English Actors

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.

Fiery actress Valentina Valverde is in Scotland filming Braveheart 2. Working without a break since she was a child to buy her family the perfect life, she’s always put fun on hold. But when hot bodyguard Charlie suggests she tick off a bucket list of ‘teenage kicks’, she’s tempted to step out of her comfort zone and live a little.

After being sucked through a dark and mysterious portal while walking his dog, Jerry finds himself in a magical duel to the death. With the help of an ancient and unknowable force, Jerry finds a way to interact with the magic of the new world as if it were a game. Using this new power, he sets out to save as many fellow abductees as possible before they are murdered by this new world’s vicious inhabitants. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting at this particular desk. However, what I do know is that my boredom is about to come to an end.

Ambrose Palmer, an aspiring actor, journeys through the circles of hell of a brutal industry. We follow him, his lovers, and a small clan of novice performers as they weather the storms of the acting profession. But behind the sex and hilarity lurks the desperation of Thatcher’s England.

Hedy Lamarr was a rare kind of woman. She was not only a strikingly beautiful actress who took Hollywood by storm in the 1940s, but she was also an inventor - and not just any inventor. Hedy Lamarr’s work with radio frequencies is credited with paving the way for wi-fi. It seems that the greatest bomb that this bombshell dropped would only fully explode until the last years of her life because when Lamarr passed away in the year 2000, the computing world was just then mainstreaming many of her ideas.

All I wanted to do was see my escape room business succeed, but then a friggin’ demon showed up in Boston to tear my place apart, and I ended up tumbling into another world. One I’ve actually heard of. Now, I’m fighting my way through Asgard with the survivors of Ragnarok, and I’ve somehow gained some pretty wild shifter powers. It looks like these people could use a guy as clever as me if they wanna stay alive, but my wits aren’t the only thing I’m bringing to the table.

I was just a cop on my beat when the world ended. My last memory was of an alien death ray ripping me from existence. When I woke up in a strange world, I should have just laid low. Figured out the rules of this place before I got involved. But, when you see a woman running from slavers. Well, let's just say they got what they deserved. Only problem is that makes enemies—demigods with the power to bind the magically gifted women of Timeria to their will.

While on a trip to visit his children after his wife's untimely death, Cade Willmartin suffers a tragic car accident. Waking up in a different world by some unknown means, he must use his new abilities to survive in this new world he finds himself in. Facing new and unknown challenges, his control over the smallest bits of matter will certainly come in handy, as he begins his journey as the 'Atomic Mage'.

Convicted for a murder he did not commit, Talum d'Argento du'Pleisse is exiled to the World Below, the endless labyrinth of monster-filled catacombs that lies beneath the human kingdoms. Talum finds himself thrown into the death pits of the dark elves, sentenced to fight till he dies. If he wants to return to the surface and get revenge on the woman who set him up, he will need to train, fight, and survive. He has three weeks to prepare.

Frank lived for his three sons, busting his back to see that they thrived in comfort. His good-for-nothing wife, she made him the happiest man in the world when she finally agreed to his divorce terms. His glorious day became ruined when a bomber sent him through an unformed portal connection. Lost to eternity and stuck in the void, a happenstance encounter allows him to relocate to the fantasy world of Dorbin. The challenges for Frank will be steep, the learning curve arduous, and the chances of going home slim to none.

The Authentic Actor: the Art and Business of Being Yourself illuminates for today’s actors the skills, strategies, and mental approach to navigating the intersection of art and commerce. It’s the culmination of Michael Laskin’s over forty years in the profession, and thousands of hours of classroom work and private coaching. Today’s “Authentic Actor” is someone who has successfully merged their highly developed talent with their fully examined identity. Defining, refining, and understanding your indelibility as an actor, your “blink-of-an-eye” factor, is key.

A lively and colorful biography of Hollywood's first superagent - one of the most outrageous showbiz characters of the 1960s and 1970s, whose clients included Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, Faye Dunaway, Michael Caine, and Candice Bergen. Before Sue Mengers hit the scene in the mid-1960s, talent agents remained quietly in the background. But staying in the background was not possible for Mengers.

In 1930, William Haines was Hollywood's #1 box-office draw - a talented, handsome, and wisecracking romantic lead. Off screen, however, protected by a careful collaboration between studio and press, he was openly gay with reporters and studio chiefs alike. Here is Haines's virtually unknown story - rich with detail, revelations, and scandal - about silent movies and talkies; his lover Jimmie Shields, and their fifty-year relationship.

After almost 60 years as an actor, William Shatner has become one of the most beloved entertainers in the world. It seems that Shatner is everywhere, and he was recently elected to the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. In this touching and funny autobiography, he reveals the man behind his career, and explains how he's become the worldwide star and experienced actor he is today.

Considered by many as lucky to have been in The Beatles, Ringo Starr epitomizes the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. World-famous pop star, acclaimed film actor, the voice of an internationally successful children's TV series and husband to a glamorous movie star - at face value he seems to have led a charmed life. Yet behind the sunglasses and the ready quips loom the horrors of his health problems, alcoholism, and deprived family background.

Actress Andrea Navedo, best known for her role as Xiomara, Jane's mother on The CW's Jane the Virgin, shares hard-earned wisdom from the boogie down Bronx. Andrea Navedo didn't get to see many positive portrayals of Latinas in the media growing up. So when she had the chance to play a starring role on Jane the Virgin, a role that cast her as a complex, flawed, and genuine Latina single mother, she jumped all over the opportunity.

Phantom Lady chronicles the untold story of Hollywood’s most powerful female writer-producer of the 1940s. In 1933 Joan Harrison was a 26-year-old former salesgirl with a dream of escaping her stodgy London suburb and the dreadful prospect of settling down with one of the local boys. A few short years later, she was Alfred Hitchcock’s confidante and the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of his first American film, Rebecca. Harrison had quickly grown from being the worst secretary Hitchcock ever had to one of his closest collaborators.

Katherine Hepburn is not only a beloved movie icon, but one of the early progenitors of the American women’s movement. Coming from a life of wealth and privilege, she continued her family‘s tradition of zealously guarding the rights of others while becoming one of the the world's most beloved and original actresses we have known. This is her story in her own words and those of the people who knew and loved her.

Los Angeles in the 1960s and '70s was the pop cultural capital of the world - a movie factory, a music factory, a dream factory. Eve Babitz was the ultimate factory girl, a pure product of LA. The goddaughter of Igor Stravinsky and a graduate of Hollywood High, Babitz posed in 1963, at age 20, playing chess with the French artist Marcel Duchamp. She was naked; he was not. The photograph, cheesecake with a Dadaist twist, made her an instant icon of art and sex. Babitz spent the rest of the decade rocking and rolling on the Sunset Strip, honing her notoriety.

The sparkling memoir of a movie icon's life in the footlights and on camera, The Good, the Bad, and Me tells the extraordinary story of Eli Wallach's many years dedicated to his craft. Beginning with his early days in Brooklyn and his college years in Texas, where he dreamed of becoming an actor, this book follows his career as one of the earliest members of the famed Actors Studio and as a Tony Award winner for his work on Broadway.