Fannie Hurst

"A bestseller in 1933, and subsequently adapted into two beloved and controversial films, Imitation of Life has played a vital role in ongoing conversations about race, femininity, and the American Dream. Bea Pullman, a white single mother, and her African American maid, Delilah Johnston, also a single mother, rear their daughters together and become business partners. Combining Bea’s business savvy with Delilah’s irresistible southern recipes,...

It explores the friendship between two struggling single mothers: one a working-class white woman who ascends to the top of the business world, and the other her Black housekeeper, whose life is shattered by the rejection of her rebellious, white-passing daughter. It is this latter relationship attuned to America's bitter racial realities and heartbreakingly enacted by trailblazing Black performers Beavers and Washington that lends the film its transcendent...

A fashion designer falls in love with a department store owner. Several years later they meet and resume their love affair.

A quintessential tearjerker in which a couple meets and falls in love but is unable to marry due to impossible circumstances.

1934 version: "A struggling widow and her daughter take in a Black housekeeper and her fair-skinned daughter. The two women start a successful business but face familial, identity, and racial issues along the way"--IMDb.com. 1959 version: "An aspiring white actress takes in an African-American widow whose mixed-race daughter is desperate to be seen as white"--IMDb.com.

"Young at Heart centers on a family headed by a music-loving patriarch ... and his musically inclined daughters looking for romance. Doris Day ... plays the youngest daughter. Laurie, and Gig Young ... plays Alex Burke, a likable composer who comes for an extended visit and eventually wins the hearts of all three sisters. Frank Sinatra ... plays Barney Sloan, a cynical songwriter hired by Alex to do arrangements for an upcoming Broadway show"--Container....

Glamorous socialite Helen Wright takes what she wants clothes, alcohol, men use them up and tosses them aside. Then she meets brilliant young violinist Paul Boray. But this is one toy she can't break. Instead, her love for Paul brings Helen to the breaking point. In this acclaimed and profound exploration of desire, Crawford makes Helen a rich, layered character torn between selfless love and selfish impulses. Garfield matches her as the driven genius....

The emotionally charged story about two widows -- one white, one black -- and their daughters. In the 1934 version, the women start a pancake business, in the 1959 version, one is an actress, the other out of work. In both versions, trouble begins when one daughter falls for her mother's beau and the other decides to pass as white.