Hollywood Private Lives Uncensored


Alan Royle - 2016
    Hollywood minus the hype and hokum.

Brando Unzipped: A Revisionist and Very Private Look at America's Greatest Actor


Darwin Porter - 2005
    Brando Unzipped is the definitive gossip guide to the late, great actor's life New York Daily News. Lurid, raunchy, perceptive, and certainly worth reading, it's one of the best show-biz biographies of the year. London's Sunday Times. Brando Unzipped received an Honorable Mention from Foreword Magazine in its Book of the Year competition, and it won a Silver Ippy award for Best Biography from the Independent Publisher's Association."

Here's What We'll Say: Growing Up, Coming Out, and the U.S. Air Force Academy


Reichen Lehmkuhl - 2006
    Not wanting to face a court martial for being gay, he had to live in a world where he had to watch everything he did and said for fear of being outed; and in another world where he was free to be himself. "One of the hardest things for me to reconcile was the fact that I was completely open with my family and friends but faced the very real possibility of being court martialed and going to jail if I was open with my 'work' colleagues." As Reichen explains, "The don't ask don't tell policy is so contradictory to what the Air Force and all the armed forces stand for ... but they force you to lie in order to serve your country." It was the contradictions which led Reichen to leave the Air Force once he completed his commitment. Happenstance brought Reichen to meet a friend at a Los Angeles restaurant where he was approached by the casting director for "The Amazing Race." Reichen believes his military training was extremely helpful in his winning the show's million dollar prize.

Fascinating Facts About Classic Movies


Mark J. Asher - 2014
    It's filled with unintended consequences that were turned into cinematic gold, and great behind-the-scenes details about unforgettable films like Gone With The Wind, Citizen Kane, The Wizard of Oz, Titanic, The Godfather, and many others. Inside, you'll discover: * What infamous movie line came from a Bruce Springsteen concert. * Which actor had to leave the The Wizard of Oz due to an allergic reaction to the makeup. * How Al Pacino got the idea to yell "Attica! Attica!" in Dog Day Afternoon. * Why the movie Back To The Future was almost called Spaceman From Pluto. * What Star Wars character was inspired by George Lucas' dog. * What famous fried chicken restaurant chain was named after a detective in a movie. * Why Frank Sinatra was angry at Spike Lee after Do The Right Thing. * Which classic film inspired several famous cartoon characters. * Which controversial film premiere Martin Luther King, Jr. attended as a ten-year-old. * Which classic film Muhammad Ali almost stared in as a boxer.

Haunted Hollywood: Tinseltown Terrors, Filmdom Phantoms, and Movieland Mayhem


Tom Ogden - 2009
    Haunted Hollywood brings together more than two dozen stories about historic landmarks, theaters, watering holes, hotels, and houses that are haunted by movie stars, television personalities, and other celebrities.

Homo Domesticus: Notes from a Same-Sex Marriage


David Valdes Greenwood - 2006
    Here are the highpoints (and some low points) that chart any good relationship: from the first blush of romance; to meeting the in-laws; to forgetting your pants at your own wedding; to figuring out in those first years that "life as a couple is all about discovering just how many things you can approach differently without actually killing each other"; and finally, of sharing that first great love, a child. Poignant and smart, these notes from a same-sex marriage will strike a chord with anyone who has ever known just how outrageous, challenging, and maddeningly wonderful the ties of love can be, no matter what configuration your family.

Beverly Hills Confidential: A Century of Stars Scandals and Murders


Barbara Schroeder - 2012
    Co-written by Clark Fogg, the lead CSI investigator for the Beverly Hills police department and Barbara Schroeder, Emmy-award winning journalist, this book is “A rip-roaring read,” documenting not only long forgotten scandals and crimes, but also those that made international headlines.

The Name Below The Title, Volume 2: 20 MORE Classic Movie Character Actors From Hollywood's Golden Age


Rupert Alistair - 2015
     Not only did they support the leading stars in Hollywood films, they also added an extra dimension that make these movies all the more golden. In this sequel, even more character players' lives and careers are featured, with interesting insight into their personal lives and backgrounds, as well as their stunning film contributions. If you like Old Hollywood and Turner Classic Movies is your go-to movie channel, you will enjoy The Name Below The Title, Volume 2: 20 MORE Classic Movie Character Actors From Hollywood's Golden Age. Click "Buy Now" and enjoy fun and interesting insight into a time gone by.

Passage Across the Mersey


Robert Bhatia - 2017
    Later in life, Helen wrote a ground-breaking series of memoirs, starting with Twopence to Cross the Mersey, which told the harrowing account of her family’s struggles in Depression-era Liverpool. It was a story filled with tragedy and small triumphs but many readers wondered what happened to Helen when she grew up; what became of the fragile young girl who had so much responsibility heaped on her shoulders?Now for the first time, her son Robert recounts the unexpected life that Helen went on to live; of the remarkable love story with a young man from a background a million miles away from everything a Lancashire Lass like Helen would have known and of the astonishing lengths she went to in order to achieve happiness. Full of new revelations and fascinating detail never before revealed, Passage Across the Mersey is a story of an extraordinary woman, and of the journey that took her thousands of miles from the place she called home…

Did Lincoln Own Slaves?: And Other Frequently Asked Questions About Abraham Lincoln


Gerald J. Prokopowicz - 2008
    Was he the great emancipator or a racist? If he were alive today, could he get elected? Did he die rich? Did scientists raise Lincoln from the dead? From the seemingly lighthearted to the most serious Gerald Prokopowicz tackles each question with balance and authority, and weaves a complete, satisfying biography that will engage young and old, scholars and armchair historians alike.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Natalie and R.J


Warren G. Harris - 1988
    Their devotion so intense they wed each other not once, but twice. In the first book to focus on both Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner, the author of the bestseller Gable & Lombard and the critically acclaimed book Cary Grant gives us a scintillating portrait of this glamorous and exciting couple from their early years working for the studio system to the final, shattering hours before Natalie Wood's life tragically ended. We follow them on their roller-coaster ride of the ups and downs and the magic and the madness of this couple who became Hollywood royalty.

If You Ain't a Pilot...


Ray Wright - 2016
    Though competing against one another for the flying assignments of their dreams, like the fearsome F-15 and F-16 fighters, a good mission sometimes takes a backseat to a good party or punch line in this classroom of cut-ups. The high stakes, however, loom over Lt. Wright. In a program where one out of three students fails, not everybody who starts UPT will finish it. And not everybody who does finish will get a desirable flying assignment. Some won’t even escape the Columbus Air Force Base. Will Lt. Wright get his dream assignment flying a C-141 cargo plane based out of beachside Charleston, South Carolina? Or be forced to perpetuate the If you ain’t a pilot… system as the dreaded FAIP (First Assignment Instructor Pilot) in Columbus, Mississippi? Though a military memoir, IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT… is a story of youthful innocence, a happy tale of the best of friends. Beneath the story’s surface layer of how an Air Force officer’s aeronautical rating determines his worth, similar thematic layers unfold around gender, race, and other ways people define each other. At its core, this story is about people, our relationships, and how we choose to treat each other. While 30 years have passed since the memoir’s events—and our aircraft, our enemy, and our pop-culture ties have changed—we still struggle with our differences. IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT taps into the mystic of Top Gun, the satirical wryness of Candide and Catch-22, and the allure of the air-travel genre captured by Mark Vanhoenacker’s recent Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot (2015), Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, and James Salter’s The Hunters. Set at the end of the Cold War in the heart of Dixie, IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT…crosses Top Gun adrenaline with Pee-Wee’s Playhouse antics at a flight training base where Air Force idealism collides with Deep South heritage. Complete at 142,000 words, this comedic memoir written for a general audience charts the year when a newly commissioned officer is challenged not only by flight school but also by the Air Force dictum If you ain’t a pilot, you ain’t $#!+. That said, the primary mission for IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT...is to make readers laugh. While the story is written for a non-military audience, military pilots, civilian pilots, and any person who ever dreamed about flying as a kid will love IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT….

Confessions of a Late Night Talk Show Host: The Autobiography of Larry Sanders


Garry Shandling - 1998
    (He had a very big bed.) "Confessions of a Late Night Talk Show Host" is a Hollywood autobiography like no other because it reveals all -- the loves and losses, the pain and joy, the shrinks and doctors -- and it is uproariously funny. Larry Sanders has written a book that will have the same ten-year run that his show did. Larry Sanders is no ordinary man, and this book will show America and the world how very different he is. Fueled by an enormous need to be loved and gifted with a talent beyond even his own, Sanders has risen to the top of his field -- and dropped -- while retaining all of his dignity and modesty. As he says on the first page of his story, "I'm famous. Actually, I'm very, very, very famous." Sanders's story is laced with the names (and some of the faces) of the thousands of celebrities who have sought his attention for a decade -- and Sanders tells the world what he thinks of all of them, even if it hurts his own feelings."Confessions of a Late Night Talk Show Host" is a Hollywood tell-all that will forever change the nature of this kind of book. While Geraldo Rivera used his sexual exploits to shamelessly promote his book, Sanders uses his conquests of thousands of women to illustrate his compassion and grace. "If it sells, it sells," Sanders says. "There was never a hidden agenda." While Roseanne used her book to promote her manypersonalities, Sanders's book shows how a straight-shooter can not only survive but thrive in Hollywood. Most of all, Sanders, in truthfully disclosing all aspects of his life and those of people he has never met, hopes to heal and entertain. Sanders has written a wonderfully hilarious book that will make some of his fans wish he were back.

Tony Accardo is Joe Batters


Neil Gordon - 2018
    Throw in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and the murders of John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, Marilyn Monroe, Bugsy Siegel, Sam Giancana, Lucky Luciano, Tony the Ant Spilotro, Johnny Roselli and Jimmy Hoffa. Toss in Hollywood scandal and the mobbed up career of Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack. Now you can begin to grasp the epic story of Tony Accardo. Why has this story never been told? Accardo killed everyone in his path: family, friends, cops, reporters, movie stars, and politicians. Operating from deep within the shadows Tony influenced national policy, exploited the FBI, owned politicians, and fixed presidential elections. Connected to every gangster from Al Capone to Lucky Luciano to John Gotti, Joe Batters is the must-read that every Godfather fan is craving.

Pierrepoint: A Family of Executioners: A Family of Executioners


Steve Fielding - 2006
    The dynasty began in 1901 with Henry Pierrepoint, who was followed into the gruesome profession by his brother Thomas, and in time, his eldest son Albert. Between them, they carried out an amazing 900 executions. This book recounts the lives and tales of the Pierrepoint family, their reasons for taking up the profession, and the inside details of the execution cases and the deeds themselves. Insight is shed on the feuds and intense rivalry between fellow hangmen, as well as the notorious cases that kept the family firmly in the spotlight. With extracts from diaries and comments on the family's representation in the media, this book provides a fascinating look at a profession that is long gone, but certainly not forgotten.