English Actors

With brutal honesty and his trademark take-no-prisoners humor, Tracy tells the story of his rise to fame, with all its highs and its many lows - from the very public battles with alcohol and diabetes that threatened both his career and his life to the private and poignant end of his 20-year marriage. In his singularly warped and brilliant way, he muses on family, love, sex, race, politics, ambition, and what it takes to bring the funny.

When the American Film Institute assembled its top 100 actors of all time at the close of the 20th century, Jimmy Stewart ranked third, behind only Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant. There is a certain inevitability to these three actors ranking at the top of the list; after all, they were the dominant faces of Hollywood during the height of the era known as classical Hollywood cinema, a time before the onset of television when the movies still enjoyed relatively uncontested supremacy over American entertainment.

An Actor Performs goes from the very basics of acting, to scene study, and to the development of one-person shows. It expands on text analysis, characterization, and use of language. The book explores what is most essential for the actor: imagination, biography, research.

Colton Grey is Hollywood’s resident bad boy. A connoisseur of alcohol, pills, and women, he has been sent by his publicist to dry out on her cousin’s farm. What he finds there is more than a chance at redemption. Haven Morrow is everything Colton is not - responsible, down-to-earth, and saddled with problems she didn’t create. With a mentally ill mother and sociopathic brother, Haven spends her days trying to save the family farm.

Born into the steam and starch of a Chinese laundry, Anna May Wong (1905-1961) emerged from turn-of-the-century Los Angeles to become Old Hollywood's most famous Chinese American actress, a screen siren who captivated global audiences and signed her publicity photos—with a touch of defiance—"Orientally yours." Now, more than a century after her birth, Yunte Huang narrates Wong's tragic life story, retracing her journey from Chinatown to silent-era Hollywood, and from Weimar Berlin to decadent, prewar Shanghai, and capturing American television in its infancy.

Just the Funny Parts is a juicy and scathingly funny insider look at how pop culture gets made. For more than 30 years, writer, producer, and director Nell Scovell worked behind the scenes of iconic TV shows, including The Simpsons, Late Night with David Letterman, Murphy Brown, NCIS, The Muppets, and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, which she created and executive produced. In 2009, Scovell gave up her behind-the-scenes status when the David Letterman sex scandal broke.

There'll Be Peace When You Are Done: Actors and Fans Celebrate the Legacy of Supernatural is an emotional look back at the beloved television show Supernatural as it wraps up its final season after 15 unprecedented years on air. With heartfelt chapters written by both the series' actors and its fans, There'll Be Peace When You Are Done traces Supernatural's evolution, the memorable characters created by its writers and brought to life by its talented actors, and the many ways in which the show has inspired and changed the lives of both its viewers and cast.

The world of show business has never been easy for anyone. Once given the chance, one must take care of it the same way one takes care of valuable things. One great mistake can affect your whole career, no matter how high your achievements are. Johnny Depp is considered one of the most renowned and successful actors in terms of box office, in which he draws recognition. He has formed a solid bond with moviegoers who span over several generations, because of his ability to absorb himself into a particular assortment of dynamic characters.

The long-awaited memoir from one of daytime television's most celebrated and beloved actresses.

Three or four days a week, Jeanne Cooper drives from her Hollywood Hills home to the job she's held for more than three decades: bringing life to the character of Katherine Chancellor, the outspoken, powerful, and insanely wealthy force of nature who, along with Jeanne herself, has become a legend in the world of daytime television and its number-one show, The Young and the Restless. Now, for the first time, her fans will get to know the woman behind the iconic character.

For seven decades Katharine Hepburn played a leading role in the popular culture of the 20th century, reigning as an admired actress, a beloved movie star, and a treasured icon of the modern American woman. She also remained one of the most private of all the public figures of her time.

Three years before David Bowie died, he shared a list of 100 books that changed his life. His choices span fiction and nonfiction, literary and irreverent, and include timeless classics alongside eyebrow-raising obscurities. In 100 short essays, music journalist John O'Connell studies each book on Bowie's list and contextualizes it in the artist's life and work. Heartfelt, analytical, and totally original, Bowie's Bookshelf is one part epic reading guide and one part biography of a music legend.

India's first biography of Shashi Kapoor sheds light on one of the country's most enigmatic personalities - an actor who straddles the worlds of commercial Hindi cinema, theatre and small-budget art movies; who is, at once, an earnest householder and a committed star.

Once Upon a Time there was a woman who embodied the secret fantasies of every woman of her time. She was a classic beauty, the daughter of a millionaire, an Academy Award-winning actress, and then, after she married Rainier of Monaco, a real-life princess. This audiobooks takes an unprecedented look at the lives of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier and answers the question: Did they live happily ever after?

The Hollywood way of life has long been a potent mix of scandal, secrecy, and sensation: exactly like the Hollywood way of death.... In this unique study, Peter Underwood charts the lives, loves, and deaths of 30 of Tinseltown’s most glittering stars. Many deaths were sad or senseless; some were tragic; others were the revenge of old age, while a few were the revenge of something altogether more sinister.

Best known for his horror/sci-fi/fantasy films including Phantasm, The Beastmaster, Bubba Ho-tep, and John Dies at the End, now Don Coscarelli’s taking you on a white-knuckle ride through the rough and tumble world of indie film. This memoir fits an entire film school education into a single audiobook. It’s loaded with behind-the-scenes stories and will prove indispensable for fans of Coscarelli’s movies, aspiring filmmakers, and anyone who loves a story of an underdog who prevails while not betraying what he believes.

The actors in James Franco’s brilliant debut novel include a McDonald’s drive-thru operator who spends his shift trying on accents; an ex-child star recalling a massive beachside bacchanal; hospital volunteers and Midwestern transplants; a vampire flick starlet who discovers a cryptic book written by a famous actor gone AWOL; and the ghost of River Phoenix. Then there’s Franco himself, who prowls backstage, peering out between the lines - before taking the stage with fascinating meditations on his art, along with nightmarish tales of excess.

Richard Carr’s Charlie Chaplin places politics at the centre of the filmmaker’s life as it looks beyond Chaplin’s role as a comedic figure to his constant political engagement both on and off the screen. Drawing from a wealth of archival sources from across the globe, Carr provides an in-depth examination of Chaplin’s life as he made his way from Lambeth to Los Angeles. From his experiences in the workhouse to his controversial romantic relationships and his connections with some of the leading political figures of his day, this book sheds new light on Chaplin’s private life.

For the first time ever, Jennie Garth is putting it all out there, sharing her joys and her sorrows, her successes and her failures, with candor and a surprising, even bawdy, sense of humor. From her sudden rise to fame as a golden-haired teen beauty, to recently redefining herself as a single working mother to three growing girls, Jennie Garth has defied the odds and thrived in a town that can be more than a little tough on its blondes.

The gruesome murders of the beautiful and talented actress Sharon Tate, her unborn child, and four others that same night at the hands of the notorious “Manson family” rocked the nation. As one of the most horrific crimes in modern history, these atrocities, the trial, and the subsequent conviction of Charles Manson and his followers caused a media sensation, spawning movies, documentaries, and best-selling books, including the classic Helter Skelter.

A central figure in the Hollywood Ten and one of the most successful screenwriters in Hollywood history, Trumbo epitomized the spirit of American capitalism, yet he went to jail refusing to talk about his membership in the Communist party.