'England? It seemed to be raining the whole time . . . Or maybe it was me' MARILYN MONROE In July 1956, Marilyn Monroe arrived in London, on honeymoon with her husband Arthur Miller, to make The Sleeping Prince (later released as The Prince and the Showgirl) with Laurence Olivier. When the couple arrived at London Airport, they were looking forward to a peaceful stay. Marilyn would work during the day at Pinewood Studios, while Arthur would write. Then, in the evening, the couple would be able to relax together in their private English country cottage. It didn't quite turn out that way. The 'cottage' was actually a mansion, which belonged to Lord Drogheda, the managing director of the Financial Times. Raised in tiny hotel rooms and apartments, Marilyn felt herself being watched. She was, by Lord Drogheda's servants, who were selling stories to the papers. When filming began, it was a disaster. Director Joshua Logan had written to Olivier, offering advice on how to handle Marilyn as an actress, but Olivier ignored him. Instead, he condescended to her in his introduction to the cast, pooh-poohed her views on acting, and dismissed her stage-fright as an inconvenience. Marilyn grew to hate Olivier with a passion; the feeling was mutual. Marilyn found herself torn between settling into married life, being a curiosity for the frequently hostile British press, and her work on The Prince and the Showgirl. She took solace in small acts of kindness from members of the public, and a new fascination with Queen Elizabeth. Marilyn made a point of adopting some of the Queen's favourite brands, buying gloves from Cornelia James, perfume from Floris, and switching from Chanel No. 5 to Yardley's Lavender. Marilyn made a point of asking the film's PR manager to add a royal meeting to her schedule, but each day Olivier would delete the request. Michelle Morgan describes Marilyn's trip to late-1950s' Britain in evocative detail, exploring the making of the film alongside the film star's troubled private life and her quest to meet the Queen.

Introduction to the Alexander Technique, part of the brand-new Acting Essentials series, is the first textbook about the Alexander Technique written specially for undergraduates. This eight-week program can be taught over the course of half a semester, a full semester, or dipped into as needed to address students' issues with physicality, movement, breathing, voice and performance habits. The Alexander Technique has been a vital part of training for performers since the early 20th century. It is a core part of the curriculum at most acting conservatories and in many BFA programs. Sometimes considered purely a movement discipline, the Alexander Technique in fact takes into consideration the entire person-mind, body, voice, emotions, and imagination. Introduction to the Alexander Technique addresses the student's self as a whole and is suitable for beginning acting students in any academic setting, including those who take performance classes as an elective. The book also includes more than 150 practical, easy-to-follow exercises that help students reduce tension and improve their alignment, flexibility, and poise. The textbook is supported by a range of online videos demonstrating key exercises described throughout the book.

Ann Miller (1923-2004) was an American actress, dancer, singer and author. Best known as a tap dancer, Miller practiced all forms of dance, and some of her solo routines are considered as good as any recorded in film musical history. Despite a reputation as a kook who believed she was psychic, and the potentially flat image of a "glamour girl," Miller's wit, charm and genuine ability to act gave her and her characters depth. This biography presents Ann Miller's career in the context of her fascinating life. Her career began with child acting and included three Hollywood studio contracts, two retirements for marriage, and appearances in film, stage, variety shows, sitcoms and more. She made a comeback in the stage musical Sugar Babies, earning a Best Leading Actress in a Musical Tony Award nomination. She was even appointed an international spokesperson for MGM in the ailing years of the studio.

Now in paperback, this posthumous work by an American classic was a fitting last book, an instant bestseller, and a huge success! One of the undisputed heavyweight champions of American comedy, with nineteen appearances on the Johnny Carson show, thirteen HBO specials, five Grammys, and a critical Supreme Court battle over censorship under his belt, George Carlin saw it all throughout his extraordinary fifty-year career, and made fun of most of it. Last Words is the story of the man behind some of the most seminal comedy of the last half century, blending his signature acerbic humor with never-before-told stories from his own life, including encounters with a Who's Who of 1970s celebrity-from Lenny Bruce to Hugh Hefner-and the origins of some of his most famous standup routines. Carlin's early conflicts, his long struggle with substance abuse, his turbulent relationships with his family, and his triumphs over catastrophic setbacks all fueled the unique comedic worldview he brought to the stage. From the heights of stardom to the low points few knew about, Last Words is told with the same razor-sharp wit and unblinking honesty that made Carlin one of the best-loved comedians in American history.

From Ann Miller to Jimmy Stewart, from Marilyn Monroe to George Clooney to Sir Laurence Olivier, Giancarlo Menotti, Dolly Parton, Billy Crystal, and a host of others, author and actress Peggy Pope has crossed paths with a number of extraordinary artists. In "atta girl," she tells stories from her life, beginning with her childhood in Montclair, New Jersey, in the 1930s as she acts her way through the years to the twenty-first century.

She belongs to that group of professional actors who travels from from job to job and coast to coast performing on stage, film, television, cabaret, and commercials. She writes in detail about her work as well as how she got into show business where she gave advice to Dolly Parton in "9 to 5," gave Billy Crystal a hard time on "SOAP," and acted in an EMMY winning episode of Barney Miller. On ER she was brought in for a psychiatric evaluation.

Filled with humorous touches, "atta girl" offers a potpourri of stories from the trenches and gives an insider's look at both the joys and challenges of show business.

With a career spanning four decades, Wes Craven (1939-2015) bridged independent exploitation cinema and Hollywood big-budget horror. A pioneer of the modern horror cinema, Craven directed such landmark films as The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream-considered not only classics of the genre, but examples of masterful filmmaking. Producing an impressive oeuvre that mixed intellectual concerns and political ideas, Craven utilized high-tension suspense, devastating visual brutality, and dark humor to evoke a unique brand of fear. Moreover, his films draw attention to the horror of American society-Namely racism, classism, and the traumas often associated with family. This collection of twenty-nine interviews-spanning from 1980 until his final interview in 2015-traces Craven's life and career, from his upbringing in a strict religious family and his life as an academic to his years toiling in exploitation cinema. The volume also chronicles Craven's ascendancy as an independent director, his work within the studio system, and his eventual triumph in mainstream cinema. Within the interviews gathered here, including three previously unpublished pieces, Craven reflects on failed projects and the challenges of working with studios while offering thoughtful meditations on the dynamics and appeal of horror. Wes Craven: Interviews cements Craven's legacy as a master of horror who left an indelible mark on the genre by forever altering expectations of-and approaches to-the cinema of fear.

Libraries abound with books on silent film history and numerous biographies on the legendary stars, but what about the thousands and thousands of actors who never obtained legendary status? Film enthusiasts with easy access to silent films today have become interested in those long ago players who supported the star. This necrology is devoted solely to the actors of the Silent Screen. The book includes entries for some 7,500 deceased actors as well as directors, producers, writers, politicians, and sports figures who appeared in silent films. Included are 50 biographical essays on former stars, leading players and comedians who until now have been primarily footnotes in film history. The essays relate the early demise of promising players, how some lived lives as tragic as any they portrayed on the screen and how some lived long lives on the fringes of past glory, totally forgotten. Invaluable to film researchers and enthusiasts who want to know what happened to the actors of the silent screen who made shadows an art form.

From his early horror movies, including Scanners, Videodrome, Rabid, and The Fly-with their exploding heads, mutating sex organs, rampaging parasites, and scientists turning into insects-to his inventive adaptations of books by William Burroughs (Naked Lunch), Don DeLillo (Cosmopolis), and Bruce Wagner (Maps to the Stars), Canadian director David Cronenberg (b. 1943) has consistently dramatized the struggle between the aspirations of the mind and the messy realities of the flesh. ""I think of human beings as a strange mixture of the physical and the non-physical, and both of these things have their say at every moment we're alive,"" says Cronenberg. ""My films are some kind of strange metaphysical passion play."" Moving deftly between genre and arthouse filmmaking and between original screenplays and literary adaptations, Cronenberg's work is thematically consistent and marked by a rigorous intelligence, a keen sense of humor, and a fearless engagement with the nature of human existence. He has been exploring the most primal themes since the beginning of his career and continues to probe them with growing maturity and depth. Cronenberg's work has drawn the interest of some of the most intelligent contemporary film critics, and the fifteen interviews in this volume feature remarkably in-depth and insightful conversations with such acclaimed writers as Amy Taubin, Gary Indiana, David Breskin, Dennis Lim, Richard Porton, Gavin Smith, and more. The pieces herein reveal Cronenberg to be one of the most articulate and deeply philosophical directors now working, and they comprise an essential companion to an endlessly provocative and thoughtful body of work.

Harry Langdon was a silent screen comedian unlike any other. Slower in pace, more studied in movement, and quirkier in nature, Langdon challenged the comic norm by offering comedies that were frequently edgy and often surreal. After a successful run of short comedies with Mack Sennett, Langdon became his own producer at First National Pictures, making such features as Tramp Tramp Tramp, The Strong Man, and Long Pants before becoming his own director for Three's a Crowd, The Chaser, and Heart Trouble. In The Silent Films of Harry Langdon (1923-1928), film historian James Neibaur examines Langdon's strange, fascinating work during the silent era, when he made landmark films that were often ahead of their time. Extensively reviewing the comedian's silent screen work film by film, Neibaur makes the case that Langdon should be accorded the same lofty status as his contemporaries: Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. With fascinating insights into the work of an under-appreciated artist, this book will be of interest to both fans and scholars of silent cinema.

Marlene Dietrich and Leni Riefenstahl, born less than a year apart, lived so close to each other that Riefenstahl could see into Dietrich's Berlin flat. Coming of age in the Weimar Republic, both sought fame in Germany's silent film industry. While Dietrich's depiction of Lola Lola in The Blue Angel catapulted her to Hollywood stardom, Riefenstahl-who missed out on the part-insinuated herself into Hitler's inner circle and directed Nazi propaganda films, most famously, Triumph of the Will. Dietrich could never truly go home again, while Riefenstahl was contaminated by her political associations. Moving deftly between two stories never before told together, Karin Wieland contextualises these lives, chronicling revolutions in politics, fame and sexuality on a grand stage.

Curly Watts is a TV icon - for twenty years appearing on millions of TV screens around the country in Coronation Street. Kevin Kennedy is one of the UK's most successful soap actors, although behind the scenes and high-profile appearances, he faced a painful personal battle. Kevin shares his experiences of alcoholism, rehab and IVF as well stories from the set and stars he worked with during some of the brightest, and darkest moments of his life, through to his music career and current roles. This brutally honest autobiography provides a rare glimpse into life behind the scenes, the power of addiction, and his battle with recovery.

Ellen Terry's correspondence was both exuberant and extensive. Her remaining letters provide a fascinating insight into the dynamics of the Victorian theatre, and the difficulties of life for a woman maintaining a successful public persona whilst raising two illegitimate children.

"[A] remarkably absorbing, supremely entertaining joint biography" (The New York Times) from bestselling author Scott Eyman about the remarkable friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart, two Hollywood legends who maintained a close relationship that endured all of life's twists and turns. Henry Fonda and James Stewart were two of the biggest stars in Hollywood for forty years, but they became friends when they were unknown. They roomed together as stage actors in New York, and when they began making films in Hollywood, they were roommates again. Between them they made such classic films as The Grapes of Wrath, Mister Roberts, Twelve Angry Men, and On Golden Pond; and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Philadelphia Story, It's a Wonderful Life, Vertigo, and Rear Window. They got along famously, with a shared interest in elaborate practical jokes and model airplanes, among other things. But their friendship also endured despite their differences: Fonda was a liberal Democrat, Stewart a conservative Republican. Fonda was a ladies' man who was married five times; Stewart remained married to the same woman for forty-five years. Both men volunteered during World War II and were decorated for their service. When Stewart returned home, still unmarried, he once again moved in with Fonda, his wife, and his two children, Jane and Peter, who knew him as Uncle Jimmy. For his "breezy, entertaining" (Publishers Weekly) Hank and Jim, biographer and film historian Scott Eyman spoke with Fonda's widow and children as well as three of Stewart's children, plus actors and directors who had worked with the men-in addition to doing extensive archival research to get the full details of their time together. This is not just another Hollywood story, but "a fascinating...richly documented biography" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) of an extraordinary friendship that lasted through war, marriages, children, careers, and everything else.

In this "heartrending, passionate, and surprisingly humorous account of the conjunction between art and death" (Andrew Solomon, New York Times bestselling author), acclaimed opera singer Charity Tillemann-Dick recounts her remarkable journey from struggling to draw a single breath to singing at the most prestigious venues in the world after receiving not one but two double lung transplants. Charity Tillemann-Dick was a vivacious young American soprano studying at the celebrated Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest when she received devastating news: her lungs were failing, her heart was three and a half sizes too big, and she would die within five years. Medical experts advised Charity to abandon her musical dreams, but if her time was running out, she wanted to spend it doing what she loved. In just three years, she endured two double lung transplants and had to slowly learn to breathe, walk, talk, eat, and sing again. With new lungs and fierce determination, she eventually fell in love, rebuilt her career, and reclaimed her life. More than a decade after her diagnosis, she has a chart-topping album, performs around the globe, and is a leading voice for organ donation. Weaving Charity's extraordinary tale of triumph with those of opera's greatest heroines, The Encore illuminates the indomitable human spirit and is "an uplifting story of overcoming significant odds to fulfill a dream" (Kirkus Reviews).

In the early 1930s, George Raft, an actor and dancer from New York City's Hell's Kitchen, gained a name for himself playing stylish and charismatic gangsters in films like 1932's original Scarface. Raft's own real-life connection to the New York mob added frightening authenticity to his portrayals, and his star quality coincided with the peak years of the Hollywood factory to produce a remarkable track record of successful movies. Although he was highly regarded during his lifetime as a performer, his reputation as an actor suffered a steep decline after his death. This definitive study of all of Raft's films offers intimate insight into all of his productions, including casts, characters, technical credits, and story synopses, and dispels a number of myths surrounding his legendary career.

The anti-Communist hysteria that began in the 1930s was further empowered in 1938 when the House of Representatives established the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities. Soon thereafter, the creation of the blacklist in the late 1940s brought the Hollywood film and television community into the fold. Provocatively capturing the controversy and sentiments surrounding this period of political imbalance, Actors on Red Alert explores the repercussions of the blacklist through career interviews with five prominent actors and actresses.

In The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock Edward White explores the Hitchcock phenomenon-what defines it, how it was invented, what it reveals about the man at its core and how its legacy continues to shape our cultural world. The book's twelve chapters illuminate different aspects of Hitchcock's life and work: "The Boy Who Couldn't Grow Up"; "The Murderer"; "The Auteur"; "The Womanizer"; "The Fat Man"; "The Dandy"; "The Family Man"; "The Voyeur"; "The Entertainer"; "The Pioneer"; "The Londoner"; "The Man of God". Each of these angles reveals something fundamental about the man he was and the mythological creature he has become, presenting not just the life Hitchcock lived, but also the various versions of himself that he projected and those projected on his behalf. White's portrayal illuminates a vital truth: Hitchcock was more than a Hollywood titan; he was the definitive modern artist and his significance reaches far beyond the confines of cinema.

The heroine of MARY POPPINS and THE SOUND OF MUSIC tells her life story from the music halls of London to Broadway stardom. Over the years Julie Andrews has been much interviewed in the press and on television, but she has never before revealed the true story of her childhood and upbringing. In HOME she vividly recreates the years before the movies. An idyllic early childhood in Surrey was cut short when her parents divorced and her mother remarried. The family moved to London, and there are vivid scenes of life during the Blitz. Her mother went into musical theatre with her stepfather, who encouraged Julie to have singing lessons which led to the discovery that her voice had phenomenal range and strength for someone her age. Before long she was appearing on stage with her parents. She soon realised how much she enjoyed looking out into the black auditorium with the spotlights on her. By the time she was a teenager, she was supporting her whole family with her singing. A London Palladium pantomime led to a leading role in THE BOYFRIEND on Broadway at 19. Parts in MY FAIR LADY opposite Rex Harrison and CAMELOT with Richard Burton soon followed, and there are wonderful anecdotes about the actors and actresses of her day. But this is far more than a collection of show stories (it's not until the last page of the book that Julie gets the call from Disney for MARY POPPINS), HOME is an honest, touching and revealing memoir of the early life of a true icon.

Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies is a paradox; a famous actress whose career spanned most of the twentieth century she is now largely forgotten. Drawing on material held in Ffrangcon-Davies's personal archive, Grime argues that the representation of the actress, on and off the stage, can be read in terms of its constructions of normative female behaviours.

Ellen Terry's correspondence was both exuberant and extensive. Her remaining letters provide a fascinating insight into the dynamics of the Victorian theatre, and the difficulties of life for a woman maintaining a successful public persona whilst raising two illegitimate children.

For five decades, comedian, actor, singer, dancer, and entertainer Bob Hope (1903-2003) traveled the world performing before American and Allied troops and putting on morale-boosting USO shows. Dear Bob...: Bob Hope's Wartime Correspondence with the G.I.s of World War II tells the story of Hope's remarkable service to the fighting men and women of World War II, collecting personal letters, postcards, packages, and more sent back and forth among Hope and the troops and their loved ones back home. Soldiers, nurses, wives, and parents shared their innermost thoughts, swapped jokes, and commiserated with the "G.I.s' best friend" about war, sacrifice, lonely days, and worrisome, silent nights. The Entertainer of the Century performed for millions of soldiers in person, in films, and over the radio. He visited them in the hospitals and became not just a pal but their link to home. This unforgettable collection of letters and images, many of which remained in Hope's personal files throughout his life and which now reside at the Library of Congress, capture a personal side of both writer and recipient in a very special and often emotional way. This volume heralds the voices of those servicemen and women Hope entertained and who, it is clear, delighted and inspired him.

This book gives a new view on the legacy of Jerzy Grotowski (1933-1999), one of the central, and yet misunderstood, figures who shaped 20th-century theatre, focusing on his least known last phase of work on ancient songs and the craft of the performer. Salata posits Grotowski's work as philosophical practice, and more particularly, as practical research in the phenomenology of being, arguing that Grotowski's departure from theatrical productions (and thus critical consideration) resulted from his uncompromising pursuit of one central problem, "What does it mean to reveal oneself?" - the very question that drove his stage directing work. The book demonstrates that the answer led him through the path of gradually stripping the theatrical phenomenon down to its most elemental aspect, which shows itself through the craft of the performer as a non-representational event. This particular quality released at the heights of the art of the performer is referred to as aliveness, or true liveness in this study in order to shift scholarly focus onto something that has always fascinated great theatre practitioners, including Stanislavski and Grotowski, and of which academic scholarship has limited grasp. Salata's theoretical analysis of aliveness reaches out to phenomenology and a broad range of post-structural philosophy and critical theory, through which Grotowski's project is portrayed as philosophical practice.

Let the games begin and may the biggest ego win This book dishes the dirt with stories of every word uttered, letter written, or fist swung from the cantankerous stars' first calamitous encounters to their deathbed declarations. Tiffs include: Madonna vs. Sandra Bernhard; Johnny Carson vs. Joan Rivers; Elton John vs. David Bowie; and Bette Davis vs. Joan Crawford. Exposing the shocking tactics of the most bitter rivals in the entertainment industry and the vindictive, unseen ire of stars, this book reveals Hollywood with all its claws bared.