"I love everything about this hilarious book except the font size." -Jon Stewart Although his career as a bestselling author and on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart was founded on fake news and invented facts, in 2016 that routine didn't seem as funny to John Hodgman anymore. Everyone is doing it now. Disarmed of falsehood, he was left only with the awful truth: John Hodgman is an older white male monster with bad facial hair, wandering like a privileged Sasquatch through three wildernesses: the hills of Western Massachusetts where he spent much of his youth; the painful beaches of Maine that want to kill him (and some day will); and the metaphoric haunted forest of middle age that connects them. Vacationland collects these real life wanderings, and through them you learn of the horror of freshwater clams, the evolutionary purpose of the mustache, and which animals to keep as pets and which to kill with traps and poison. There is also some advice on how to react when the people of coastal Maine try to sacrifice you to their strange god. Though wildly, Hodgmaniacally funny as usual, it is also a poignant and sincere account of one human facing his forties, those years when men in particular must stop pretending to be the children of bright potential they were and settle into the failing bodies of the wiser, weird dads that they are.

Arden Performance Editions are ideal for anyone engaging with a Shakespeare play in performance. With clear facing-page notes giving definitions of words, easily accessible information about key textual variants, lineation, metrical ambiguities and pronunciation, each edition has been developed to open the play's possibilities and meanings to actors and students. Designed to be used and to be useful, each edition has plenty of space for personal annotations and the well-spaced text is easy to read and to navigate.

Anything But Dull: the Life and Art of Jeff Nuttall reveals the life lived and the art created by a visionary polymath whose generosity of spirit defined his character. From childhood traumas to revolutionary acts, through triumphs, defeats and resurrections Jeff Nuttall's story is told here for the first time in all its richness and singularity. Based on over eighty interviews and meticulous archive research Anything But Dull shows just what made Jeff Nuttall such pivotal, provocative and important figure in twentieth century life and culture.Performer, poet, artist, writer, musician, teacher, film actor, bon vivant and hell raiser. Throughout his life Jeff Nuttall was always getting into scrapes, provoking outrage, drinking, fighting, falling in and out of love. Those intense experiences became the inspiration for his art. Almost no form of creative expression was foreign to him and within these nothing was forbidden - except, of course, to be dull.

A touching and hilarious memoir by the author of "Carrie and Me: A Mother Daughter Love Story," " This Time Together"is 100 percent Carol Burnett - funny, irreverent, and irresistible.
Carol Burnett is one of the most beloved and revered actresses and performers in America. "The Carol Burnett Show" was seen each week by millions of adoring fans and won twenty-five Emmys in its remarkable eleven-year run. Now, in "This Time Together," Carol really lets her hair down and tells one funny or touching or memorable story after another - reading it feels like sitting down with an old friend who has wonderful tales to tell.
In engaging anecdotes, Carol discusses her remarkable friendships with stars such at Jimmy Stewart, Lucille Ball, Cary Grant, and Julie Andrews; the background behind famous scenes, like the moment she swept down the stairs in her curtain-rod dress in the legendary "Went With the Wind" skit; and things that would happen only to Carol - the prank with Julie Andrews that went wrong in front of the First Lady; the famous Tarzan Yell that saved her during a mugging; and the time she faked a wooden leg to get served in a famous ice cream emporium. This poignant look back allows us to cry with the actress during her sorrows, rejoice in her successes, and finally, always, to laugh.

"From the Hardcover edition."

This interdisciplinary book brings together essays that consider how the body enacts social and cultural rituals in relation to objects, spaces, and the everyday, and how these are questioned, explored, and problematised through, and translated into dance, art, and performance. The chapters are written by significant artists and scholars and consider practices from various locations, including Central and Western Europe, Mexico, and the United States. The authors build on dialogues between, for example, philosophy and museum studies, and memory studies and post-humanism, and engage with a wide range of theory from phenomenology to relational aesthetics to New Materialism. Thus this book represents a unique collection that together considers the continuum between everyday and cultural life, and how rituals and memories are inscribed onto our being. It will be of interest to scholars and practitioners, students and teachers, and particularly those who are curious about the intersections between arts disciplines.

After several years of small roles and experimental screenwriting during his early career, Jack Nicholson got his big break in 1969 with Easy Rider. The next year, his first lead role, in Five Easy Pieces, made him a star. In the decades since, the twelve-time Academy Award nominee has won Best Actor twice (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and As Good as It Gets) and become one of the most popular and respected actors of the past half century. Drawing on years of research and dozens of interviews with his associates, this critical study of Nicholson's oeuvre examines each of his film roles, as well as his screenwriting and directorial efforts. Personal insight is provided by Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, James Hong, Millie Perkins, Michael Margotta, Shirley Knight, Veronica Cartwright, Barry Dennen, Salli Sachse, Noah Wyle, Monkees Michael Nesmith, Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork, Adam West, several Apollo astronauts, Hells Angel Sonny Barger and many more.

Esteemed scholar and theater aficionado Marvin Carlson has seen an unsurpassed number of theatrical productions in his long and distinguished career. Ten Thousand Nights is a lively chronicle of a half-century of theatre-going, in which Carlson recalls one memorable production for each year from 1960 to 2010. These are not conventional reviews, but essays using each theater experience to provide an insight into the theater and theatre-going at a particular time. The range of performances covered is broad, from edgy experimental fare to mainstream musicals, most of them based in New York but with stops at major theater events in Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Milan, and elsewhere. The engagingly written pieces convey a vivid sense not only of each production but also of the particular venue, neighborhood, and cultural context, covering nearly all significant movements, theater artists, and groups of the late twentieth century.

Joanne Woodward is an American film, television and stage actress, television producer and director, stage director, and film director. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her performance in The Three Faces of Eve and was nominated for Rachel, Rachel, Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams and Mr. & Mrs. Bridge. She also won the Best Actress Emmy Award for See How She Runs and Do You Remember Love. This book is the first to be solely devoted to Woodward's life and career, which were often overshadowed by the successes of her late husband, Paul Newman.

Beginning with The Jazz Singer (1927) and 42nd Street (1933), legendary Hollywood film producer Darryl F. Zanuck (1902-1979) revolutionized the movie musical, cementing its place in American popular culture. Zanuck, who got his start writing stories and scripts in the silent film era, worked his way to becoming a top production executive at Warner Bros. in the later 1920s and early 1930s. Leaving that studio in 1933, he and industry executive Joseph Schenck formed Twentieth Century Pictures, an independent Hollywood motion picture production company. In 1935, Zanuck merged his Twentieth Century Pictures with the ailing Fox Film Corporation, resulting in the combined Twentieth Century-Fox, which instantly became a new major Hollywood film entity. The Golden Age Musicals of Darryl F. Zanuck: The Gentleman Preferred Blondes is the first book devoted to the musicals that Zanuck produced at these three studios. The volume spotlights how he placed his personal imprint on the genre and how-especially at Twentieth Century-Fox-he nurtured and showcased several blonde female stars who headlined the studio's musicals-including Shirley Temple, Alice Faye, Betty Grable, Vivian Blaine, June Haver, Marilyn Monroe, and Sheree North. Building upon Bernard F. Dick's previous work in That Was Entertainment: The Golden Age of the MGM Musical, this volume illustrates the richness of the American movie musical, tracing how these song-and-dance films fit within the career of Darryl F. Zanuck and within the timeline of Hollywood history.

Born Joan Lucille Olander in a small South Dakota town, Mamie Van Doren rose to ""Blonde Bombshell"" status in Hollywood when she signed with Universal Pictures in 1953, right on the heels of Marilyn Monroe. This comprehensive biography explores Van Doren's early life and career, spanning from her start as a bit player in Howard Hughes' Jet Pilot to her significant role as the last surviving member of Hollywood's famous ""Three M's"": Mamie Van Doren, Marilyn Monroe, and Jayne Mansfield. A complete filmography lists Van Doren's roles in film and television. Entries include a plot synopsis, cast and crew details, and in many instances recent and contemporary reviews.

The theater company Mabou Mines has for the past forty years created pathbreaking new theater by combining the latest concepts in music, visual arts, and technology with traditional forms of creative expression: puppetry, text, movement, theater design. From the beginning, the evanescence of performance and the dynamics of group work attracted the group. Most of their early pieces were never recorded, leaving little documentation of their foundational productions. "Mabou Mines: Making Avant-Garde Theater in the 1970s" provides this missing history, attempting to capture and describe the explorations of a group who set out to create indescribable performance. Iris Smith Fischer makes visible once again the celebrated company's least documented work, and offers accounts of the decisions and events that defined Mabou Mines' ideas and methods, particularly their creative collaborations with visual artists, musicians, writers, and dancers. Focusing on the heady days of the company's founding and first ten years, the book traces Mabou Mines' intellectual and artistic roots, frames them within the 1970s avant-garde, and outlines their significance in contemporary performance.

Carole Lombard was the very opposite of the typical 1930s starlet. A no-nonsense woman, she worked hard, took no prisoners and had a great passion for life. As a result, she became Hollywood's highest-paid star. From the outside, Carole's life was one of great glamour and fun, yet privately she endured much heartache. As a child, her mother moved Carole and her brothers across the country away from their beloved father. Carole then began a film career, only to have it cut short after a devastating car accident. Picking herself back up, she was rocked by the accidental shooting of her lover; a failed marriage to actor William Powell; and the sorrow of infertility during her marriage to Hollywood's King, Clark Gable. Lombard marched forward, promising to be positive. Sadly her life was cut short in a plane crash so catastrophic that pieces of the aircraft are still buried in the mountain today. In Carole Lombard, bestselling author Michelle Morgan accesses previously unseen documents to tell the story of a woman whose remarkable life and controversial death continues to enthral.

Acting wasn't a long-held childhood dream for Larry Lamb, instead his childhood memories are filled with recollections of his parents continuously fighting. His mother and father were totally mismatched, the only thing they shared in common was their children and life in the Lamb household veered from laughter and happy moments to hysterical outbursts and terrifying episodes. Larry, the eldest of three children was only too often caught in the middle and found himself at the centre of his father's raging anger, tormented by a man who struggled with the enormity of fatherhood. When his parents' marriage finally broke down, Larry's mother moved out along with her baby daughter and as they grew up, Larry and his brother, Wesley, lived with their father, seeing their mother and sister only in rushed meetings at bus stops and in public parks. For years Larry didn't know where his mum lived and he didn't dare talk of her at home, his mother's presence left a gaping hole. As soon as Larry was old enough, he left home. Putting as much distance as he could between himself and his volatile childhood, he set off on a journey that would take him to work as an encyclopaedia salesman in Germany, in the oil business in Libya and Nova Scotia until he found himself starring on Broadway. In time it would take him to Hollywood too and bring him leading roles on the Square in Eastenders and in Billericay in the much-loved comedy Gavin and Stacey. Along the way Larry wasn't just trying to make his own way in the world, he was seeking the close female companionship he'd missed out on with his mother too. After a series of relationships, he found himself back in England and father to George. Facing fatherhood was a pivotal moment, so easily he could have fallen into the ways of his own father but whilst his marriage to George's mother didn't last, he couldn't let the same mistakes be repeated again and he vowed to have the relationship with his son that he'd never been able to have with his father. Mummy's Boy is by turns heartrending as Larry recalls the relationship broken beyond repair with his father, searingly honest as he describes the effect his childhood had in later life and hugely entertaining as he tells captivating tales of making it as an actor, breaking out from his little world in Essex and finding himself in a new life on stage and screen. 'What a life! I loved it. Almost as good as sitting with him and listening to his stories.' Rob Brydon 'A wonderful story of survival against the odds told with compassion and humour. This is so much more than a showbiz autobiography.' Anne Robinson 'Mummy's Boy manages to be touching, funny and uniquely warm all at once. A must-read.' Best

With more than 130 films and a career spanning four decades, Klaus Kinski (1926-1991) was one of the most controversial actors of his generation. Known for his wild tantrums on set and his legendary collaborations with auteur Werner Herzog-Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) - Kinski's intense performances made him the darling of European arthouse and exploitation/horror cinema. A genius in front of the camera, he was capable of lighting up the most risible films. Yet behind his public persona lurked a depraved man who took his art to the darkest extremes. This first ever collection of essays focusing on Kinski examines his work in exploitation and art house films and spaghetti westerns, along with his performances in such cult classics as Doctor Zhivago (1965), Crawlspace (1986), Venus in Furs (1965), The Great Silence (1968), Android (1982) and his only directorial credit, Paganini (1989). More than 50 reviews of Kinski's films are included, along with exclusive interviews with filmmakers and actors who worked with him.

Richard Pryor was the king of stand-up comedy in the 1970s. Hollywood studios were eager to transfer Pryor's dynamic humor and personality from the stand-up stage to the big screen. Executives placed the vast resources of their studios at Pryor's disposal and gave the comedian the authority to develop his own projects. But, as it turned out, Pryor's film acting inspired far less acclaim than his stand-up performances. The comedian's reputation came to be greatly diminished by misfires like The Toy and Superman III. How did this happen? The book is designed to examine this matter in a comprehensive film-by-film analysis. Each chapter surveys an individual film by presenting development history, production notes, plot summary and critical analysis.

European stardom is very different from that of Hollywood, where the industry concentrates intensively on establishing and promoting major stars. This unique book sets out to highlight the career of Sophia Loren as a prime example of a highly original rise to fame in a European context. Pauline Small emphasizes that although primarily an Italian star, Loren's career crossed the boundaries of a shifting network of film-making ventures that spanned Italy, Hollywood and Europe.Loren was one of the leading figures in the 1950s whose professional achievements, Small argues, were undervalued and to a degree remain so. Using written and visual materials ranging from government archives to academic journals, from the popular press to her major films, Sophia Loren: Moulding the Star gives a fuller understanding of the forces, commercial, industrial and cultural, that combined to forge her enduring star status and the cult of a major film personality.

In his time theatre actor and manager Jack Langrishe (1825-1895) could claim to be as well known in the American frontier West as General Grant was in the East. He gained his fame providing welcome entertainment to prospectors and miners pursing gold and silver bonanzas in Colorado, Montana, South Dakota and Idaho. He led a life as thrilling as any drama he presented. He participated in the tumultuous life of mining camps as he followed the expanding American frontier from the old Northwest Territory to early Denver, Deadwood and Idaho's Coeur D'Alene. He survived the Chicago Fire of 1872 and crossed the same Indian territory at the time when Custer made his last stand. While best known as a gifted comic actor and producer of fine dramas, Langrishe also edited western newspapers, won election as an Idaho state senator and served as a justice of the peace. Here for the first time is the complete tale of Jack Langrishe, a major figure in the epic of the American frontier, how he gained and lost fortunes, left audiences weak with laughter and became recognized as the father of theatre in Colorado and Montana.

One of our most passionate and gifted actors, Al Pacino has been riveting audiences for decades with performances in everything from The Godfather to Angels in America to Danny Collins. He has also appeared on the stage, tackling such difficult roles as Richard III, King Herod and Shylock, along with parts in contemporary dramas like Glengarry Glen Ross. Pacino has also directed two documentaries and two feature films. Aspects of Pacino's private life and film choices can be controversial. Often accused of a lack of subtlety or of ""chewing the scenery,"" his mesmeric intensity galvanizes fans and divides critics, as do his Shakespearean interpretations. In its second edition, this book critically reevaluates his many onscreen and onstage roles. Pacino is an actor who cannot be ignored.