Book picks similar to
Holly Hagan: Not Quite A Geordie by Holly Hagan
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biographies
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The Long Hard Road Out of Hell
Marilyn Manson - 1998
"By turns moving, funny, appalling, disturbing. . . . There has never been anything like it".--"Rolling Stone". 80 b&w photos. 16-page color insert.In his twenty-nine years, rock idol Manson has experienced more than most people have (or would want to) in a lifetime. Now, in his shocking and candid memoir, he takes readers from backstage to gaol cells, from recording studios to emergency rooms, from the pit of despair to the top of the charts, and recounts his metamorphosis from a frightened Christian schoolboy into the most feared and revered music superstar in the country.
My Booky Wook
Russell Brand - 2007
He has been named Time Out’s Comedian of the Year, Best Newcomer at the British Comedy Awards, and Most Stylish Man by GQ’s Men. His UK stand-up tour was sold out and his BBC Radio 6 show became a cult phenomenon, the second most popular podcast of the year. Before the fame, however, Russell’s life was anything but glamorous. His father left when he was three months old, he was bulimic at age 12, and began drinking heavily and taking drugs by age 16. He regularly visited prostitutes in Soho, began cutting himself, took drugs on stage during his stand-up shows, and even set himself on fire while on crack cocaine. In 2003 Russell was told that he would be in prison, a mental hospital, or dead within six months unless he went into rehab. He has now been clean for three years, and hasn’t looked back since. This is Russell’s amazing story.
If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won't)
Betty White - 2011
Drawing from a lifetime of lessons learned, seven-time Emmy winner Betty White's wit and wisdom take center stage as she tackles topics like friendship, romantic love, aging, television, fans, love for animals, and the brave new world of celebrity. If You Ask Me mixes her thoughtful observations with humorous stories from a seven- decade career in Hollywood. Longtime fans and new fans alike will relish Betty's candid take on everything from her rumored crush on Robert Redford (true) to her beauty regimen ("I have no idea what color my hair is and I never intend to find out") to the Facebook campaign that helped persuade her to host Saturday Night Live despite her having declined the hosting job three times already. Featuring all-new material, with a focus on the past fifteen years of her life, If You Ask Me is funny, sweet, and to the point-just like Betty White.
Love, Lucy
Lucille Ball - 1996
The legendary star of the classic sitcom I Love Lucy was at the pinnacle of her success when she sat down to record the story of her life. No comedienne had made America laugh so hard, no television actress had made the leap from radio and B movies to become one of the world's best-loved performers. This is her story--in her own words.The story of the ingenue from Jamestown, New York, determined to go to Broadway, destined to make a big splash, bound to marry her Valentino, Desi Arnaz. In her own inimitable style, she tells of their life together--both storybook and turbulent; intimate memories of their children and friends; wonderful backstage anecdotes; the empire they founded; the dissolution of their marriage. And, with a heartfelt happy ending, her enduring marriage to Gary Morton.Here is the lost manuscript that her fans and loved ones will treasure. Here is the laughter. Here is the life. Here's Lucy...
Lipsticks, Love And Lies
Katie Price - 2013
The last three years of Katie Price's life have been some of the most dramatic and startling yet. In this dazzling instalment of her life, Katie reveals the many ups and downs from the highly publicised divorce from Alex Reid, the romance and split from Leo Penna and a whirlwind marriage and surprise pregnancy with Kieran Hayler. And that'’s just her love life. Katie has also dealt with increasingly bitter disputes with first husband Peter Andre and her former manager, as well as her public spat with comedian Frankie Boyle who made offensive comments about her disabled son Harvey. Despite her personal life being played out in the public arena, Katie remains true to her heart by always speaking her mind and living life to the full. Lipstick, Love and Lawsuits gives her side of the story, once again expressing her humour, passion and strength to her loyal fans.
Miles to Go
Miley Cyrus - 2009
Her life in rural Tennessee was filled with family, friends, school, cheerleading, and the daily tasks of living on a farm. And then came a little show called "Hannah Montana." Almost overnight, Miley would rocket to superstardom, becoming a television and singing phenomenon. Quiet days were replaced with sold-out concerts, television appearances, and magazine shoots. But through it all, Miley has remained close to her family and friends and has stayed connected to the Southern roots that made her so strong. In Miles to Go, Miley offers an honest, humorous, and often touching story of one girl's coming-of-age--from private moments with her pappy to off-roading with her dad, Billy Ray, to her run-ins with mean girls. Miley talks about suffering through drama and heartbreak and coming out the other end unscathed (relatively). And now for the first time, she will discuss it all-the milestones still left to reach (driver's license! voting!), dreams to live out (travel to Asia! find true love!), and the lessons to be learned (remembernig to enjoy every moment!). This is a truly unique look inside the world of one of today's biggest and brightest stars as she tackles looking back and moving forward.
Inside Out
Demi Moore - 2019
From iconic film roles to high-profile relationships, Moore has never been far from the spotlight—or the headlines.Even as Demi was becoming the highest paid actress in Hollywood, however, she was always outrunning her past, just one step ahead of the doubts and insecurities that defined her childhood. Throughout her rise to fame and during some of the most pivotal moments of her life, Demi battled addiction, body image issues, and childhood trauma that would follow her for years—all while juggling a skyrocketing career and at times negative public perception. As her success grew, Demi found herself questioning if she belonged in Hollywood, if she was a good mother, a good actress—and, always, if she was simply good enough.As much as her story is about adversity, it is also about tremendous resilience. In this deeply candid and reflective memoir, Demi pulls back the curtain and opens up about her career and personal life—laying bare her tumultuous relationship with her mother, her marriages, her struggles balancing stardom with raising a family, and her journey toward open heartedness. Inside Out is a story of survival, success, and surrender—a wrenchingly honest portrayal of one woman’s at once ordinary and iconic life.
Home: A Memoir of My Early Years
Julie Andrews Edwards - 2008
But she has never told the story of her life before fame. Until now.In Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, Julie takes her readers on a warm, moving, and often humorous journey from a difficult upbringing in war-torn Britain to the brink of international stardom in America. Her memoir begins in 1935, when Julie was born to an aspiring vaudevillian mother and a teacher father, and takes readers to 1962, when Walt Disney himself saw her on Broadway and cast her as the world's most famous nanny.Along the way, she weathered the London Blitz of World War II; her parents' painful divorce; her mother's turbulent second marriage to Canadian tenor Ted Andrews, and a childhood spent on radio, in music halls, and giving concert performances all over England. Julie's professional career began at the age of twelve, and in 1948 she became the youngest solo performer ever to participate in a Royal Command Performance before the Queen. When only eighteen, she left home for the United States to make her Broadway debut in The Boy Friend, and thus began her meteoric rise to stardom.Home is filled with numerous anecdotes, including stories of performing in My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison on Broadway and in the West End, and in Camelot with Richard Burton on Broadway; her first marriage to famed set and costume designer Tony Walton, culminating with the birth of their daughter, Emma; and the call from Hollywood and what lay beyond.Julie Andrews' career has flourished over seven decades. From her legendary Broadway performances, to her roles in such iconic films as The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hawaii, 10, and The Princess Diaries, to her award-winning television appearances, multiple album releases, concert tours, international humanitarian work, best-selling children's books, and championship of literacy, Julie's influence spans generations. Today, she lives with her husband of thirty-eight years, the acclaimed writer/director Blake Edwards; they have five children and seven grandchildren.
Living With Miss G
Mearene Jordan - 2012
While some biographers had to rely on second-hand knowledge and newspaper and magazine articles that were often unreliable or deliberately inaccurate, Jordan (whose nickname is pronounced "Reenie") was on the scene for countless real-life Gardner episodes that rivaled any fiction. It is a must-read for classic movie enthusiasts and also for those who need a reminder of what true friendship is.
Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang
Chelsea Handler - 2010
In this new, no-holds-barred account of life on the ridiculous side, Chelsea mines the wealth of material that is her family, her sex life, her career, and her distinctively outrageous worldview. Here is young Chelsea discovering "The Feeling" during a third-grade sleepover and getting shafted by clueless parents over Cabbage Patch dolls...and grown-up Chelsea at the mercy of the remote control, Lean Pockets, and Sex and the City --but still managing to convince her boyfriend that there are Swiss Army knives in the soles of her $16,000 shoes. Through it all, Chelsea never lets anyone off the hook, even herself, as she delivers page after page of irreverent humor, biting wit, and deliciously off-kilter entertainment.
Sorry Not Sorry: Dreams, Mistakes, and Growing Up
Naya Rivera - 2016
Whether it's with love and dating, career and ambition, friends, or gossip, Naya inspires us to follow our own destiny and step over--or plod through--all the crap along the way. After her rise and fall from early childhood stardom, barely eking her way through high school, a brief stint as a Hooters waitress, going through thick and thin with her mom/manager, and resurrecting her acting career as Santana Lopez on Glee, Naya emerged from these experiences with some key life lessons:Sorry:- All those times I scrawled "I HATE MY MOM" in my journal. So many moms and teenage daughters don't get along--we just have to realize it's nothing personal on either side.- At-home highlights and DIY hair extensions. Some things are best left to the experts, and hair dye is one of them.- Falling in love with the idea of a person, instead of the actual person.Not Sorry:- That I don't always get along with everyone. Having people not like you is a risk you have to take to be real, and I'll take that over being fake any day.- Laughing at the gossip instead of getting upset by it.- Getting my financial disasters out of the way early--before I was married or had a family--so that the only credit score that I wrecked was my own.Even with a successful career and a family that she loves more than anything else, Naya says, "There's still a thirteen-year-old girl inside of me making detailed lists of how I can improve, who's never sure of my own self-worth." Sorry Not Sorry is for that thirteen-year-old in all of us.
Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated
Alison Arngrim - 2010
Though millions of Little House on the Prairie viewers hated Nellie Oleson and her evil antics, Arngrim grew to love her character—and the freedom and confidence Nellie inspired in her.In Confessions of a Prairie Bitch, Arngrim describes growing up in Hollywood with her eccentric parents: Thor Arngrim, a talent manager to Liberace and others, whose appetite for publicity was insatiable, and legendary voice actress Norma MacMillan, who played both Gumby and Casper the Friendly Ghost. She recalls her most cherished and often wickedly funny moments behind the scenes of Little House: Michael Landon's "unsaintly" habit of not wearing underwear; how she and Melissa Gilbert (who played her TV nemesis, Laura Ingalls) became best friends and accidentally got drunk on rum cakes at 7-Eleven; and the only time she and Katherine MacGregor (who played Nellie's mom) appeared in public in costume, provoking a posse of elementary schoolgirls to attack them. Arngrim relays all this and more with biting wit, but she also bravely recounts her life's challenges: her struggle to survive a history of traumatic abuse, depression, and paralyzing shyness; the "secret" her father kept from her for twenty years; and the devastating loss of her "Little House husband" and best friend, Steve Tracy, to AIDS, which inspired her second career in social and political activism. Arngrim describes how Nellie Oleson taught her to be bold, daring, and determined, and how she is eternally grateful to have had the biggest little bitch on the prairie to show her the way.
A Work in Progress
Connor Franta - 2015
His words will resonate with anyone coming of age in the digital era, but at the core is a timeless message for people of all ages: don't be afraid to be yourself and to go after what you truly want.This full-color collection includes photography and childhood clippings provided by Connor and is a must-have for anyone inspired by his journey.
Girl Walks Into a Bar...: Comedy Calamities, Dating Disasters, and a Midlife Miracle
Rachel Dratch - 2012
Anyone who saw an episode of Saturday Night Live between 1999 and 2006 knows Rachel Dratch. She was hilarious! So what happened to her? After a misbegotten part as Jenna on the pilot of 30 Rock, Dratch was only getting offered roles as "Lesbians. Secretaries. Sometimes secretaries who are lesbians."Her career at a low point, Dratch suddenly had time for yoga, dog- sitting, learning Spanish-and dating. After all, what did a forty- something single woman living in New York have to lose? Resigned to childlessness but still hoping for romance, Dratch was out for drinks with a friend when she met John.Handsome and funny, after only six months of dating long-distance, he became the inadvertent father of her wholly unplanned, undreamed-of child, and moved to New York to be a dad. With riotous humor, Dratch recounts breaking the news to her bewildered parents, the awe of her single friends, and the awkwardness of a baby-care class where the instructor kept tossing out the f-word.Filled with great behind-the-scenes anecdotes from Dratch's time on SNL, Girl Walks into a Bar... is a refreshing version of the "happily ever after" story that proves female comics-like bestsellers Tina Fey and Chelsea Handler-are truly having their moment.
Lucky Man
Michael J. Fox - 2002
Fox stunned the world by announcing he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease -- a degenerative neurological condition. In fact, he had been secretly fighting it for seven years. The worldwide response was staggering. Fortunately, he had accepted the diagnosis, and by the time the public started grieving for him, he had stopped grieving for himself. Now, with the same passion, humor, and energy, that Fox has invested in his dozens of performances over the last 18 years, he tells the story of his life, his career, and his campaign, to find a cure for Parkinson's.Combining his trademark ironic sensibility, and keen sense of the absurd, he recounts his life -- from his childhood in a small town in western Canada, to his meteoric rise in film and television which made him a worldwide celebrity. Most importantly however, he writes of the last 10 years, during which -- with the unswerving support of his wife, family, and friends -- he has dealt with his illness. He talks about what Parkinson's has given him: the chance to appreciate a wonderful life and career, and the opportunity to help search for a cure, and spread public awareness of the disease. He is a very lucky man, indeed.