Fade in: Young, beautiful movie star shines in feature films, then is brutally raped.Slow Fade Out: Here is the story of what happens in a close take of her later life and the dramatic ramifications of that rape so many years later. This compelling work demonstrates the continued flow of sexual electricity into old age with shocks, jolts and sparks. Only character plus restraint to act are possible circuit breakers. The author, yes, a former movie star, knows how to keep the reader enthralled right up to...fade out: the end.George Atkins has written for Jonathan Winters, Carol Burnett, Mary Tyler Moore, Tim Conway, and Bullwinkle.The Laughing Bear -- where Peyton Place meets Walton's Mountain. Even a remote mountain enclave is rife with love, life, death, and scandal, although deceptively presented in a Norman Rockwell setting. The engaging story is a great read, and, not surprisingly cinematic since the author is a veteran actress. In fact, her acting skills inform the plot lines and interesting characters and their natural development. The Laughing Bear proves that there is life after 60, and the dramas of life are not reserved for young people.Michael Gregg Michaud is the author of the best-selling, Lambda Book nominated biography, Sal Mineo. He is also the author of Alan Sues, A Funny Man; Mae West: Between the Covers; Mae West Broadcast Muse; and Marlene Dietrich: Between the Covers.Diane McBain has been an actor, a mother, an artist, a naturalist, a homelessness activist, a quilter, and now she is a writer. Her first published endeavor was Famous Enough: A Hollywood Memoir, authorship shared with Michael Gregg Michaud. Her first published novel is The Laughing Bear.Diane was born in Cleveland, Ohio and emigrated to Southern California at the end of World War II. There she was reared in Glendale, CA. Then, Hollywood beckoned and she signed a contract with Warner Brothers' Studios starring in films with Richard Burton, Robert Ryan, Troy Donahue, Claudette Colbert, Karl Malden, Debbie Reynolds, Arthur Kennedy, Robert Stack, Polly Bergen, Joan Crawford, Annette Funicello, Fabian, Elvis Presley and many more. Her reputation as a consummate professional has followed her entire life.
