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Books > Biography > Film, television, music, theatre
An entertaining and inspiring behind-the-scenes look at a Hollywood
life and a remarkable love, told in the words of beloved actor
Patrick Swayze and his wife, Lisa Niemi, shortly before he passed
away.
In a career spanning more than thirty years, Patrick Swayze made a
name for himself on the stage and screen with his versatility,
passion, and fearlessness. Always a fighter, Patrick refused to let
the diagnosis of stage IV pancreatic cancer in February 2008 defeat
him. Patrick and Lisa's bravery inspired legions of fans, cancer
patients, and their loved ones, yet this memoir, written with
wisdom and heart, recounts so much more. Revealed in vivid detail
is Patrick's Texas upbringing, his personal struggles, his rise to
fame, and how his soul mate Lisa stood by his side through it all.
"
The Time of My Life "opens the door for families, individuals, and
husbands and wives to grow, bond, and discover entirely new levels
of love and sharing, proving that life shouldn't be lived as a
series of endings, but rather as the beginning of greater strength
and love.
Eric Wetherell led a varied and rewarding career. After his student
days at Oxford and the Royal College of Music, he became an
orchestral horn player for various orchestras. In the late 50s he
was a repetiteur with the Royal Opera House where he worked closely
with Britten, Solti, Giulini, Sargent and Kempe whom he admired
above all. As assistant musical director with Welsh National Opera
he worked on most of the large grand operas. At the first
performance by the Welsh National Opera in Bristol in 1968, Eric
conducted 'Rigoletto'. Ken Loveland (The Times) wrote "Eric
Wetherell's conducting, tense, tightly controlled, and completely
informed about all the dramatic stresses which make this Italian
opera's first really great score, was a foundation on which a
convincing stage performance could grow..." (Eric was invited to
the WNO's 50th anniversary production at the Bristol Hippodrome in
2018). During his time as principal conductor of the BBC Northern
Ireland Orchestra and senior producer for BBC Radio 3 in the South
West, he was in the position to play an enormous range of music
from light classics and jazz to Haydn and Strauss within a single
recording session. A lover of film all his life, he extended his
composition skills to writing film music, in particular when he was
Musical Director for Harlech Television in Wales and the South
West. He went on to produce short films which he edited himself,
and film scripts based on subjects that held a great interest for
him. An excellent and enthusiastic jazz man, he led two jazz
orchestra in South Wales and, later, in Bristol. He also enjoyed
playing as part of a jazz quartet, particularly enjoying the
informality of pub gigs. His love of humour and his many anecdotes,
often true stories from his professional career, endeared him to
the many people he came in contact with.
"A frank, intriguing memoir."
--People "Painfully shrewd, and written with real delicacy and
pathos."
--The New York Times Book Review "Home reflects the very qualities
that first made the working-class English singer a star 45 years
ago: intelligence, gentle humor, and a clear, sweet, surprisingly
powerful voice . . . In warmly nostalgic later chapters, the book
begins to glow."
--Entertainment Weekly "A delightful remembrance of her own
childhood, and an engrossing prelude to her cinematic career . . .
Andrews is an accomplished writer who holds back nothing while
adding a patina of poetry to the antics and anecdotes throughout
this memoir of bittersweet backstage encounters and theatrical
triumphs."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Frank and fascinating . . .
Andrews comes across as plainspoken, guilelessly charming and
resoundingly tough."
--Time In Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, Julie Andrews 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.
For more than thirty years, Jerome John Garcia played guitar and
sang in the traveling menagerie and living social experiment called
the Grateful Dead. What started as a jug band in Palo Alto evolved
into a rock and roll institution, playing to audiences composed of
both gray-bearded boomers and tie-dyed baby Deadheads. At the
center of this phenomenon was Jerry, whose musical gifts and
affable manner made him the symbol of all things magical. In Dark
Star, we see Garcia through the eyes of those closest to him, who
speak for the first time since his death: the ex-wives and lovers
who did their best to make him happy but in the end always seemed
to lose him to the road; the close friends who watched in helpless
frustration as he battled a long-running heroin habit he tried
again and again to kick; the children of fellow members of the
Grateful Dead for whom he was the father he could never be to his
own daughters; the musicians who looked up to him as a guru and an
older brother.
With Barry Flanagan is a vivid account of a friendship that evolved
into a working relationship when Richard McNeff became 'spontaneous
fixer' (Flanagan's description) of the sculptor's show held in June
1992 at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Ibiza, where they were
both living. McNeff was to gain a privileged insight into the
sculptor's singular personality and eccentric working methods,
learning to decipher his memorably surreal turns of phrase and to
parry his fascinating, if at times unsettling, pranksteresque
quirks . In September 1992 Flanagan and McNeff took the show to
Majorca, resulting a lively visit to the celebrated Spanish artist
Miquel Barcelo. The following year McNeff was involved in
Flanagan's print- making venture in Barcelona and in his Madrid
retrospective. Flanagan rescued him from a rough landing in England
in 1994 by commissioning a tour of stone quarries there.
Subsequently McNeff ran into a fourteen- year-old profoundly deaf
girl who turned out to be his unknown daughter. She had a talent
for art and the superbly generous sculptor was instrumental in
helping with her studies. Late in 2008 Barry was diagnosed with
motor neurone disease. By June 2009 he was wheelchair- bound. Two
months later he died, and McNeff read the lesson at his funeral.
Fleshed out with biographical detail, much of it supplied by the
sculptor himself, supplemented by photographs and details of the
work, this touching memoir is the first retrospective of a major
Welsh-born artist. With Barry Flanagan captures the spirit of this
remarkable Merlinesque figure in a moving portrait that reveals a
true original.
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