Like a novel but Ava really lived it.In this chatty autobiography, Gardner tells of her upbringing in a poor but proud Southern family, her sudden success in early-'40s Hollywood--mainly because of her beauty--and rails against MGM, which played up her cheesecake potential. She neatly sums up the problems in each of her three short marriages: Mickey Rooney was a blatant womanizer; Artie Shaw was cool and overbearing; Frank Sinatra (the two were the loves of each other's lives) was as jealous as she, leading to drunken marathon fights. Gardner also sketches a creepy portrait of Howard Hughes, who for years stopped at no machination in an unsuccessful attempt to bed and marry her. A shy woman who used drink to feel comfortable socially, Gardner seems very likable, down-home, spontaneous and sadly derogatory toward her intelligence, acting abilities--and even her beauty. Of the seven included "eulogies" from friends and colleagues, Stephen Birmingham's best captures the joy and tragedy of Gardner's life.

    Will take 25-35 days

                 His trailblazing television program, The Dick Van Dyke Show (produced by Carl Reiner, who has written the foreword to this memoir), was one of the most popular sitcoms of the 1960s and introduced another major television star, Mary Tyler Moore. But Dick Van Dyke was also an enormously engaging movie star whose films, including Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, have been discovered by a new generation of fans and are as beloved today as they were when they first appeared. Who doesn’t know the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?             A colorful, loving, richly detailed look at the decades of a multilayered life, My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business, will enthrall every generation of reader, from baby-boomers who recall when Rob Petrie became a household name, to all those still enchanted by Bert’s “Chim Chim Cher-ee.” This is a lively, heartwarming memoir of a performer who still thinks of himself as a “simple song-and-dance man,” but who is, in every sense of the word, a classic entertainer.From the Hardcover edition.

    16 pages of full-color photos.

    Cushing was widely known as ‘the gentleman of horror’, his kind and sensitive nature a sharp contrast with the Hammer Horror roles that dominated his work from the 1950s onwards. This is Cushing’s own account of his remarkable career, and the devastating sense of loss he suffered following the death of his wife. It offers unparalleled insight to the meticulous professionalism and private torment of a legendary film star.

    In between watching his TiVo, he manages to make and release Clerks II, relate the story of his partner-in-crime Jason Mewes’ heroin addiction, get a tattoo, serve on a jury... and get caught stealing donuts from Burt ReynoldsThrown in are his views on the perils of strip clubs, the drawback of threesomes, the pain of anal fissures, his love-affair with Star Wars and so much more! Adults Only!

    In this highly readable, witty and colourful autobiography, reissued by Aurum Press in B-format using the original uncensored text, Flynn reveals himself and his remarkable life as he did nowhere else.

    What I did not anticipate was how my journey would also resonate with men.America knows Jane Fonda as actress and activist, feminist and wife, workout guru and role model. In this extraordinary memoir, Fonda shows that she is much more. From her youth among Hollywood’s elite to her film career and her activism today, Fonda reveals intimate details and personal truths she hopes can provide a lens through which others can see their lives and how they can live them a little differently. Surprising, candid, and wonderfully written, My Life So Far is filled with insights into the personal struggles of a woman living a remarkable life.

    Before they teamed up, Dean Martin seemed destined for a mediocre career as a nightclub singer, and Jerry Lewis was dressing up as Carmen Miranda and miming records on stage. But the moment they got together, something clicked—something miraculous—and audiences saw it at once. Before long, they were as big as Elvis or the Beatles would be after them, creating hysteria wherever they went and grabbing an unprecedented hold over every entertainment outlet of the era: radio, television, movies, stage shows, and nightclubs. Martin and Lewis were a national craze, an American institution. The millions (and the women) flowed in, seemingly without end—and then, on July 24, 1956, ten years from the day when the two men joined forces, it all ended.After that traumatic day, the two wouldn’t speak again for twenty years. And while both went on to forge triumphant individual careers—Martin as a movie and television star, recording artist, and nightclub luminary (and charter member of the Rat Pack); Lewis as the groundbreaking writer, producer, director, and star of a series of hugely successful movie comedies—their parting left a hole in the national psyche, as well as in each man’s heart.In a memoir by turns moving, tragic, and hilarious, Jerry Lewis recounts with crystal clarity every step of a fifty-year friendship, from the springtime, 1945 afternoon when the two vibrant young performers destined to conquer the world together met on Broadway and Fifty-fourth Street, to their tragic final encounter in the 1990s, when Lewis and his wife ran into Dean Martin, a broken and haunted old man.In Dean and Me, Jerry Lewis makes a convincing case for Dean Martin as one of the great — and most underrated — comic talents of our era. But what comes across most powerfully in this definitive memoir is the depth of love Lewis felt, and still feels, for his partner, and which his partner felt for him: truly a love to last for all time.

    Marilyn Monroe. Her beauty still captivates. Her love life still fascinates. Her story still dominates popular culture. Now, drawing on years of research and dozens of new interviews, this biography cuts through decades of lies and secrets and introduces you to the Marilyn Monroe you always wanted to know: a living, breathing, complex woman, bewitching and maddening, brilliant yet flawed. Charles Casillo studies Monroe’s life through the context of her times—in the days before feminism. Before there was adequate treatment for Marilyn’s struggle with bipolar disorder. Starting with her abusive childhood, this biography exposes how—in spite of her fractured psyche—Marilyn’s extreme ambition inspired her to transform each celebrated love affair and each tragedy into another step in her journey towards immortality. Casillo fully explores the last two years of her life, including her involvement with both John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert, and the mystery of her last day. Just a few of Casillo's revelations: *Despite reports of their bitter rivalry, Elizabeth Taylor secretly reached out and tried to help Marilyn during one of her darkest moments. *The existence of Marilyn’s semi-nude love scene with Clark Gable—long thought to be lost.*A few nights before she died, Marilyn encountered Warren Beatty at a party and disclosed some of the reasons for her final despair. *A meticulously detailed account of the events of her last day, revealing how a series of miscommunications and misjudgments contributed to her death.

    Ava, Hedy, Judy, Liz epitomized Hollywood's golden era. With a trembling lip or sultry eye, with a tear or song or husky whisper, these women held moviegoers across America in their sway from the hard times of the 1930s through the booming postwar years to the early sixties. They were royalty and box office, and led pampered public lives—furs, jewels, designer gowns; limousines, flash bulbs, handsome escorts—that captured the national imagination. They also signed seven-year contracts with a morals clause, and the more they slipped, the more the secret abortions, efficient cover-ups, legal legerdemain, and dropped charges bound them to the wizard in their Oz, Louis B. Mayer. The slips are here along with the successes. Here, too, are the Blonde Bombshell Jean Harlow, Million-Dollar Mermaid Esther Williams, Sweater Girl Lana Turner, and bad girl Ava Gardner ("She can't act. She can't talk. She's terrific," declared Mayer after her screen test). From Jeanette MacDonald and Norma Shearer to Princess Grace and Dame Elizabeth Taylor, the sixteen portraits in this lively, photograph-filled volume, each accompanied by the star's filmography, tell the tales that have long lay hidden behind the gossip and the glories of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's glamorous golden girls.

    However, it was her nude scene, and surprising dramatic ability, in Ecstasy that made her a star. Ecstasy’s notoriety followed her for the rest of her life. She married one of Austria’s most successful and wealthy munitions barons, giving up her career for what seemed at first a fairy-tale existence. Instead, as war clouds loomed in the mid-1930s, Hedy discovered that she was trapped in a loveless marriage to a controlling, ruthless man who befriended Mussolini, sold armaments to Hitler, yet hid his own Jewish heritage to become an “honorary Aryan.”She fled her husband and escaped to Hollywood, where M-G-M changed her name to Hedy Lamarr and she became one of film’s most glamorous stars. She worked with such renowned directors as King Vidor, Victor Fleming, and Cecil B. DeMille, and appeared opposite such respected actors as Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, John Garfield, and James Stewart. But as her career waned, her personal problems and legal wranglings cast lingering shadows over her former image. It wasn’t until decades later that the world was stunned to learn of her unexpected role as the inventor of a technology that has become an essential part of everything from military weaponry to cell phones—proof that Hedy Lamarr was far more than merely Delilah to Victor Mature’s Samson. She demonstrated a creativity and an intelligence she had always possessed.Stephen Michael Shearer’s in-depth and meticulously researched biography, written with the cooperation of Hedy’s children, intimate friends, and colleagues, separates the truths from the rumors, the facts from the fables, about Hedy Lamarr, to reveal the life and character of one of classic Hollywood’s most beautiful and remarkable women.

    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. Wallach has worked with such stars as Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Marilyn Monroe, Gregory Peck, and Henry Fonda, and his many movies include The Magnificent Seven, How the West Was Won, the iconic The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and, most recently, Mystic River. For more than fifty years Eli Wallach has held a special place in film and theater, and in a tale rich with anecdotes, wit, and remarkable insight he recounts his magical life in a world unlike any other.

    This frank, no-nonsense account features Bette Davis in her best role: her own remarkable life - on-screen and off...The glory days of Hollywood... the ups and downs with her husbands and children... behind the scenes with Joan Crawford in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?... a few choice words about Ronald Reagan... and her inspiring struggle to survive first a mastectomy, and then, nine days later, a crippling stroke. PLUS-- A candid letter to her daughter - whose stinging memoir has caused so much controversy.

    This book chronicles her extraordinary life in over 200 rare and previously unpublished photographs, with fascinating, information-packed extended captions.ties that made her a legendary star.