When Andy went to Hollywood to film a TV pilot about a small-town sheriff, Don called to ask if the sheriff could use a deputy. The comedic synergy between Sheriff Andy Taylor and Deputy Barney Fife ignited The Andy Griffith Show, elevating a folksy sitcom into a timeless study of human friendship, as potent off the screen as on. Andy and Don -- fellow Southerners born into poverty and raised among scofflaws, bullies, and drunks -- captured the hearts of Americans across the country as they rocked lazily on the front porch, meditating about the simple pleasure of a bottle of pop.But behind this sleepy, small-town charm, de Vise's exclusive reporting reveals explosions of violent temper, bouts of crippling neurosis, and all-too-human struggles with the temptations of fame. Andy and Don chronicles unspoken rivalries, passionate affairs, unrequited loves, and friendships lost and regained. Although Andy and Don ended their Mayberry partnership in 1965, they remained best friends for the next half-century, with Andy visiting Don at his death bed.Written by Don Knotts's brother-in-law and featuring extensive unpublished interviews with those closest to both men, Andy and Don is the definitive literary work on the legacy of The Andy Griffith Show and a provocative and an entertaining read about two of America's most enduring stars.

    Now Alan Alda has written a memoir as elegant, funny, and affecting as his greatest performances."My mother didn't try to stab my father until I was six," begins Alda's irresistible story. The son of a popular actor and a loving but mentally ill mother, he spent his early childhood backstage in the erotic and comic world of burlesque and went on, after early struggles, to achieve extraordinary success in his profession.Yet Never Have Your Dog Stuffed is not a memoir of show-business ups and downs. It is a moving and funny story of a boy growing into a man who then realizes he has only just begun to grow.It is the story of turning points in Alda's life, events that would make him what he is-if only he could survive them.From the moment as a boy when his dead dog is returned from the taxidermist's shop with a hideous expression on his face, and he learns that death can't be undone, to the decades-long effort to find compassion for the mother he lived with but never knew, to his acceptance of his father, both personally and professionally, Alda learns the hard way that change, uncertainty, and transformation are what life is made of, and true happiness is found in embracing them.Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, filled with curiosity about nature, good humor, and honesty, is the crowning achievement of an actor, author, and director, but surprisingly, it is the story of a life more filled with turbulence and laughter than any Alda has ever played on the stage or screen.

    While Day symbolized virtuous America to the rest of the world--especially in her heyday, the 1950s and early 1960s--both she and that era are still perceived as being far more innocent and carefree than they really were. Indeed, what makes Day's story so richly fascinating is the fact that she was in many ways the opposite of her image as "the girl next door." She was also a real-life Cinderella who regretted having gone to the ball and who found a series of princes who proved far less than charming. Thanks to Kaufman's dogged diligence in tracking down countless colleagues and intimates, he gives readers scintillating tales of fame, beauty, money, tragedy, sexual ambiguity, and sexual conquests. He also has collected fascinating anecdotes about a vast array of major subsidiary players in Day's life, including Ronald Reagan, Frank Sinatra, Alfred Hitchcock, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Charles Manson, Mickey Mantle, Candice Bergen, and Rock Hudson. Kaufman reveals Day's demons while emphasizing the extraordinary credit she deserves as an artist. In the tradition of great biographies, Kaufman's detailed work not only reveals the surprising story of one of America's most beloved icons, but also compels us to rush back and see her best films--including "The Man Who Knew Too Much," "Pillow Talk," and "Love Me or Leave Me"--and to listen to her unforgettable songs--"Sentimental Journey," "Secret Love," and "Que Sera, Sera." Though she made more than 550 recordings and starred in 39 movies--not to mention her own TV show for five years--the epic story of Doris Day's life has never been told, until now.

    It premiered 37 years ago, in 1973, and, after 31 series it finally came to an end last year – even though all its original protagonists – Compo, Foggy, even Nora Batty – are now dead. Remarkably, for a series of such longevity and international appeal, it is all about elderly people, has little action or plot, and is set and filmed in and around the small Yorkshire town of Holmfirth. Now, Andrew Vine, the deputy editor of Yorkshire’s daily newspaper, has written the definitive history of this television phenomenon. It covers the show’s inauspicious beginnings, with low ratings, its endless reinvention as participants like Bill Owen, Michael Bates, Brian Wilde and Kathy Staff retired or died, the appearance of a string of guest stars from John Cleese and Norman Wisdom to Thora Hird and Russ Abbott (both of whom soon found themselves fixtures in the cast), and the ingenious plot contrivances as the protagonists became too old and frail to attempt any of the slapstick stunts with runaway prams – indeed any outdoor action. Holmfirth is now a year-round tourist attraction, and endless repeats and new DVD box sets will ensure a readership for this book for years to come.

    This new edition, with an extensive amount of fresh material, will prove irresistible to all fans of the most popular TV series of all time. Illustrations.

    We see the visionary, whose desire for escape honed an innate sense of what people wanted to see on the screen and, when combined with iron determination and obsessive perfectionism, led him to the reinvention of animation. It was Disney, first with Mickey Mouse and then with his feature films - most notably Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi - who transformed animation from a novelty based on movement to an art form that presented an illusion of life.We see him reimagine the amusement park with Disneyland, prompting critics to coin the word Disneyfication to describe the process by which reality can be modified to fit one's personal desires. At the same time, he provided a new way to connect with American history through his live-action films and purveyed a view of the country so coherent that even today one can speak meaningfully of "Walt Disney's America." We see how the True-Life Adventure nature documentaries he produced helped create the environmental movement by sensitizing the general public to issues of conservation. And we see how he reshaped the entertainment industry by building a synergistic empire that combined film, television, theme parks, music, book publishing, and merchandise in a way that was unprecedented and was later widely imitated.Gabler also reveals a wounded, lonely, and often disappointed man, who, despite worldwide success, was plagued with financial problems much of his life, suffered a nervous breakdown, and at times retreated into pitiable seclusion in his workshop making model trains. Gabler explores accusations that Disney was a red-baiter, an anti-Semite, an embittered alcoholic. But whatever the characterizations of Disney's personal life, he appealed to the nation by demonstrating the power of wish fulfillment and the triumph of the American imagination. Walt Disney showed how one could impose one's will on the world.This is a masterly biography, a revelation of both the work and the man - of both the remarkable accomplishment and the hidden life.

    (I understand that it’s likely the former, which is a fancy “book” way of saying “the first one.”) I talk about my grandparents, doing stand-up comedy as a teenager, bar mitzvahs, and Jewish summer camp, and tell way more stories about doing drugs than my mother would like. I also talk about some of my adventures in Los Angeles, and surely say things about other famous people that will create a wildly awkward conversation for me at a party one day. I hope you enjoy the book should you buy it, and if you don’t enjoy it, I’m sorry. If you ever see me on the street and explain the situation, I’ll do my best to make it up to you.

    In Laughing with Lucy, Davis and her long-time writing partner, Bob Carroll Jr., recount her rise in television and her many years working on the set and behind the scenes with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Lighthearted and witty, this book offers a trip back in time to the tumultuous early days of television.

    Decades after their release, his movies remain unsurpassed marvels of comic invention and mechanical timing. In Buster Keaton Remembered, a unique illustrated survey of Keaton's career, Eleanor Keaton, his wife of 26 years, and film historian Jeffrey Vance provide a personal account of this icon of American cinema.Drawing on professional papers, screenplays, studio records, and scrapbooks, the authors trace Keaton's beginnings in vaudeville, where he perfected his gags; his first silent shorts with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle; the brilliant features he conceived, directed, produced, and performed in; and his later sound films for M-G-M and others. Fresh prints of classic film stills and never-before-published photos from the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, together with a lively, anecdotal text, offer a behind-the-scenes look at how Keaton came up with his hilarious ideas, choreographed his elaborate stunts, and crafted his films.

    From the call of the wild to the vagaries of love to the art of curing a hangover, this is a veritable aurora borealis of Chris's own recollections, speculations, dreams, and philosophies.

    But her son, Lorenzo, was never a mistake. When she and her boyfriend, Jionni, found out she was knocked up, they weren't married or engaged. She was only twenty-four and living with her parents—and she had zero baby experience. With a reckless, party girl TV persona to deal with, she had a lot to learn and discover in becoming a mother.In this funny and frank book, Nicole shares her experiences, everything from the first sonogram to the nipple-cracking shock of breastfeeding. In each chapter, she tells the unvarnished truth about pregnancy symptoms (“The High Price of Gas”), the ridiculousness of her baby registry (“Butt Paste and Boogie Wipes”) and the lowdown on postpartum life (“Shit Happens”). There's a ton of useful information, including a list of must-have baby products, MILF style tips, how to keep “I'm a whale” preggers bad body image in check, and how she got into the best shape of her life within six months of giving birth. Although Nicole had to give up partying, she's embracing motherhood the only way she knows how: with a fun-loving attitude—and lots of leopard print!

    These were recognized as high-quality, definitive film portraits, which revitalized the genre and made it a mainstay of television programming.This is their insiders’ view of the famous and the powerful: Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, Johnny Carson, Frank Sinatra, Lew Wasserman, Ronald Reagan, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Jane Fonda, Richard Dreyfuss, Audrey Hepburn, and Bette Davis, among others. Kramer and Heeley’s behind the scenes stories of the productions and the personalities involved are amusing, sometimes moving, often revealing, and have never been told before.

    

    He came to mainstream prominence as a machine more human than his creators in Blade Runner, terrified us as a hitchhiker bent on his own death and the death of anyone who got in his way in The Hitcher, and unforgettably portrayed a lonely king roaming the night as a wolf and pining for the love of a hawk during the day in Ladyhawke.Rutger Hauer has dazzled audiences for years with his creepy, inspiring, and villainous portrayals of everyone from a cold-blooded terrorist in Nighthawks to a blind martial arts master in Blind Fury, but his movie career was nothing compared to his real-life adventures of riding horses, sword fighting, and leaving home at fifteen to scrub decks on a freighter and explore the world.From poverty to working with a traveling theater troupe to his breakout European performance in Turkish Delight and working with legendary directors such as Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop and Basic Instinct) and Ridley Scott (Alien and Gladiator), Hauer has collected All Those Moments here.

    By turns poignant and hilarious, Hammond takes readers from the set of Saturday Night Live, where he was the show’s longest-tenured cast member, to the drug-ridden streets of Harlem and into the twisting corridors of his own unflaggingly humorous consciousness. Mingling behind-the-scenes stories from television’s best-loved comedy series with a dark look inside a world-class funnyman, God If You’re Not Up There,I’m F*cked is a book sure to resonate with anyone who shares a talent for performance, a love of comedy, or a desire to know how an artist can climb from the deepest despair to the very top of his profession.