Monte, Craps, Chuck-A-Luck, and Fan Tan, among them. Their legacy had almost disappeared, but the recent surge in poker players coast to coast and the growth of gambling demanded that these real women, at long last, be remembered for the true adventurers, and winners, they made of themselves.Chris Enss is an award-winning screenwriter and author whose books include Buffalo Gals and How the West Was Worn. She lives in Grass Valley, California.