This story brings to life the charming woman who was smart enough to become the dumbest woman in show business, told with intimacy and humor by the man who loved her most--her husband George Burns.

    Filled with stunning revelations about the men in her life—Burton, Clift, Hilton, Dean, Fisher—it is a glorious celebration of the turbulent life of a brilliant star that none in Hollywood or heaven could ever outshine.

    Columnists dubbed him “Hollywood Bachelor Number One,” and for good reason. His long-term relationships and momentary conquests were a who’s who of leading ladies, including Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Ginger Rogers, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Jane Wyman, Dorothy Lamour, Ann Sothern, Greer Garson, Merle Oberon, and Peggy Lee, to name just a few.Yet Bautzer was more than a Hollywood Don Juan. As a lawyer, he represented nearly every major star of his era, as well as the richest man in the world, Howard Hughes, for whom he served as adviser, confidant, and best friend. He also handled Hughes’s shadier deals, including writing checks for a harem of kept women and quashing potentially embarrassing tell-all biographies.In Hollywood history, no other lawyer has achieved the movie star–like fame and glamour that Bautzer enjoyed. The Man Who Seduced Hollywood tells, for the first time, the amazing story of a self-made man who for fifty years used his irresistible charm and prodigious legal talent to dominate the courtrooms, boardrooms, and bedrooms of Hollywood.In addition to new stories about Hughes, this biography contains countless anecdotes about Bautzer's other well-known clients and friends including Joan Crawford, Frank Sinatra, Ingrid Bergman, Rock Hudson, Bugsy Siegel, Robert Evans, Kirk Kerkorian and many more of the twentieth century's biggest stars.

    It’s also one of the only accounts; incredibly, there has never been an authoritative biography of Lee. Following a decade of research that included conducting more than one hundred interviews with Lee’s family, friends, business associates, and even the actress in whose bed Lee died, Polly has constructed a complex, humane portrait of the icon. Polly explores Lee’s early years as a child star in Hong Kong cinema; his actor father’s struggles with opium addiction and how that turned Bruce into a troublemaking teenager who was kicked out of high school and eventually sent to America to shape up; his beginnings as a martial arts teacher, eventually becoming personal instructor to movie stars like James Coburn and Steve McQueen; his struggles as an Asian-American actor in Hollywood and frustration seeing role after role he auditioned for go to a white actors in eye makeup; his eventual triumph as a leading man; his challenges juggling a sky-rocketing career with his duties as a father and husband; and his shocking end that to this day is still shrouded in mystery. Polly breaks down the myths surrounding Bruce Lee and argues that, contrary to popular belief, he was an ambitious actor who was obsessed with the martial arts—not a kung-fu guru who just so happened to make a couple of movies. This is an honest, revealing look at an impressive yet imperfect man whose personal story was even more entertaining and inspiring than any fictional role he played onscreen.

    With a cast of famous faces including Rob Reiner, Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, and Billy Crystal, Carlson takes readers on a rollicking, revelatory trip to Ephron's New York City, where reality took a backseat to romance and Ephron--who always knew what she wanted and how she wanted it--ruled the set with an attention to detail that made her actors feel safe but sometimes exasperated crew members. Along the way, Carlson examines how Ephron explored in the cinema answers to the questions that plagued her own romantic life and how she regained faith in love after one broken engagement and two failed marriages. Carlson also explores countless other questions Ephron's fans have wondered about: What sparked Reiner to snap out of his bachelor blues during the making of When Harry Met Sally? Why was Ryan, a gifted comedian trapped in the body of a fairytale princess, not the first choice for the role? After she and Hanks each separatel balked at playing Mail's Kathleen Kelly and Sleepless' Sam Baldwin, what changed their minds? And perhaps most importantly: What was Dave Chappelle doing ... in a turtleneck? An intimate portrait of a one of America's most iconic filmmakers and a look behind the scenes of her crowning achievements, I'll Have What She's Having is a vivid account of the days and nights when Ephron, along with assorted cynical collaborators, learned to show her heart on the screen.

    He started out as an actor (he debuted on the stage in his sixth-grade production of Finian’s Rainbow); he watched actors work (he went to the theater every week from the age of thirteen and saw every important show on, or off, Broadway for the next decade); he studied acting, starting at sixteen, with Stella Adler (his work with her became the foundation for all he would ever do as an actor and a director).Now, in his new book, Who the Hell’s in It, Bogdanovich draws upon a lifetime of experience, observation and understanding of the art to write about the actors he came to know along the way; actors he admired from afar; actors he worked with, directed, befriended. Among them: Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, John Cassavetes, Charlie Chaplin, Montgomery Clift, Marlene Dietrich, Henry Fonda, Ben Gazzara, Audrey Hepburn, Boris Karloff, Dean Martin, Marilyn Monroe, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, Frank Sinatra, and James Stewart.Bogdanovich captures—in their words and his—their work, their individual styles, what made them who they were, what gave them their appeal and why they’ve continued to be America’s iconic actors.On Lillian Gish: “the first virgin hearth goddess of the screen . . . a valiant and courageous symbol of fortitude and love through all distress.” On Marlon Brando: “He challenged himself never to be the same from picture to picture, refusing to become the kind of film star the studio system had invented and thrived upon—the recognizable human commodity each new film was built around . . . The funny thing is that Brando’s charismatic screen persona was vividly apparent despite the multiplicity of his guises . . . Brando always remains recognizable, a star-actor in spite of himself. ” Jerry Lewis to Bogdanovich on the first laugh Lewis ever got onstage: “I was five years old. My mom and dad had a tux made—I worked in the borscht circuit with them—and I came out and I sang, ‘Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?’ the big hit at the time . . . It was 1931, and I stopped the show—naturally—a five-year-old in a tuxedo is not going to stop the show? And I took a bow and my foot slipped and hit one of the floodlights and it exploded and the smoke and the sound scared me so I started to cry. The audience laughed—they were hysterical . . . So I knew I had to get the rest of my laughs the rest of my life, breaking, sitting, falling, spinning.”John Wayne to Bogdanovich, on the early years of Wayne’s career when he was working as a prop man: “Well, I’ve naturally studied John Ford professionally as well as loving the man. Ever since the first time I walked down his set as a goose-herder in 1927. They needed somebody from the prop department to keep the geese from getting under a fake hill they had for Mother Machree at Fox. I’d been hired because Tom Mix wanted a box seat for the USC football games, and so they promised jobs to Don Williams and myself and a couple of the players. They buried us over in the properties department, and Mr. Ford’s need for a goose-herder just seemed to fit my pistol.”These twenty-six portraits and conversations are unsurpassed in their evocation of a certain kind of great movie star that has vanished. Bogdanovich’s book is a celebration and a farewell.From the Hardcover edition.

    An insightful biography of a true screen legend, this book covers Elizabeth Taylor's journey through the dark and often lonely world of a fame unparalleled in the 1960s and 1970s, a time during which alcohol and drugs played a major part in her life.

    Born Rosita Dolores Alverio in the idyll of Puerto Rico, Moreno, at age five, embarked on a harrowing sea voyage with her mother and wound up in the harsh barrios of the Bronx, where she discovered dancing, singing, and acting as ways to escape a tumultuous childhood. Making her Broadway debut by age thirteen--and moving on to Hollywood in its Golden Age just a few years later--she worked alongside such stars as Gary Cooper, Yul Brynner, and Ann Miller.When discovered by Louis B. Mayer of MGM, the wizard himself declared: "She looks like a Spanish Elizabeth Taylor." Cast by Gene Kelly as Zelda Zanders in Singin' in the Rain and then on to her Oscar-winning performance in West Side Story, she catapulted to fame--yet found herself repeatedly typecast as the "utility ethnic," a role she found almost impossible to elude.Here, for the first time, Rita reflects on her struggles to break through Hollywood's racial and sexual barriers. She explores the wounded little girl behind the glamorous facade--and what it took to find her place in the world. She talks candidly about her relationship with Elvis Presley, her encounters with Howard Hughes, and the passionate romance with Marlon Brando that drove her to attempt suicide. And she shares the illusiveness of a "perfect" marriage and the incomparable joys of motherhood.Infused with Rita Moreno's quick wit and deep insight, this memoir is the dazzling portrait of a stage and screen star who longed to become who she really is--and triumphed.

    Others may know her from her role as Kit Porter on "The L Word." But that only defines one part of the legend that is Pam Grier. Foxy is Pam's testimony of her life, past and present. In it, she reveals her relationships with Richard Pryor, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Freddie Prinze Sr., among others. She unveils her experiences as a backup singer and a blaxploitation star. In particularly candid and shocking chapters, she shares-for the first time-her view of those films and the persecution that blacks, especially women, needed to endure to make a name for themselves . . . including how it felt to be labeled one of the most beautiful women alive, yet not be permitted to try on clothes in a department store because of the color of her skin. And in words sure to inspire many, she tells the story of her ongoing battle with cancer. From her disappointments to her triumphs, nothing is held back. With FOXY, Pam wishes to impart life lessons to her readers-and hopes to touch their hearts.

    As Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche Du Bois she took on some of the most pivotal roles in cinema history. Yet she was also a talented theatre actress with West End and Broadway plaudits to her name. In this ground-breaking new biography, Alan Strachan provides a completely new full-life portrait of Leigh, covering both her professional and personal life. Using previously-unseen sources from her archive, recently acquired by the V&A, he sheds new light on her fractious relationship with Laurence Olivier, based on their letters and diaries, as well as on the bipolar disorder which so affected her later life and work. Revealing new aspects of her early life as well as providing glimpses behind-the-scenes of the filming of "Gone with the Wind" and "A Streetcar Named Desire," this book provides the essential and comprehensive life-story of one of the twentieth century's greatest actresses.

    Its cast includes actors, writers, musicians and composers, producers and directors, racketeers and labor leaders, journalists and politicians in the turbulent decade from World War II to Korea.

    A woman who played children, wide-eyed and gamine. Skipping around in frills and cute curls. That’s how most people remember Mary Pickford. In reality, as Eileen Whitfield makes clear, Mary Pickford is a towering figure in movie history.Born in Toronto in 1892, Pickford began acting as a child, helping support her family after her father’s accidental death. She switched from stage to film at age 17, joining D.W. Griffith’s Biograph company, and became almost unimaginably popular. This allowed her to develop her own production company at Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players, and in 1919 she co-founded (along with D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, and her husband Douglas Fairbanks) United Artists, seizing not only creative control but also the marketing and distribution of her films.Eileen Whitfield recreates Pickford’s life in meticulously researched detail, from her trying days in turn-of-the-century Toronto to her reign as mistress of Pickfair, the legendary Los Angeles estate at which she and Fairbanks entertained the world’s elite, to her sadly moving demise. Along the way, Whitfield explores the intricate psychology that tied Pickford to her mother throughout her life, and analyzes Pickford’s brilliant innovations in the art of film acting; her profound influence on the movie business (paving the way for such powerful Hollywood women as Jodie Foster and Whoopi Goldberg); and her role in the history of fame (she was the object of a mass adoration that prefigured today’s cult of celebrity).Eight years in the making, Pickford: The Woman Who Made Hollywood is definitive biography. It brings Pickford to life as a complex knot of contradictions and establishes her as a ground-breaking genius, casting new light on one of the influential – and least understood – artists in the history of popular culture.Pickford was the subject of lengthy, appreciative features in The New Yorker and Film Comment, and was the basis of two television documentaries: on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Life and Times” and on the History Channel.

    The author provides vivid descriptions of classic pictures such as The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Sunrise, The Covered Wagon, and Greed, and lucidly discusses their technical and artistic merits and weaknesses. He pays tribute to acknowledged masters like D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and Lillian and Dorothy Gish, but he also gives ample attention to previously neglected yet equally gifted actors and directors. In addition, the book covers individual genres, such as the comedy, western gangster, and spectacle, and explores such essential but little-understood subjects as art direction, production design, lighting and camera techniques, and the art of the subtitle. Intended for all scholars, students, and lovers of film, this fascinating book, which features over 150 film stills, provides a rich and comprehensive overview of this unforgettable era in film history.

    Abrams, Director of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"The odds of me ever writing a book were approximately... Oh, never mind. My golden companion worries about such things - I don't. I have indeed now written a book - telling my story, in my voice, not his - recognising that our voices and our stories are inextricably intertwined." When Star Wars burst on to the big screen in 1977, an unfailingly polite golden droid called C-3PO captured imaginations around the globe. But C-3PO wasn't an amazing display of animatronics with a unique and unforgettable voiceover. Inside the metal costume was an actor named Anthony Daniels.In this deeply personal memoir, Anthony Daniels recounts his experiences of the epic cinematic adventure that has influenced pop culture for more than 40 years. For the very first time, he candidly describes his most intimate memories as the only actor to appear in every Star Wars film - from his first meeting with George Lucas to the final, emotional days on the set of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.With a foreword by J.J. Abrams and never-before-seen photography, this book is a nostalgic look back at the Skywalker saga as it comes to a close. I Am C-3PO: The Inside Story reveals Anthony Daniels' vulnerability, how he established his role and what he accomplished, and takes readers on a journey that just happens to start in a galaxy far, far away.

    The result is a picture which both supports and contradicts the charming vagabond persona depicted in Niven’s own bestselling memoirs.While millions throughout his life were enchanted by Niven’s happy-go-lucky charisma and world-class anecdotage, he was in many respects a private figure, haunted by a fear of failure, and a victim of several key tragedies in his personal life. Morley’s biography is a warm, appreciative but perceptive account which captures both sides of one of Hollywood’s most enduringly lovable figures.‘A compassionate account that goes past the blithe persona … yet, there is much humor—the actor’s and his biographer’s—in this notable book’ Publishers Weekly‘Head and shoulders above the average showbiz biography … He understands many of Niven’s deeper feelings’ John Mortimer, Sunday Times‘A well-told story … the darker side as well as the mask of a complex and perhaps desperate character. He was a life-enhancer off-screen as well as on’ The Times‘Shrewd and pleasing; shows how dark Niven’s moon could be’ Alexander Walker, Evening Standard