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His Eye Is on the Sparrow by Ethel Waters & Charles Samuels
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His Eye Is on the Sparrow

An Autobiography

$20.99

Retail price: $22.95

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Length 12 hours 44 minutes
Language English
Narrators Grover Gardner & Robin Miles

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Ethel Waters’s His Eye Is on the Sparrow stands as perhaps the greatest autobiography of a Black female performer, capturing both the horror and the joy of the African American woman’s experience through the often bitter yet always forgiving voice of an indomitable spirit. This edition is supplemented with a new historical preface.

Ethel Waters (1896–1977) was an American singer and actress who began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Waters’s notable recordings include “Dinah,” “Stormy Weather,” “Taking a Chance on Love,” “Heat Wave,” and her version of “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” Waters was the second African American to be nominated for an Academy Award, and the first African American woman to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.

Charles Samuels (1902-1982), a New York newspaperman, wrote biographies of Judy Garland, Lizzie Borden, and Evelyn Nesbit. He worked with Buster Keaton on My Wonderful World of Slapstick.

Grover Gardner has recorded more than 650 audiobooks since beginning his career in 1981.  He's been named one of the "Best Voices of the Century" as well as a "Golden Voice" by AudioFile magazine.  Gardner has garnered over 20 AudioFile Earphones Awards and is the recipient of an Audio Publishers Association Audie Award, as well as a three-time finalist.  In 2005, Publishers Weekly deemed him "Audiobook Narrator of the Year."

 

Gardner has also narrated hundreds of audiobooks under the names Tom Parker and Alexander Adams.  Among his many titles are Marcus Sakey's At the City's Edge, as well as Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and John Irving's The Cider House Rules.  Gardner studied Theater and Art History at Rollins College and received a Master's degree in Acting from George Washington University.  He lives in Oregon with his significant other and daughter.

Robin Miles began her audiobook narration in 1994.  She's read over 130 titles covering many different genres and has won multiple Earphones awards.  Her many audiobook credits include Augusten Burroughs's Sellevision, Edwidge Danticat's Brother I'm Dying, and Lalita Tademy's Cane River.  Her film and television credits include The Last Days of Disco, Primary Colors, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order, New York Undercover, National Geographic’s Tales from the Wild, All My Children, and One Life to Live.  She regularly gives seminars to members of SAG and AFTRA actors' unions, and in 2005 she started Narration Arts Workshop in New York City, offering audiobook recording classes and coaching.  She holds a B.A. in Theater Studies from Yale University, an MFA in acting from the Yale School of Drama, and a certificate from the British American Drama Academy in England.

Buy one get one free

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Reviews

“When I finished reading it I felt as if I had been curled up in front of a fire listening as Ethel Waters bared her soul and told me the intimate, fascinating, and, at times, terrible story of her life. I listened enthralled.”

“One of the two or three best as-told-to show business memoirs ever, a masterpiece of candor and righteous observation.”

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Celebrate our 10th Anniversary with giveaways, merch, and more! Learn more