Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in Entertainment & Celebrities

When Hugh Hefner quit his job at Esquire to start a magazine called Playboy, he didn't just want to make money, he wanted to make dreams come true. In this wise and penetrating biography, intellectual historian Steven Watts looks at what Hugh Hefner went on to become and how he took America with him. Hefner became one of the most hated and envied celebrities in America, standing just barely on the wrong side of decency - with as many as seven million subscribers to his magazine.

Born in Manchester in 1977, Anthony Kavanagh's rise to fame was stratospheric, scoring a record deal at the age of just eighteen and winning the much-coveted Smash Hits Male Artist of the Year Award in 1997, all the while achieving top ten hits, appearing on countless magazine covers, performing on Top of the Pops and gigging alongside the Spice Girls. The stuff that dreams are made of. But Anthony - or Kavana as he came to be known - was also trying to keep his sexuality a secret while navigating his way through an industry where image was everything.

James Hetfield, with whom many years ago Mustaine founded a band known as Metallica, once observed, with some incredulity, that Mustaine must have been born with a horseshoe up his ass. That's how lucky he's been, how fortunate he is to be pulling breath after so many close calls. And Hetfield is right. Mustaine has been lucky. He has been blessed. But here's the thing about having a horseshoe lodged in your rectum: It also hurts like hell. And you never forget it's there.

In this exceptional biography, Pulitzer Prize finalist Mary Gabriel chronicles the meteoric rise and enduring influence of the greatest female pop icon of the modern era: Madonna. Deftly tracing the artist's life and influence from her Michigan roots through to her sold out concerts in Lisbon, Buenos Aires, London, and Malawi, Mary captures the inspiration, fame, and activism of one of the greatest pop icons of our time.

Hugh Bonneville is one of Britain's best-loved actors, whose credits include Downton Abbey, W1A and the Paddington films. From getting his big break as third shepherd in the school nativity play, to navigating Highclere Castle's complex Labrador policies, to bizarre Hollywood encounters, Hugh creates a brilliantly vivid picture of a career on stage and screen.

Harvey Fierstein’s legendary career has transported him from community theater in Brooklyn, to the lights of Broadway, to the absurd excesses of Hollywood and back. He’s received accolades and awards for acting in and/or writing an incredible string of hit plays, films, and TV shows.

The Stig gets his kit off and reveals how he came to be Top Gear's iconic racing driver and so much more - including what it's like to thrash an Aston Martin DBS, train for the Army and face the terror of Jeremy Clarkson's underwear…When the Black Stig disappeared off the end of an aircraft carrier in 2003, we were introduced to The White Stig. Faster. Stranger. Harder to keep clean. And ever since, millions have wondered – who is The Man in the White Suit? They're about to find out.

We all think we know who Steve Jobs was, what made him tick, and what made him succeed. Yet the single most important question about him has never been answered. The young, impulsive, egotistical genius was ousted in the mid-'80s from the company he founded, exiled from his own kingdom and cast into the wilderness. Yet he returned a decade later to transform the ailing Apple into the most successful company the world had ever seen.

In this candid and hilarious memoir, the celebrated director, comedian, writer, and actor offers a comprehensive, personal look at his tumultuous life. He revisits his entire 60-year-long career as a writer and director, from his classics Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Hannah and Her Sisters to his most recent films, including Midnight in Paris. He discusses his marriages, romances, and famous friendships, his jazz playing, and his books and plays. We learn about his demons, his mistakes, his successes, and those he loved, worked with, and learned from.

Rhys has lived his entire life with a backdrop of dread. As a child, the sentence he feared most was "come downstairs and say hello." Age 5 he feigned injury to avoid dancing at a wedding, and 25 years later, he celebrated when the venue set on fire moments before what would've been the biggest gig of his life. You'll Like It When You Get There is a guide to life from someone who doesn't want to do anything, and an exploration of why you possibly shouldn't either.

Now, for the first time, he reveals the truth behind his remarkable life. From his time as an evacuee during the Blitz to his front-line military service in the Korean War, from his early days as an assistant stagehand to becoming Peter O'Toole's understudy, from walk-on parts in local theatres to blowing the bloody doors off with his legendary roles in Zulu and The Italian Job, Caine's life was never simple or easy.

Frank Sinatra desperately wanted to be part of John F. Kennedy, Jr.'s gang. He had his own famed "Rat Pack", made up of hard drinking, womanizing individuals like himself - guys like Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Peter Lawford - but the guy "Ol' Blue Eyes" really wanted to hang with was Lawford's brother-in-law, the real chairman of the board, John F. Kennedy. In Sinatra and the Jack Pack, Michael Sheridan delves deep into the acclaimed singer's relationship with the former president.

Amanda Goff was a successful journalist in London and Sydney before ditching her nine-to-five job at the age of 38 to become Samantha X, Australia's most famous escort. A bipolar diagnosis changed everything: she retired from sex work, walked away from Samantha X, and went in search of Amanda.

Can women have it all? What does it mean to be a woman and a mother in the modern age? In this passionate, funny and fierce polemic, Paloma Faith delves deep into the issues that face women today, from puberty and sexual awakenings, to battling through the expectations of patriarchy and the Supermum myth.

Growing a perfect moustache, grilling red meat, wooing a woman - who better to deliver this tutelage than the always charming, always manly Nick Offerman, best known as Parks and Recreation's Ron Swanson? Combining his trademark comic voice and very real expertise in woodworking - he runs his own woodshop - Paddle Your Own Canoe features tales from Offerman's childhood in small-town Minooka, Illinois, to his theater days in Chicago, beginnings as a carpenter/actor and the hilarious and magnificent seduction of his now-wife Megan Mullally.

Malcolm Evans, the Beatles’ long-time roadie, personal assistant, and devoted friend, was an invaluable member of the band’s inner circle. A towering figure in horn-rimmed glasses, Evans loomed large in the Beatles’ story, contributing at times as a performer and sometime lyricist, while struggling mightily to protect his beloved “boys.” For Beatles devotes, Mal’s life and untimely death have always been shrouded in mystery. For decades, his diaries, manuscripts, and vast collection of memorabilia was missing, seemingly lost forever…until now.

John Farnham is the quintessential Aussie legend. As a teenager he gave up an apprenticeship to chase his musical dreams, hitting the big time with the catchy pop ditty 'Sadie (the Cleaning Lady)'. But it wasn't smooth sailing from there. A family man at heart and the most loyal of friends, John was sometimes uncomfortable with the spotlight and for many years struggled to make his music career as successful as those close to him - including Glenn Wheatley and Molly Meldrum - could see it could be.

Being John Lennon is not about the whitewashed Prince of Peace of 'Imagine' legend, because that was only a small part of him. Nor is it about the permanently angry young rebel of the movie Nowhere Boy, or even the ranting Beatles iconoclast of the Rolling Stone interviews. All three of those personae had a degree of truth in them. But the John Lennon depicted in these pages is a much more kaleidoscopic figure, sometimes almost a collision of different characters.

Named by Time as America's Favourite Humorist, the uniquely perceptive and hilarious David Sedaris reads from his essays and diaries for his ninth series for Radio 4. This is the complete recording of Meet David Sedaris Series Nine, which was broadcast on Radio 4.

The first biography to focus exclusively on Angus Young - from his remarkable rise from working-class Glasgow and Sydney to the biggest stages in the world. Angus Young, the cofounder and the last remaining original member of AC/DC, has for more than 40 years been the face, the sound and sometimes the exposed backside of the trailblazing rock band.