How does an actor embody a character? How do they use their body as an instrument of expression? Rethinking the Actor's Body offers an accessible introduction to the fields of neurophysiology and embodied knowledge through a detailed examination of what an actor does with their body. Built on almost a decade of conversations and public seminars by the author Dick McCaw in partnership with John Rothwell (Professor of Neurophysiology at University College London, UK), Rethinking the Actor's Body explores a set of questions and preoccupations concerning the actor's body and examines overlaps in research and practice in the fields of actor training, embodied knowledge and neurophysiology.

From movie villains to scream queens, here are interviews with 36 actors and actresses familiar to fans of sixties and seventies cult cinema. Interviewees include the well-known (David Carradine, Christopher Lee), the relatively obscure (Marrie Lee), sex symbols (Valerie Leon), surfers who became movie stars (Don Stroud), and action heroes (Fred Williamson), among many others. Each interview is accompanied by a biography and filmography.

Just as the Academy Awards have an impact upon stars and their careers, their achievements influence the Academy and contribute to the rich history of the Oscars. Upset wins, jarring losses and glaring oversights have helped define the careers of Hollywood icons, while unknown actors have proven that timing sometimes beats notoriety or even talent. With detailed discussion of their performances and Awards night results, this book describes how 107 actors earned the Academy's favor - and how 117 others were overlooked.

The hardback of this first and authorised biography received very good reviews and immediately reprinted. It tells the story of one of the heroines of post-war British comedy, on radio, film and TV. Hattie Jacques is known as the billowing, imposing Matron in the Carry On films, as the star of such BBC radio classics as ITMA, Educating Archie and Hancock' s Half Hour, and as the fictional sister of Eric Sykes in his long-running TV sitcom. But the formidable, frumpy galleon-in-full-sail screen persona could not have been more at odds with the real-life woman, as this biography reveals for the first time. She had a tempestuous wartime affair with an American officer, and then a strange marriage to the actor John le Mesurier (Corporal Wilson in Dad' s Army) whose dissatisfactions she circumnavigated by moving her lover, a flashy Cockney car dealer, into the matrimonial home. But as well as being warm and sexy and generous she was also, owing to her lifelong struggle with her weight, needy and melancholic, and rueful that her size persistently typecast her and excluded her from many roles. This biography has been written with full co-operation from Hattie' s son, and show business friends like Barbara Windsor, Clive Dunn, Galton and Simpson and Ian Carmichael.

Born into a family of vaudevillians, Buster Keaton made his first film appearance in 1917 at the age of 21. By the early 1920s, he had established himself as one of the geniuses of silent cinema with such films as Sherlock, Jr. and The Navigator and his 1925 work, The General, placed at number 18 in the American Film Institute's poll of the 100 greatest features, the highest ranked silent film on the survey. But with the advent of sound in the late 1920s, silent stars like Keaton began to fall out of favor and the great comedian's career began to decline. In The Fall of Buster Keaton, James Neibaur assesses Keaton's work during the talking picture era, especially those made at MGM, Educational, and Columbia studios. While giving some attention to the early part of Keaton's career, Neibaur focuses on Keaton's contract work with the three studios, as well as his subsequent work as a gagman, supporting player, and television pitchman. The book also recounts the resurgence of interest in Keaton's silent work, which resulted in a lifetime achievement Oscar and worldwide recognition before his death in 1966. This fascinating account of an artist's struggle and triumph during the more challenging period of his career will be of interest to anyone wanting to learn about one of film's most influential performers.

American filmmaker John Cassavetes (1929-1989) made only nine independent films during a quarter century, but those films affected the cinema culture of the 1960s to the 1980s in unprecedented ways. With a close nucleus of actors and crew members on his team, including his wife Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, and Ben Gazzara, Cassavetes created films that explored the gritty side of human relationships. He staunchly advocated the right of actors and filmmakers to full artistic freedom over their work. Attracting both fervent admirers and harsh critics, Cassavetes's films have garnered prestigious awards in the US and Europe and continue to evoke strong reactions. Starting in New York with his first film Shadows, Cassavetes moved on to the West Coast with Faces, Husbands, Minnie and Moskowitz, A Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Opening Night, Gloria, and Love Streams. He also directed several studio films, which often rankled his independent streak that rebelled against a loss of artistic freedom. Cassavetes's work in the theater and his performances in numerous television programs and films, including The Dirty Dozen and Rosemary's Baby, made him, as a director, fiercely protective of his actors' right to self-expression.

Early in the twentieth century, the political humorist Will Rogers was arguably the most famous cowboy in America. And though most in his vast audience didn't know it, he was also the most famous Indian of his time. Those who know of Rogers's Cherokee heritage and upbringing tend to minimize its importance, or to imagine that Rogers himself did so-notwithstanding his avowal in interviews: "I'm a Cherokee and they're the finest Indians in the World." The truth is, throughout his adult life and his work the Oklahoma cowboy made much of his American Indian background. And in doing so, as Amy Ware suggests in this book, he made Cherokee artistry a fundamental part of American popular culture. Rogers, whose father was a prominent and wealthy Cherokee politician and former Confederate slaveholder, was born into the Paint Clan in the town of Oolagah in 1879 and raised in the Cooweescoowee District of the Cherokee Nation. Ware maps out this milieu, illuminating the familial and social networks, as well as the Cherokee ranching practices, educational institutions, popular publications and heated political debates that so firmly grounded Rogers in the culture of the Cherokees. Through his early career, from Wild West and vaudeville performer to Ziegfeld Follies headliner in the late 1910s, she reveals how Rogers embodied the seemingly conflicting roles of cowboy and Indian, in effect enacting the blending of these identities in his art. Rogers's work in the film industry also reflected complex notions of American Indian identity and history, as Ware demonstrates in her reading of the clearest examples, including Laughing Billy Hyde, in which Rogers, an Indian, portrayed a white prospector married to an Indian woman- who was played by a white actress. In his work as a columnist for the New York Times, and in his radio performances, Ware continues to trace the Cherokee influence on Rogers's material-and in turn its impact on his audiences. It is in these largely uncensored performances that we see another side of Rogers' Cherokee persona-a tribal elitism that elevated the Cherokee above other Indian nations. Ware's exploration of this distinction exposes still-common assumptions regarding Native authenticity in the history of American culture, even as her in-depth look at Will Rogers's heritage and legacy reshapes our perspective on the Native presence in that history, and in the life and work of a true American icon.

Fans and critics alike perceive Wong Kar-wai (b. 1958) as an enigma. His dark glasses, his nonlinear narrations, and his high expectations for actors all contribute to an assumption that he only makes art for a few highbrow critics. However, Wong's interviews show this Hong Kong auteur is candid about the art of filmmaking, even surprising his interlocutors by suggesting his films are commercial and made for a popular audience. Wong's achievements nevertheless feel like art-house cinema. His third film, Chungking Express, introduced him to a global audience captivated by the quick and quirky editing style. His Cannes award-winning films Happy Together and In the Mood for Love confirmed an audience beyond the greater Chinese market. His latest film, The Grandmaster, depicts the life of a kung fu master by breaking away from the martial arts genre. In each of these films, Wong Kar-wai's signature style-experimental, emotive, character-driven, and timeless-remains apparent throughout. This volume includes interviews that appear in English for the first time, including some that appeared in Hong Kong magazines now out of print. The interviews cover every feature film from Wong's debut As Tears Go By to his 2013 The Grandmaster.

This is the first book dedicated to Brian Donlevy, an underrated actor who was often typecast as a villain but who had a surprising range and an unheralded gift for comedy. Separating fact from fiction, the narrative charts his colorful early life as a boy soldier, his years playing comedy on Broadway, and details his long career in Hollywood. Although he made a decided impact as the bad guy in such classics as Destry Rides Again, Union Pacific and Beau Geste, he also displayed his range in the title role of Preston Sturges' timeless political satire The Great McGinty (1940). Thereafter he impressed both the New York critics and the Soviet government as the epitome of calm authority in Wake Island. He showed to good effect in a wide variety of films including The Glass Key, Kiss of Death, Canyon Passage, Command Decision, Song of Scheherazade, Impact and The Big Combo among many others. He was fondly remembered as a globe-trotting detective in the television series Dangerous Assignment, and as Professor Quatermass in two acclaimed science fiction films.]

Now available as an ebook for the first time
No one knows the writer's Hollywood more intimately than William Goldman. Two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter and the bestselling author of Marathon Man, Tinsel, Boys and Girls Together, and other novels, Goldman now takes you into Hollywood's inner sanctums...on and behind the scenes for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, and other films...into the plush offices of Hollywood producers...into the working lives of acting greats such as Redford, Olivier, Newman, and Hoffman...and into his own professional experiences and creative thought processes in the crafting of screenplays. You get a firsthand look at why and how films get made and what elements make a good screenplay. Says columnist Liz Smith, "You'll be fascinated.

Since the late 1990s, Rupert Goold has garnered a reputation as one of the UK's most exciting and provocative theatre directors. His exhilarating, risk-taking productions of both classic texts and new plays have travelled from regional stages to the National Theatre, the West End, Broadway and beyond. Through his artistic directorship of Northampton's Royal & Derngate, the touring theatre company Headlong and London's Almeida Theatre, he has radically transformed, not only the companies themselves, but the landscape of British theatre. This is the first book to survey and analyse the full range of Goold's work to date and is a vital resource for students, scholars and fans of his work. Based on extensive interviews with Goold and some of the playwrights, designers, actors and other creatives who have collaborated with him, The Theatre of Rupert Goold provides an account of Goold's work from the beginnings of his career to the present day, offering a backstage view of the creative processes behind some of his most successful productions including: Paradise Lost, Faustus (Royal & Derngate); Macbeth (Chichester Festival Theatre); The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet (RSC); Six Characters in Search of an Author, ENRON (Headlong); Time and the Conways (National Theatre); Charles III and Ink (Almeida). The Theatre of Rupert Goold is an accessible and fascinating guide to Goold's approach to making theatre, an approach that asks provocative questions of the modern world in the most theatrical ways imaginable.

From the late 1940s to the early '60s, Marilyn Monroe appeared in barely thirty movies, beginning with bit parts and moving on into supporting roles for such films as The Asphalt Jungle, All About Eve, and Clash by Night. She soon shot to international fame and gained prominent roles in a number of classics like The Seven Year Itch, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Some Like It Hot. By the time of her early death in 1962, she had already become established as one of the great icons of the silver screen. playwrights, filmmakers, and others looking to cash in on her tremendous impact. In The Immortal Marilyn: The Depiction of an Icon, authors John DeVito and Frank Tropea chronicle the many representations of Marilyn Monroe in the performing arts, from the 1950s to the present day. In a decade-by-decade review, the authors examine how Marilyn is portrayed in four distinct modes: as herself, as a Roman a Clef character, as a referent, and as a documentary subject. By looking closely at these individual works, the authors reveal the ways in which her persona, her history, and - most of all - her image have been appropriated for both fact and fiction. adaptations of works by Norman Mailer and Joyce Carol Oates to an ever-growing list of documentaries, Marilyn has been the subject of countless depictions on stage, screen, radio and television. Monroe is adored, imitated, and idolised, and the enormous amount of material written about her - either directly or indirectly - proves that she will continue to be a source of interest and speculation. has come to assume, this book attempts to encapsulate and understand the enormous influence the actress had on the public and the wide range of creative talents who found her such an intriguing subject. This book includes a filmography of Monroe's work as well as a chronological iconography that list the many depictions of her in film, television, radio, and stage. As both a reference source and cultural study, The Immortal Marilyn is a unique look at one of the most alluring and enduring figures of the twentieth century.

The Ritual Theatre of Theodoros Terzopoulos outlines the story of the Athenian-based Attis Theatre and the way its founder and director, Theodoros Terzopoulos, introduced bio-energetic presences of the body on the stage, in an attempt to redefine and reappraise what it means today not only to have a body, but to fully be a body. Terzopoulos created a very specific attitude towards life and death, and it is this broad perspective on energy and consciousness that makes his work so appealing both to a general public and to students of arts, theatre and drama. Freddy Decreus' study charts the career of Greece's most acclaimed theatre director and provides a spiritual and philosophic answer in times where former Western meta-narratives have failed.

Characters are central to our experiences of screened fictions and invite a host of questions. The contributors to Screening Characters draw on archival material, interviews, philosophical inquiry, and conceptual analysis in order to give new, thought-provoking answers to these queries. Providing multifaceted accounts of the nature of screen characters, contributions are organized around a series of important subjects, including issues of class, race, ethics, and generic types as they are encountered in moving image media. These topics, in turn, are personified by such memorable figures as Cary Grant, Jon Hamm, Audrey Hepburn, and Seul-gi Kim, in addition to avatars, online personalities, animated characters, and the ensembles of shows such as The Sopranos, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad.

This book reinterprets British dramas of the early-nineteenth century through the lens of the star actors for whom they were written. Unlike most playwrights of previous generations, the writers of British Romantic dramas generally did not work in the theatre themselves. However, they closely followed the careers of star performers. Even when they did not directly know actors, they had what media theorists have dubbed "para-social interactions" with those stars, interacting with them through the mediation of mass communication, whether as audience members, newspaper and memoir readers, or consumers of prints, porcelain miniatures, and other manifestations of "fan" culture. This study takes an in-depth look at four pairs of performers and playwrights: Sarah Siddons and Joanna Baillie, Julia Glover and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edmund Kean and Lord Byron, and Eliza O'Neill and Percy Bysshe Shelley. These charismatic performers, knowingly or not, helped to guide the development of a character-based theatre-from the emotion-dominated plays made popular by Baillie to the pinnacle of Romantic drama under Shelley. They shepherded in a new style of writing that had verbal sophistication and engaged meaningfully with the moral issues of the day. They helped to create not just new modes of acting, but new ways of writing that could make use of their extraordinary talents.

Tall, dark and handsome, with a manufactured name and a scrupulously designed professional image, Rock Hudson represented the Hollywood ideal of American masculinity during the 1950s and 60s; an ideal that was to be questioned and ultimately undermined during the years to follow by lurid accounts of his private life and his death from AIDS related illness. This illuminating analysis of Hudson's career reassesses the perceived disparity between his public persona and his 'true' nature. Exploring his unique qualities as a performer and exposing the role of his agent, producers and directors in the construction of his image, John Mercer unpicks Hudson's stardom to reveal a more complex star identity than has hitherto been understood. Foregrounding the ways in which Hudson's career provides insights into the nature of American popular culture and attitudes towards gender and sexuality, Mercer ultimately depicts Hudson as a star who embodied a period of transition between the old Hollywood and the new.

From the 2-time Tony Award-winner and the star of TV's Younger, funny and intimate stories and reflections about how crafting has kept her sane while navigating the highs and lows of family, love, and show business (and how it can help you, too). Whether she's playing an "age-defying" book editor on television or dazzling audiences on the Broadway stage, Sutton Foster manages to make it all look easy. How? Crafting. From the moment she picked up a cross stitch needle to escape the bullying chorus girls in her early performing days, she was hooked. Cross stitching led to crocheting, crocheting led to collages, which led to drawing, and so much more. Channeling her emotions into her creations centered Sutton as she navigated the significant moments in her life and gave her tangible reminders of her experiences. Now, in this charming and poignant collection, Sutton shares those moments, including her fraught relationship with her agoraphobic mother; a painful divorce splashed on the pages of the tabloids; her struggles with fertility; the thrills she found on the stage during hit plays like Thoroughly Modern Millie, Anything Goes, and Violet; her breakout TV role in Younger; and the joy of adopting her daughter, Emily. Accompanying the stories, Sutton has included crochet patterns, recipes, and so much more! Witty and poignant, Hooked will leave readers entertained as well as inspire them to pick up their own cross stitch needles and paintbrushes.

Post World War II America saw a return to prosperity and the rise of a significant youth-culture. Television began to replace movies as the chief source of entertainment for the general public, and adolescents and single young adults began to constitute the largest portion of the audience for movies. With his youthful appearance, Montgomery Clift held special appeal to this new market, and he became one of the foremost American actors of his time. This book details his many performances. The introductory biography offers a succinct summary of Clift's life and the forces that shaped his work. The chapters that follow contain annotated entries for all of his work in plays, films, radio, and television. Entries present plot summaries, cast and credit information, critical analyses, and excerpts from reviews. The book gives equal attention to his lesser-known films and stage career, as to his most memorable performances. An extensive annotated bibliography cites and evaluates books, articles, and miscellaneous sources of information about Clift and includes fictional works in which he appears as a character.

From the bestselling author of Shout!, comes the definitive biography of Eric Clapton, a Rock legend whose life story is as remarkable as his music, which transformed the sound of a generation. For half a century Eric Clapton has been acknowledged to be one of music's greatest virtuosos, the unrivalled master of an indispensable tool, the solid-body electric guitar. His career has spanned the history of rock, and often shaped it via the seminal bands with whom he's played: the Yardbirds, John Mavall's Bluesbreakers, Cream, Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominoes. Winner of 17 Grammys, the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame's only three-time inductee, he is an enduring influence on every other star soloist who ever wielded a pick. Now, with Clapton's consent and access to family members and close friends, rock music's foremost biographer returns to the heroic age of British rock and follows Clapton through his distinctive and scandalous childhood, early life of reckless rock 'n' roll excess, and twisting & turning struggle with addiction in the 60s and 70s. Readers will learn about his relationship with Pattie Boyd -- wife of Clapton's own best friend George Harrison -- the tragic death of his son, which inspired one of his most famous songs, Tears in Heaven, and even the backstories of his most famed, and named, guitars. Packed with new information and critical insights, Slowhand finally reveals the complex character behind a living legend.

Funny yet down-to-earth, honest yet full of exaggeration, actor Walter Matthau (1920-2000) will always occupy a place in America's heart as one of the great comic talents of his generation. Born Walter Matuschanskayasky into Jewish tenements on New York's Lower East Side, he was a child actor in New York Yiddish theater, and later a World War II Air Force radioman-gunner. He paid dues for ten years on Broadway, in summer stock, and on television before landing his film debut The Kentuckian in 1955. By the time of his 1968 casting as cantankerous but lovable slob Oscar Madison in the film version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, Matthau had won major Hollywood stardom. Based on dozens of interviews and extensive research, this book covers the breadth of his often-complicated personal life and multi-faceted career, including his unforgettable performances in such films as The Fortune Cookie, A Guide for the Married Man, Plaza Suite, Charley Varrick, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The Sunshine Boys, The Bad News Bears, California Suite, and Grumpy Old Men.

When Simon Cadell announced to the world that he may have only days to live, it signalled the end of a twenty-year stage career that had just seen its finest hour-winning an Olivier Award for `Travels With My Aunt'. The British public had fallen in love with the charms of Cadell as Jeffrey Fairbrother, part of the hugely successful sitcom `Hi-de-hi!', constantly dodging the amorous advances of Ruth Madoc's Gladys Pugh. But behind the lop-sided smile lay a man full of nerves and insecurity about the looks that ultimately defined his television career. As the hapless civil servant Mr Dundridge, in `Blott on the Landscape' he displayed perfect incompetence played to perfection, brought to triumph by his naked escape from the clutches of Lady Maud as played by Geraldine James. Equally adept at Shakespeare and Chekhov as he was with Whitehall-style farces, Cadell's was a highly respected stage career achieved via a relentless workload. His many appearances as Noel Coward earned him a reputation as the definitive Coward interpreter, something he had first turned his hand to at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. With access to family photographs and documentation, and sourced by numerous interviews, `Simon Cadell: The Authorised Biography' tells for the first time the story of a fourth generation actor who oozed charm and had a zest for a life that was cut tragically short at the peak of his powers.

Vade Mecum brings together Richard Skinner's best essays, reviews and interviews from 1992-2014. There are close critical engagements with writers (Kazuo Ishiguro, Italo Calvino, Shakespeare's The Tempest) and composers (Erik Satie, Iannis Xenakis, Luc Ferrari), meditations on films and filmmakers (Antonioni, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Chinatown) and idiosyncratic reflections on Werner Herzog's Of Walking in Ice and Steely Dan.