Book picks similar to
The Life and Death of Peter Sellers by Roger Lewis
biography
non-fiction
cinema
nonfiction
Jason Priestley: A Memoir
Jason Priestley - 2014
Yet despite more than twenty years in and out of the limelight, Priestley has carefully maintained his privacy. In this compelling memoir, the actor, director, and race-car aficionado invites us into his private world for the first time.With humor, sincerity, and charm, Priestley offers little-known details about his life and stories of his nine years in America’s most famous zip code. He talks candidly about celebrity, marriage, fatherhood, and his passion for car racing. He does not shy away from the devastating lows—his brief jail sentence for drunk driving and the crash at the Kentucky Speedway that nearly took his life. Priestley shares his innermost thoughts about life as a ’90s icon, and goes beyond the Brandon Walsh squeaky-clean image, revealing the tumultuous events that have shaped him, and where he finds his greatest happiness today
Cary Grant: A Touch of Elegance
Warren G. Harris - 1988
Cary Grant...Hollywood's ultimate ladies' man...the silver screen's most ardent lover. But beyond his portrayal of the sophisticated romantic hero in movies like "The Philadelphia Story" and "Notorious" was a man haunted by fear and self-doubt which affected his career as well as his personal life.
Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America
Peter Biskind - 2010
Orson Welles did it with Citizen Kane, but Beatty did it twice, with Heaven Can Wait and Reds. Starting with Bonnie and Clyde, he became one of the most important, influential, and successful figures in Hollywood..- Candid, surprising, irresistible: Biskind draws on interviews with colleagues and intimates, as well as with Beatty himself, to reveal surprising information about the star's personal and professional lives..- Bestselling author: Peter Biskind is the author of two film bestsellers, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and Down and Dirty Pictures. He provides a brilliantly informed assessment of Beatty as an actor, director, and filmmaker..
Memories Are Made of This: Dean Martin Through His Daughter's Eyes
Deana Martin - 2004
Even when I was very small. Dad was such a positive influence on people’s lives that to be so closely associated with him was always a blessing. People can’t help but smile when they think of my father, which has to be the greatest legacy of all. When people hear my name for the first time, they usually ask the same question: “Any relation?” “Yes,” I reply proudly, “he’s my father.” They smile and cry, “Oh, I love your father! I’ve loved him all my life.” Sometimes, just sometimes, they ask me the most important question of all: “Was he a good father?” To their surprise, I shake my head and smile. “No,” I reply. “He wasn’t a good father, but he was a good man.” Where Dad came from, that meant a great deal more.So begins Deana Martin’s captivating and heartfelt memoir of her father, the son of an Italian immigrant from modest beginnings who worked his way to the top of the Hollywood firmament to become one of the greatest stars of all time.Charming, debonair, and impeccably attired in a black tuxedo, Dean Martin was coolness incarnate. His music provided the soundtrack of romance, and his image captivated movie and television audiences for more than fifty years. His daughter Deana was among his most devoted fans, but she also knew a side of him that few others ever glimpsed.In page-turning prose, Deana recalls her early childhood, when she and her siblings were left in the erratic care of Dean’s loving but alcoholic first wife. She chronicles the constantly changing blended family that marked her youth, along with the unexpected moments of silliness and tenderness that this unusual Hollywood family shared. Deana candidly reveals the impact of Dean’s fame and characteristic aloofness on her efforts to forge her own identity, but delights in sharing wonderful, never-before-told stories about her father and his pallies known as the Rat Pack. It may not have been a normal childhood, but Deana’s enchanting account of life as the daughter of one of Hollywood’s sexiest icons will leave you entertained, delighted, and nostalgic for a time gone by.
The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick
Mallory O'Meara - 2019
But for someone who should have been hailed as a pioneer in the genre there was little information available. For, as O’Meara soon discovered, Patrick’s contribution had been claimed by a jealous male colleague, her career had been cut short and she soon after had disappeared from film history. No one even knew if she was still alive.As a young woman working in the horror film industry, O’Meara set out to right the wrong, and in the process discovered the full, fascinating story of an ambitious, artistic woman ahead of her time. Patrick’s contribution to special effects proved to be just the latest chapter in a remarkable, unconventional life, from her youth growing up in the shadow of Hearst Castle, to her career as one of Disney’s first female animators. And at last, O’Meara discovered what really had happened to Patrick after The Creature’s success, and where she went.A true-life detective story and a celebration of a forgotten feminist trailblazer, Mallory O’Meara’s The Lady from the Black Lagoon establishes Patrick in her rightful place in film history while calling out a Hollywood culture where little has changed since.
Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys
Viv Albertine - 2014
Her memoir tells the story of how, through sheer will, talent, and fearlessness, she forced herself into a male-dominated industry, became part of a movement that changed music, and inspired a generation of female rockers.After forming The Flowers of Romance with Sid Vicious in 1976, Albertine joined The Slits and made musical history in one of the first generations of punk bands. The Slits would go on to serve as an inspiration to future rockers, including Kurt Cobain, Carrie Brownstein, and the Riot Grrrl movement in the 1990s. This is the story of what it was like to be a girl at the height of punk: the sex, the drugs, the guys, the tours, and being part of a brilliant pioneering group of women making musical history. Albertine recounts helping define punk fashion, struggling to find her place among the boys, and her romance with Mick Jones, including her pregnancy and subsequent abortion. She also gives a candid account of what happened post-punk, beyond the break-up of The Slits in 1982, including a career in film, surviving cancer, and making music again, twenty-five years later.A truly remarkable memoir told in Viv’s frank, irreverent, and distinctive voice, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. is a raw, thrilling story of life on the frontier.
Bruce Lee: A Life
Matthew Polly - 2018
It’s also one of the only accounts; incredibly, there has never been an authoritative biography of Lee. Following a decade of research that included conducting more than one hundred interviews with Lee’s family, friends, business associates, and even the actress in whose bed Lee died, Polly has constructed a complex, humane portrait of the icon. Polly explores Lee’s early years as a child star in Hong Kong cinema; his actor father’s struggles with opium addiction and how that turned Bruce into a troublemaking teenager who was kicked out of high school and eventually sent to America to shape up; his beginnings as a martial arts teacher, eventually becoming personal instructor to movie stars like James Coburn and Steve McQueen; his struggles as an Asian-American actor in Hollywood and frustration seeing role after role he auditioned for go to a white actors in eye makeup; his eventual triumph as a leading man; his challenges juggling a sky-rocketing career with his duties as a father and husband; and his shocking end that to this day is still shrouded in mystery. Polly breaks down the myths surrounding Bruce Lee and argues that, contrary to popular belief, he was an ambitious actor who was obsessed with the martial arts—not a kung-fu guru who just so happened to make a couple of movies. This is an honest, revealing look at an impressive yet imperfect man whose personal story was even more entertaining and inspiring than any fictional role he played onscreen.
As If!: The Oral History of Clueless as told by Amy Heckerling and the Cast and Crew
Jen Chaney - 2015
Inspired by Jane Austen's Emma, Clueless is an everlasting pop culture staple.In the first book of its kind, Jen Chaney has compiled an oral history of the making of this iconic film using recollections and insights collected from key cast and crew members involved in the making of this endlessly quotable, ahead-of-its-time production. Get a behind-the-scenes look at how Emma influenced Heckerling to write the script, how the stars were cast into each of their roles, what was involved in creating the costumes, sets, and soundtrack, and much more.This wonderful twentieth anniversary commemoration includes never-before-seen photos, original call sheets, casting notes, and production diary extracts. With supplemental critical insights by the author and other notable movie experts about why Clueless continues to impact pop culture, As If! will leave fans new and old totally buggin' as they understand why this beloved film is timeless.
Uganda Be Kidding Me
Chelsea Handler - 2014
Now, in this uproarious collection, she sneaks her sharp wit through airport security and delivers her most absurd and hilarious stories ever.On safari in Africa, it's anyone's guess as to what's more dangerous: the wildlife or Chelsea. But whether she's fumbling the seduction of a guide by not knowing where tigers live (Asia, duh) or wearing a bathrobe into the bush because her clothes stopped fitting seven margaritas ago, she's always game for the next misadventure.The situation gets down and dirty as she defiles a kayak in the Bahamas, and outright sweaty as she escapes from a German hospital on crutches. When things get truly scary, like finding herself stuck next to a passenger with bad breath, she knows she can rely on her family to make matters even worse. Thank goodness she has the devoted Chunk by her side-except for the time she loses him in Telluride.Complete with answers to the most frequently asked traveler's questions, hot travel trips, and travel etiquette, none of which should be believed, UGANDA BE KIDDING ME has Chelsea taking on the world, one laugh-out-loud incident at a time.
Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine
Joe Hagan - 2017
Joe Hagan provides readers with a backstage pass to storied concert venues and rock-star hotel rooms; he tells never before heard stories about the lives of rock stars and their handlers; he details the daring journalism (Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, P.J. O'Rourke) and internecine office politics that accompanied the start-up; he animates the drug and sexual appetites of the era; and he reports on the politics of the last fifty years that were often chronicled in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine.Supplemented by a cache of extraordinary documents and letters from Wenner's personal archives, Sticky Fingers depicts an ambitious, mercurial, wide-eyed rock and roll fan of who exalts in youth and beauty and learns how to package it, marketing late sixties counterculture as a testament to the power of American youth. The result is a fascinating and complex portrait of man and era, and an irresistible biography of popular culture, celebrity, music, and politics in America.
Audition: A Memoir
Barbara Walters - 2008
After more than forty years of interviewing heads of state, world leaders, movie stars, criminals, murderers, inspirational figures, and celebrities of all kinds, Barbara Walters has turned her gift for examination onto herself to reveal the forces that shaped her extraordinary life.Barbara Walters’s perception of the world was formed at a very early age. Her father, Lou Walters, was the owner and creative mind behind the legendary Latin Quarter nightclub, and it was his risk-taking lifestyle that gave Barbara her first taste of glamour. It also made her aware of the ups and downs, the insecurities, and even the tragedies that can occur when someone is willing to take great risks, for Lou Walters didn’t just make several fortunes—he also lost them. Barbara learned early about the damage that such an existence can do to relationships—between husband and wife as well as between parent and child. Through her roller-coaster ride of a childhood, Barbara had a close companion, her mentally challenged sister, Jackie. True, Jackie taught her younger sister much about patience and compassion, but Barbara also writes honestly about the resentment she often felt having a sister who was so “different” and the guilt that still haunts her.All of this—the financial responsibility for her family, the fear, the love—played a large part in the choices she made as she grew up: the friendships she developed, the relationships she had, the marriages she tried to make work. Ultimately, thanks to her drive, combined with a decent amount of luck, she began a career in television. And what a career it has been! Against great odds, Barbara has made it to the top of a male-dominated industry. She was the first woman cohost of the Today show, the first female network news coanchor, the host and producer of countless top-rated Specials, the star of 20/20, and the creator and cohost of The View. She has not just interviewed the world’s most fascinating figures, she has become a part of their world. These are just a few of the names that play a key role in Barbara’s life, career, and book: Yasir Arafat, Warren Beatty, Menachem Begin, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Roy Cohn, the Dalai Lama, Princess Diana, Katharine Hepburn, King Hussein, Angelina Jolie, Henry Kissinger, Monica Lewinsky, Richard Nixon, Rosie O’Donnell, Christopher Reeve, Anwar Sadat, John Wayne . . . the list goes on and on.Barbara Walters has spent a lifetime auditioning: for her bosses at the TV networks, for millions of viewers, for the most famous people in the world, and even for her own daughter, with whom she has had a difficult but ultimately quite wonderful and moving relationship. This book, in some ways, is her final audition, as she fully opens up both her private and public lives. In doing so, she has given us a story that is heartbreaking and honest, surprising and fun, sometimes startling, and always fascinating.
Seriously... I'm Kidding
Ellen DeGeneres - 2011
(To date, it has won no fewer than 31 Emmys.) Seriously... I'm Kidding, Degeneres' first book in eight years, brings us up to date about the life of a kindhearted woman who bowed out of American Idol because she didn't want to be mean. Lively; hilarious; often sweetly poignant.
My Story
Ingrid Bergman - 1980
The book describes her relationships with the characters she knew and worked with, including Selznick, Garbo, Bogart, Gary Cooper and Ingmar Bergman. Above all, she reveals the story of her personal life - her childhood in Sweden, her marriages (including her dramatic and controversial elopement with Roberto Rossellini), and, in more recent years, her battle against cancer. She died in 1982.
Yes Please
Amy Poehler - 2014
Powered by Amy’s charming and hilarious, biting yet wise voice, Yes Please is a book full of words to live by.
Steps in Time
Fred Astaire - 1959
He pays special attention to his celebrated partnership with Ginger Rogers, with whom he produced such classics as Top Hat, Flying Down to Rio, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, and countless others.