Book picks similar to
Priceless Memories by Bob Barker


non-fiction
biography
autobiography
memoir

Just One More Thing: Stories from My Life


Peter Falk - 2006
    Starting in Hartford, where he worked as a management analyst for the Connecticut State Budget Bureau., Falk was no more successful than at an earlier attempt to work with the CIA. He then turned to an old college interest: acting. Falk came to prominence in 1956 in the successful Off-Broadway revival of The Iceman Cometh. Although he worked continuously for the next three years, a theatrical agent advised him not to expect much work in motion pictures because of his glass eye. Surgeons had removed his right eye, along with a malignant tumor, when he was three years old. But in 1958, Falk landed his first movie, Murder Incorporated, and was nominated for an Oscar. A Pocketful of Miracles garnered his second Oscar nomination, but it was through his collaboration with filmmaker John Cassavetes that Falk entered into his most creative period in 1970 when movies such as A Woman Under the Influence helped launch the independent film movement. Through television, however, Falk reached his widest audience -- portraying the inimitable Lieutenant Columbo throughout the 1970s and winning four Emmys.

Candy at Last


Candy Spelling - 2013
     After thirty-eight happy years of marriage to influential producer Aaron Spelling, raising two children in Hollywood, and co-managing one of the largest estates in the country (finally selling Spelling Manor, as detailed on her HGTV series, for $85 million), Candy is now adjusting to life on her own—downsizing to a Century City condo. She’s ready to share the most intimate details of her life with Aaron; how his illness caused her to question her identity; and how she’s reinvented herself as an independent woman, businesswoman, and television personality. Along the way, Candy reveals all-new dishy stories including those of Hollywood friends Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Michael Jackson, Janet Leigh, Dean Martin, and Elizabeth Taylor (her lifelong rival over their jewelry).  Engaging, heartwrenching, and hilarious, Candy at Last shares her story of how family, friends, and her husband’s inspiring advice to “follow your dreams” has made her determined to live life to the fullest.

Brief Encounters: Conversations, Magic Moments, and Assorted Hijinks


Dick Cavett - 2014
    We tag along as Cavett spends an afternoon with Stan Laurel at his modest apartment in Los Angeles, spars with Muhammad Ali at his training camp, and comes to know a young Steve Jobs--who woos him to be Apple's first celebrity pitchman. He also offers piquant commentary on contemporary politics, the indignities of travel, the nature of comedy writing, and the utter improbability of being alive at all.On his talk show, Cavett welcomed the leading figures from film, music, theater, literature, comedy, and politics, and engaged them in conversation that made viewers feel that the discussion was taking place in their own living rooms. Jimmy Fallon, the host of The Tonight Show, has called him "a legend and an inspiration" and has written a foreword that makes clear the debt that today's talk show hosts owe to Dick Cavett.To spend a few minutes, or an hour, or even a whole evening with Dick Cavett is an experience not to be missed, and now there's no reason to deny yourself. Enjoy the conversation!

A Lotus Grows in the Mud


Goldie Hawn - 2005
    She writes about her childhood dreams of becoming a ballerina. She takes us on a tour of her go-go years in 1960s New York City, the phenomenon of TV’s Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, her Oscar-winning debut in Cactus Flower and Hollywood stardom. She writes intimately about the challenges of love, anger and fear, and the importance of compassion and integrity. She speaks openly about her family, her partner Kurt Russell, her children; her faith, her curiosity for that which she doesn’t yet know, and her thirst for knowledge. Most of all, it is a trip back through a life well lived by a woman well loved.

It's a Long Story: My Life


Willie Nelson - 2015
    Funny. Leaving no stone unturned." . . . So say the publishers about this book I've written. What I say is that this is the story of my life, told as clear as a Texas sky and in the same rhythm that I lived it. It's a story of restlessness and the purity of the moment and living right. Of my childhood in Abbott, Texas, to the Pacific Northwest, from Nashville to Hawaii and all the way back again. Of selling vacuum cleaners and encyclopedias while hosting radio shows and writing song after song, hoping to strike gold. It's a story of true love, wild times, best friends, and barrooms, with a musical sound track ripping right through it. My life gets lived on the road, at home, and on the road again, tried and true, and I've written it all down from my heart to yours. Signed,Willie Nelson

Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man


Tim Allen - 1994
    Reprint.

Kiss and Tell


Shannon Tweed - 2004
    Kiss and Tell is the surprising other side of the story from one of the world's most beautiful women.

Jarhead : A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles


Anthony Swofford - 2003
     When the marines -- or "jarheads," as they call themselves -- were sent in 1990 to Saudi Arabia to fight the Iraqis, Swofford was there, with a hundred-pound pack on his shoulders and a sniper's rifle in his hands. It was one misery upon another. He lived in sand for six months, his girlfriend back home betrayed him for a scrawny hotel clerk, he was punished by boredom and fear, he considered suicide, he pulled a gun on one of his fellow marines, and he was shot at by both Iraqis and Americans. At the end of the war, Swofford hiked for miles through a landscape of incinerated Iraqi soldiers and later was nearly killed in a booby-trapped Iraqi bunker. Swofford weaves this experience of war with vivid accounts of boot camp (which included physical abuse by his drill instructor), reflections on the mythos of the marines, and remembrances of battles with lovers and family. As engagement with the Iraqis draws closer, he is forced to consider what it is to be an American, a soldier, a son of a soldier, and a man. Unlike the real-time print and television coverage of the Gulf War, which was highly scripted by the Pentagon, Swofford's account subverts the conventional wisdom that U.S. military interventions are now merely surgical insertions of superior forces that result in few American casualties. Jarhead insists we remember the Americans who are in fact wounded or killed, the fields of smoking enemy corpses left behind, and the continuing difficulty that American soldiers have reentering civilian life. A harrowing yet inspiring portrait of a tormented consciousness struggling for inner peace, Jarhead will elbow for room on that short shelf of American war classics that includes Philip Caputo's A Rumor of War and Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, and be admired not only for the raw beauty of its prose but also for the depth of its pained heart.

Steve & Me


Terri Irwin - 2007
    Leaving behind her wildlife rescue work in Oregon, Terri traveled to Australia, and there, at a small wildlife park, she met and fell in love with a tall, blond force of nature named Steve Irwin. They were married in less than a year, and Terri eagerly joined in Steve's conservation work. The footage filmed on their crocodile-trapping honeymoon became the first episode of T"he Crocodile Hunter, " and together, Steve and Terri began to change the world. In "Steve & Me, " Terri recounts the unforgettable adventures they shared -- wrangling venomous snakes, saving deadly crocodiles from poachers, swimming among humpback whales. A uniquely gifted naturalist, Steve was first and foremost a wildlife warrior dedicated to rescuing endangered animals -- especially his beloved crocs -- and educating everyone he could reach about the importance of conservation. In the hit TV shows that continue to be broadcast worldwide, Steve's enthusiasm lives on, bringing little-known and often-feared species to light as he reveals and revels in the wonders of our planet.With grace, wit, and candor, Terri Irwin portrays her husband as he really was -- a devoted family man, a fervently dedicated environmentalist, a modest bloke who spoke to millions on behalf of those who could not speak for themselves. "Steve & Me" is a nonstop adventure, a real-life love story, and a fitting tribute to a man adored by all those whose lives he touched, written by the woman who knew and loved him best of all.

Could It Be Forever? My Story


David Cassidy - 2007
    He was mobbed everywhere he went. His clothes were regularly ripped off by adoring fans. He sold records the world over. He was bigger than Elvis. And all thanks to a hit TV show called The Partridge Family. David Cassiday, in his own words, gives a brutally frank account of those mindblowing days of stardom in which being David Cassidy played second fiddle to being Keith Partridge. Including stories of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll that explode the myth of Cassidy as squeaky clean, it is also the story of how to keep on living life and loving yourself when the fickle fans fall away. David Cassidy is also the author of C'mon, Get Happy: Fear and Loathing on the Partridge Family Bus.

Hope: Entertainer of the Century


Richard Zoglin - 2014
    He virtually invented modern stand-up comedy. His tours to entertain US troops and patriotic radio broadcasts, along with his all-American, brash-but-cowardly movie character, helped to ease the nation's jitters during the stressful days of World War II. He helped redefine the very notion of what it means to be a star: a savvy businessman, pioneer of the brand extension (churning out books, writing a newspaper column, hosting a golf tournament), and public-spirited entertainer whose Christmas military tours and tireless work for charity set the standard for public service in Hollywood. But he became a polarizing figure during the Vietnam War, and the book sheds new light on his close relationship with President Richard Nixon during those embattled years.Bob Hope is a household name. However, as Richard Zoglin shows in this revelatory biography, there is still much to be learned about this most public of figures, from his secret first marriage and his stint in reform school, to his indiscriminate womanizing and his ambivalent relationship with Bing Crosby and Johnny Carson. Hope could be cold, self-centered, tight with a buck, and perhaps the least introspective man in Hollywood. But he was also a dogged worker, gracious with fans, and generous with friends.Hope is both a celebration of an entertainer whose vast contribution has never been properly appreciated, and a complex portrait of a gifted but flawed man, who, unlike many Hollywood stars, truly loved being famous, appreciated its responsibilities, and handled celebrity with extraordinary grace.

The Real Girl Next Door


Denise Richards - 2011
    We’ve read the scandalous headlines, watched her sexy breakout performances in Starship Troopers and Wild Things, and seen her many public faces on her reality television show—the beautiful vixen, the devoted mother, the hard-working entertainer, and the fun-loving friend. But how well do we really know Denise Richards? Like so many small-town girls, she dreamed of making it big in Hollywood. But following a painful, high-profile divorce from Charlie Sheen, she found herself raising their two young daughters alone as her mother was dying of cancer. Denise writes openly and honestly about these experiences and more: she lets you in on her childhood dreams, her fated move to Hollywood with her close-knit family, her rise to fame, the pressures of living in the spotlight, and the controversy surrounding her relationships. Through it all, she managed to keep her sense of humor and optimism. She offers an up-close and personal look at her most intimate battle scars and the lessons she’s learned as she’s healed and grown. Denise’s story will resonate with anyone who has had to look within herself to find strength and courage when life is throwing curveballs. Inspiring and uplifting, raw and revealing, Denise finally lets her fans in on the resilient woman behind the bombshell persona, the person her friends and family already know: The Real Girl Next Door.

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.

In Pieces


Sally Field - 2018
    Powerful and unforgettable, In Pieces is an inspiring account of life as a woman in the second half of the twentieth century.

Ron Jeremy: The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz


Ron Jeremy - 2007
    . . . Yeah, that's me. But believe it or not, that's not the real me. The real me is just an average guy trying to make it in the world like everyone else.Well . . . sort of . . .I always wanted to be a legitimate actor (that's right, don't laugh). But when the gigs didn't come I didn't let it get me down. Instead, I'd fall into the arms of beautiful women and let them heal my bruised soul. One of them insisted on taking nude pictures of me and sending them to Playgirl. For some reason I agreed, and when it was published, I got tons of phone calls. One of them was from a casting director who wanted me in his next picture. There was only one problem: it was a porno."What do you think?" I asked my dad.He rubbed his chin and paused for a moment."I think you should do it," he said. "I mean, you're already halfway there, and . . . at least you'll be performing, right?"That's exactly what I thought. From there, my life only got better. I traveled all over the world, made tons of money, and got more famous every year. But more than anything, I wanted to be legit, so I started doing stand-up comedy, moved to Hollywood, and kept my acting hopes alive by mingling with every major—Wait a minute, you don't care about any of this, do you? You just want to know about the celebrity orgies, the constant sex, and how I learned to blow myself. . . . All right, fine.But keep reading. . . . I guarantee you'll get more than you bargained for. . . .—Ron Jeremy