Individual Directors
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An Actor’s Life in 12 Productions
The director Peter Dews prophesied: “You’ll be alright when you’re forty, and even better when you’re fifty.” It turns out that Peter Dews was right, almost to the month.
In a study of British theatre through a varied acting career spanning over sixty years, Oliver Ford Davies explores the many changes within the performing arts scene through his experiences on various stages, in a variety of productions, across the country.
Davies charts the ups and downs of British theatre in the last sixty years, while offering a unique perspective on life behind the curtain and the daring journey from leaving behind an academic career and into acting.
From Shakespeare to Shaw, Chekhov to Pirandello, this is the story of an actor initially struggling to make a mark before making his breakthrough at fifty, winning the Olivier Best Actor award and being propelled into thirty years of leading roles.
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£8.60£9.50An Actor’s Life in 12 Productions
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Behind The Shoulder Pads – Tales I Tell My Friends: The captivating, candid and hilarious new memoir from legendary actress and Sunday Times bestselling author
‘I’m lucky to have an inexhaustible appetite for life. I’ve had many amazing adventures in Hollywood and beyond, but some stories I have only ever shared with my friends. After all, you’ve got to have a bit of mystery, so I hide a knowing smile behind my shoulder pads. Until now! So, read on for the tales I tell my friends . . .’
In her new book, Dame Joan Collins returns in dazzling form to share the most memorable moments from her eclectic and vibrant life, in and out of the limelight. Taking us on an incredible journey from her early years as a young star in the golden era of Hollywood to stamping her stilettos in Dynasty; from the glittering heights of St Tropez to the busy Oscars season in LA over the years.
Joan writes movingly about her grief and adventures with her sister Jackie, delving deeper into the ups and downs of love and relationships, and her happiness with husband Percy. Filled with a cast of household names, including the late Queen Elizabeth, Diana, Princess of Wales, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Caine, Warren Beatty, and many more, Behind the Shoulder Pads is a spectacularly entertaining tour de force bound to delight and shock in equal measures.
Hilarious, intimate and completely spellbinding, Joan invites you into her life like never before, sharing the stories she had previously reserved for her closest of friends.
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Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor
The creator of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Henry VIII and Captain Bligh, Charles Laughton’s career spans 50 films and 40 stage roles. This entralling biography follows him from his parents’ hotel in Scarborough to his climactic assumption of the role of King Lear in Statford at the end of his life. Along the way we meet a galaxy of Hollywood greats – from Korda, Hitchcock and Billy WIlder to Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum and Marilyn Monroe. We also discover a hugely talented and complex man – a legend in his own lifetime who nonetheless counted himself a failure.Read more
£11.40£12.30Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor
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Christopher Walken A to Z: The Man – The Movies – The Legend
Is Christopher Walken from Mars? He must be. How else can you explain his incredible range of talents and experiences? He has worked as a lion tamer, he has danced in music videos for Madonna, Duran Duran, and Fatboy Slim, and he has appeared in 100+ films for some of Hollywood’s hottest directors, including Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, David Cronenberg, and Tim Burton. He is the most popular guest host in the history of “Saturday Night Live”. He is the only actor to play a Bond villain and a Batman villain. He was handed his high school diploma by Gypsy Rose Lee. He was on a houseboat with Natalie Wood on the night she mysteriously drowned. He has appeared in some of the worst films of all time – everything from “Kangaroo Jack” to “Mousehunt to Gigli” – and yet his popularity never wanes.No wonder Christopher Walken has attracted an enormous cult following. Now his fans can learn about the wide world of Walken in Christopher Walken A to Z, the first-ever biography of the most fascinating man in show business, arranged in a fun, breezy A-to-Z format. With entries on everything from Actors Studio (the famous theatre workshop where Walken worked as a janitor) to zombie movies (one of his favourite movie genres), “Christopher Walken A to Z” is a trippy salute to the world’s most endearing and enduring celebrity.Read more
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Class Actor: My Autobiography
From his first notable role as a teenage actor alongside Ray Winstone in the cult film Scum, via the central character of Jimmy the mod in the mighty Quadrophenia, to the voice of Blur’s Parklife, Phil Daniels has built a solid reputation as one of Britain’s most talented and well-respected character actors. A graduate of the Anna Scher Theatre in the 1970s, Daniels has always stayed true to his working class roots, lending his roles a much-admired authenticity and integrity. With his distinctive voice, cheeky mistrust of authority figures and wicked sense of humour, Daniels remains a driven individualist committed to his craft.Daniels’ career covers a period that has seen unprecedented change in UK society, and Class Actor, his first ever autobiography, reads like a provocative popular culture history of the past 30 years. It charts his 1960s childhood in a rundown part of London’s King’s X, his passion for Chelsea FC, his coming of age during punk rock, his anger and disaffection throughout the Thatcher years – perfectly realised in highly acclaimed pieces such as Mike Leigh’s Meantime- through to his role as Kevin Wicks in EastEnders and his place in Britpop’s hall of fame. Class Actoris a lively and entertaining insight into the passions of a unique artist who remains driven to tell ‘ordinary’ people’s lives through drama.
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Erotic Vagrancy: Everything about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor
‘The book of the year’ SUNDAY TIMES
‘One of the very best biographies I have ever read’ STEPHEN FRY
‘A hot thunderstorm of a book’ DAVID HARE
‘Erotic Vagrancy gave me a week of pure joy’ CRAIG BROWN
‘Unputdownable’ TONY PALMER
‘A genius writer’ LYNN BARBERThirteen years in the writing, Erotic Vagrancy doesn’t only surpass every other biography of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton yet to appear, this rich, vital and passionately articulated book, which is as extravagant and wayward as its two subjects, is also about celebrity, creativity, being flawed, being brilliant, sexuality, the intermingling of a low and a highbrow existence, pride, insecurity, attraction and repulsion, and devilry.
We see Taylor the child actress exchanging dogs and horses for husbands. We see Burton emerging from the mists and brimstone of Wales to be the greatest theatrical animal of his generation. The pair come together in Rome during the making of Cleopatra, which gives Lewis the opportunity for a major farcical set-piece. We then enter a world of jewels and private jets, vodka, yachts and furs – the splendid vulgarity of the Sixties, where the narrative of Taylor and Burton becomes a Pop Art story.
Then, inevitably, it all goes wrong, with alcoholism, violence, recrimination and divorce ( twice ) – with Burton, whom Lewis depicts as a Faustus figure, damned by fame, dead at fifty-eight.
Stephen Fry has said, ‘It is one of the very best biographies I have ever read. One of the best books about fame, desire, Hollywood and mid-to-late twentieth century culture ever written. Inside which, brilliant, hilarious and sensitive insights on all manner of subjects fizz and froth. Magnificent, terrible, tragic, triumphant.’
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Joe Wilkinson: My (Illustrated) Autobiography
‘Joyfully absurd and hilarious.’ ADAM KAY
Here before you is Joe Wilkinson’s brilliantly absurd account of his time on – and briefly off – planet Earth.
Through cartoon stories (illustrated by Henry Paker) Joe recounts the defining moments and bizarre encounters of his life – from his schoolboy misfortunes to his formative years on the dating scene, to his money-making schemes and globetrotting adventures.
With tall stories including…
-Winning ‘most nits’ at school
-That time I threw a turd into a tornado
-Becoming the bad boy of fly tipping
-The disastrous double date
-My car airbag addiction
-The time I tunnelled too far out of prison and ended up in the prison next door
-The real reason Bigfoot went into hiding…this book is a delightfully absurd journey into the mind of a comic maverick.
Hilarious, heart-warming and utterly unique, Joe Wilkinson: My Autobiography is the off-the-wall life story of one of our most beloved and unorthodox comedians.
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£10.00£18.99Joe Wilkinson: My (Illustrated) Autobiography
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John Gielgud: Matinee Idol to Movie Star (Biography and Autobiography)
John Gielgud: Matinee Idol to Movie Star is the most authoritative and comprehensive account of the finest classical actor of the twentieth century. This entertaining but critical biography charts the ups and downs of Gielgud’s long and glittering career, from his young ground-breaking Hamlet to his later success in plays by Pinter, Storey, Bond and Bennett, and his recognition as a major movie star following his role in Arthur. It also reassesses his complex relationship with his great rival Laurence Olivier and throws fresh light on his personal relationships and the turbulent episodes of his private life that threatened to shatter his career.For this biography Jonathan Croall’s exhaustive research has included over a hundred new interviews with key people from his life and career, including Peter Brook, Kenneth Branagh, Alec Guinness, Joan Plowright and Eileen Atkins, and it draws on several hundred letters to and from Gielgud that have never been published, including correspondences with Noël Coward, Somerset Maugham, Siegfried Sassoon, Edith Evans and Edward Gordon Craig. What emerges is an intimate, complex and often startling portrait of this great actor and much-loved man.
Gielgud’s interpretations of Shakespeare’s great roles made Shakespeare’s plays a commercial success on London’s West End for the first time. He was also hugely influential as a director and an actor-manager and worked extensively in film and television later in life. Since Jonathan Croall’s first biography of Gielgud was published in 2000 a considerable amount of new material has come to light and the result is a much more rounded, candid and richly textured portrait of this celebrated stage and screen actor.
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£13.30£38.00 -
Knight Errant: Memoirs of a Vagabond Actor
Robert Stephens is one of the best-loved and most unpredictable of great actors. He has endured good times and bad times, surviving four marriages, countless love affairs, years of hard living and drinking, illness and professional setbacks, and more recently a life-saving kidney and liver transplant operation. In his memoirs we learn how he fell in love with Maggie Smith, was nearly seduced by Marlene Dietrich and rubbed shoulders with, among others, Olivier, Nowl Coward, John Gielgud and Vanessa Redgrave.Read more
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Madly, Deeply: The Alan Rickman Diaries
A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
A WATERSTONES PAPERBACK OF THE YEAR 2023
A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2022: ENTERTAINMENT
A MAIL ON SUNDAYS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022Alan Rickman remains one of the most beloved actors of all time across almost every genre, from his breakout role as Die Hard’s villainous Hans Gruber to his heart-wrenching run as Professor Severus Snape, and beyond. His air of dignity, his sonorous voice and the knowing wit he brought to each role continue to captivate new audiences today.
But Rickman’s artistry wasn’t confined to just his performances. Rickman’s writing details the extraordinary and the ordinary in a way that is anecdotal, indiscreet, witty, gossipy and utterly candid. He takes us behind the scenes on films and plays ranging from Sense & Sensibility, the Harry Potter series, Private Lives, My Name Is Rachel Corrie and many more.
The diaries run from 1993 to his death in 2016 and offer insight into both a public and private life. Here is Rickman the consummate professional actor, but also the friend, the traveller, the fan, the director, the enthusiast: in short, the real Alan Rickman. Here is a life fully lived, all detailed in intimate and characteristically plain-spoken prose. Reading the diaries is like listening to Rickman chatting to a close friend.
Madly, Deeply also includes a foreword by Emma Thompson and a selection of Rickman’s early diaries, dating from 1974 to 1982, when his acting life first began.
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£9.30£12.30Madly, Deeply: The Alan Rickman Diaries
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More than an Actor
Well-bred, educated at Eton and the Central School for Speech and Drama in London, the youngest of four boys in an upper-class family, Peter H. was in many ways the embodiment of Englishness, from the way he took his tea to his love of Shakespeare. Encouraged by his wonderful mother, he chose a career in acting and, under the tutelage of Sir Laurence Olivier at the British National Theatre Company, became a stellar performer – a classical actor in the postwar era of gritty realism.
W. Grey Champion’s narrative, relying on contemporary accounts of people who knew Peter, tells the haunting story of the man himself – beset by misfortune and tragedy, which aggravated mental and physical disorders ending his life too soon. The author withholds Peter’s stage name early on in order to accentuate his vision of a truly superlative person, who was much more than an actor.
A compelling imaginative read that pays tribute to the memory of the venerable Jeremy Brett (Peter Jeremy William Huggins). – Linda Pritchard
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£13.30More than an Actor
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My Autobiography (Penguin Modern Classics)
A silent comedy star whose legendary slapstick routines are recognisable to this day, Charles ‘Charlie’ Chaplin’s My Autobiography is an incomparably vivid account of the life of one of the greatest filmmakers and comedians, with an introduction by David Robinson
As a child, Charlie Chaplin was awed and inspired by the sight of glamorous vaudeville stars passing his home, and from then on he never lost his ambition to become an actor. Chaplin’s film career as the Little Tramp adored by the whole world is the stuff of legend, but this frank autobiography shows another side. Born into a theatrical family, Chaplin’s father died of drink while his mother, unable to bear the poverty, suffered from bouts of insanity. From a childhood of grinding poverty in the south London slums, Chaplin found an escape in his early debut on the music hall stage, followed by his lucky break in America, the founding of United Artists with D.W. Griffith and Douglas Fairbanks, the struggle to maintain artistic control over his work, the string of failed marriages, and his eventual exile from Hollywood after personal scandals and persecution for his left-wing politics during the McCarthy Era.
Sir Charles ‘Charlie’ Chaplin (1895-1976) was born in Walworth, London. Best known for his work in silent film, his most famous role was The Little Tramp, a universally recognisable and iconic character who appeared in films such as The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925) and City Lights (1931). His other films include Modern Times (1936), a commentary on the Great Depression, and The Great Dictator (1940), a satirical attack on Hitler and the Nazis.
If you enjoyed My Autobiography, you might like Andy Warhol’s The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.
‘Tells so much about this curious, difficult man … a wonderfully vivid imagination’
The New York Times‘The only genius to come out of the movie industry’
George Bernard ShawRead more
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Old Rage: ‘One of our best-loved actor’s powerful riposte to a world driving her mad’ – DAILY MAIL
THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER | WITH EXCLUSIVE NEW MATERIAL
‘I want to be Sheila Hancock when I grow up’ – Lorraine Kelly
‘Wise, witty, kind and true’ – Sunday Times
‘A sparkling memoir as funny and insightful as it’s moving’ – Daily Mail
‘A captivating memoir’ – Mail on SundayIn 2016, Sheila Hancock sat down to write a book about a serene and fulfilled old age. This is not that book.
In Old Rage, one of Britain’s best-loved actors opens up about her tenth decade. Funny, feisty, honest, she makes for brilliant company as she talks about her life and takes an uncompromising look at a world so different from the one of her wartime childhood. And yet – despite age, despite rage – she finds there are always reasons for joy.
‘The much-loved actor candidly shares the fear, joy and frustration she has found in her ninth decade’ Guardian, Books of the Year 2022
‘Sheila Hancock reflects upon her life and career with all the winning candour and warm-heartedness we have come to expect from the legendary actress’ WaterstonesRead more
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One Man Tango: An Autobiography
‘One Man Tango’ is distinguished by honesty that has marked actor Anthony Quinn’s 60-year career as one of the true originals of stage and screen.Read more
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Peter O’Toole: The Definitive Biography
Peter O’Toole was supremely talented, a unique leading man and one of the most charismatic and unpredictable actors of his generation. Described by Richard Burton as ‘the most original actor to come out of Britain since the war’, O’Toole regularly seemed to veer towards self-destruction. With the help of exclusive interviews with colleagues and close friends, Peter O’Toole: The Definitive Biography paints the first complete picture of this much loved man and reveals what drove him to extremes, why he drank to excess and hated authority. But it also describes a man who was fiercely intelligent, with a great sense of humour and huge energy. Always insightful, at times funny, at times deeply moving, this is a fitting tribute to an iconic actor who made a monumental contribution to theatre and cinema.Read more
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QUINLAN’S FILM CHARACTER ACTORS
This is a guide to over 1100 character actors and actresses. The people covered include John le Mesurier, Irene Handl, Dora Bryan and Sam Kydd from the British studios; and Elisha Cook, Iris Adrian, Hattie McDaniel and Irving Bacon from Hollywood. There is a portrait to accompany every entry. After a short account of each actor’s career and characteristics, all their known film credits are given, including many fleeting appearances never previously recorded, plus shorts and TV movies. David Quinlan is also the author of “The Illustrated Directory of Film Stars”, “The Illustrated Directory of Film Directors” and “British Sound Films 1928-1959”.Read more
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Shooting the Actor
A companion volume to Being an Actor, Callow’s classic text about the experience of acting in the theatre, Shooting the Actor reveals the truth about film acting. The book describes his film work, from Amadeus to Four Weddings and a Funeral, from Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls to Shakespeare in Love.
Its centrepiece is a hilarious and sometimes agonising account of the making of Manifesto, shot in the former Yugoslavia. When Callow first met the film’s director Dušan Makavejev to discuss the movie, they both got on famously. Months later the two were barely speaking. Insightful and always entertaining, Shooting the Actor reveals more than any formal guide could about the process of film-making and the highly complex nature of being both actor and director.
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£2.80Shooting the Actor
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Tales from an Actor’s Life
Long considered the enfant terrible of the British theatre both as actor, director, and writer and famous for his villainous roles in films such as A Clockwork Orange, Rambo and Octopussy, Steven Berkoff is original in everything he does. He is a man of whom one should never expect the expected. Now, in this captivating book, he shares scenes from his own colourful theatrical life, thinly disguising them on occasion to protect the guilty but never being less than entertaining and forthright in his accounts. And what a delight they are, for as Berkoff says in his introduction, acting must be one of the strangest professions since the rules are flexible and few can agree even on the simplest of them. Berkoff has seen it all and he takes us here on an informal tour recalling among other things his first job (as an assistant stage manager and small part player ), and the first line he ever uttered on stage (Going Bowling tonight Sammy?), his early touring dates and disasters (and even romances) in rep, a traumatic audition for a revered Peter Hall which ended in tears, visiting Kirk Douglas at his home in LA, triumphantly directing the classic On The Waterfront on the London stage, and (less triumphantly) playing Hamlet the Berkoff way. Romantic though an actor’s life may seem to be to the general public, clearly it is often tough and often laced with tears. But there is laughter too, and camaraderie and in these Tales, Berkoff gives the reader a real insight and feeling of what it is like to tread the boards, and the passion, work, and intuition that goes into creating a role.Read more
£3.30
