Showing results by publisher "Random House Audio" in Entertainment & Celebrities

From Pasadena to Cambridge to New York, Washington, D.C., India, Ceylon, Paris, Marseilles, Santa Barbara, and Maine, Bob Spitz re-creates an extraordinary life. He takes us beyond the image of Julia as the tall, eccentric woman with a funny voice who taught America how to cook, to establish her as a genuine rebel and beloved icon, a woman who redefined herself in middle age, helped to change the role of women in America, set the standard for how to create a public personality in the modern media world.

Told with grace and deep understanding, as well as humor, Mia Farrow's exquisitely written memoir goes beneath the surface of her amazing life, with all its drama, success, and pain, and exposes the inner workings of a mind and spirit for whom truth, compassion, and faith are essential.

This touching and hilarious memoir 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.

Giuliana Rancic is best known for interviewing A-listers on the red carpet and E! News, skewering their shocking style choices on Fashion Police, and giving viewers a front-row seat to her marriage and family life on her reality show, Giuliana & Bill. What fans may not know is that she learned English from Eddie Murphy, got her American citizenship so she could be a beauty queen, and used to have a bad habit of stealing cars for fun.

Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is history - including Vietnam, the Pentagon, Panama, and Desert Storm - but a history that until now has been known only on the surface.

From her Academy Award-nominated screenplays to her best-selling fiction and essays, Nora Ephron is one of America's most gifted, prolific, and versatile writers. In this classic collection of magazine articles, Ephron does what she does best: embrace American culture with love, cynicism, and unmatched wit. From tracking down the beginnings of the self-help movement to dressing down the fashion world's most powerful publication to capturing a glimpse of a legendary movie in the making, these timeless pieces tap into our enduring obsessions with celebrity, food, romance, clothes, entertainment, and sex.

Paul Newman, the Oscar-winning actor with the legendary blue eyes, achieved superstar status by playing charismatic renegades, broken heroes, and winsome antiheroes in such revered films as The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Verdict, The Color of Money, and Nobody’s Fool. But Newman was also an oddity in Hollywood: the rare box-office titan who cared about the craft of acting, the sexy leading man known for the staying power of his marriage, and the humble celebrity who made philanthropy his calling card long before it was cool.

The inner workings of a writer’s life, the interplay between experience and writing, are brilliantly recounted by a master of the art. Gay Talese now focuses on his own life—the zeal for the truth, the narrative edge, the sometimes startling precision, that won accolades for his journalism and best-sellerdom and acclaim for his revelatory books about The New York Times (The Kingdom and the Power), the Mafia (Honor Thy Father), the sex industry (Thy Neighbor’s Wife), and, focusing on his own family, the American immigrant experience (Unto the Sons).

Packed with revelations, this is the first complete account of a career built on raw talent, sheer willpower—and criminal connections. Anthony Summers—best-selling author of Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe—and Robbyn Swan unveil stunning new information about Sinatra’s links to the Mafia, his crowded love life and his tangled relationships with U.S. presidents. Exclusive breakthroughs include the discovery of how the Mafia connection began—in a remote Sicilian village—and moving interviews with his lovers.

Frances Mayes offers her listeners a deeply personal memoir of her present-day life in Tuscany, encompassing both the changes she has experienced since Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany appeared, and sensuous, evocative reflections on the timeless beauty and vivid pleasures of Italian life. Among the themes Mayes explores are how her experience of Tuscany dramatically expanded when she renovated and became a part-time resident of a 13th century house with a stone roof in the mountains above Cortona.

From the lead singer of the band Great Big Sea comes a lyrical and captivating musical memoir about growing up in the tiny fishing village of Petty Harbour, Newfoundland, and then taking to the world stage.

The first book dedicated solely to exploring his creative work, Man in the Music guides us through an unparalleled analysis of Jackson’s recordings, album by album, from his trailblazing work with Quincy Jones to his later collaborations with Teddy Riley, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, and Rodney Jerkins. Drawing on rare archival material and on dozens of original interviews with many who helped bring the artist’s music into the world, Jackson expert and acclaimed cultural critic Joseph Vogel reveals what gave rise to an immortal body of work.

When they were children in the suburbs of Los Angeles in the 1950s, Diane Keaton and her younger brother, Randy, were best friends and companions: They shared stories at night in their bunk beds; they swam, laughed, dressed up for Halloween. Their mother captured their American-dream childhoods in her diaries, and on camera. But as they grew up, Randy became troubled, then reclusive. By the time he reached adulthood, he was divorced, an alcoholic, a man who couldn't hold on to full-time work - his life a world away from his sister's, and from the rest of their family.

With more than seventy years on the silver screen, Shirley MacLaine has, as she says, seen it all, done it all, been everywhere, and met everyone. Since making her Hollywood debut in 1955, her popularity has only grown as she’s amassed a stunning collection of awards and written multiple bestselling memoirs. Now, at ninety years old, MacLaine has more stories to tell and the pictures to bring them to life.

Long before he directed Wicked, In The Heights, or the groundbreaking film Crazy Rich Asians, Jon M. Chu was a movie-obsessed first-generation Chinese American, helping at his parents’ Chinese restaurant in Silicon Valley and forever facing the cultural identity crisis endemic to children of immigrants. Growing up on the cutting edge of twenty-first-century technology gave Chu the tools he needed to make his mark at USC film school, and to be discovered by Steven Spielberg, but he soon found himself struggling to understand who he was.

Jill Conner Browne, royal boss of Mississippi's own Sweet Potato Queens, introduced them to the world in the hilarious best seller The Sweet Potato Queen's Book of Love. Fortunately for us, that was not the final chapter in the Queens' saga. The Sweet Potato Queens still have plenty to say and valuable wisdom to impart about how they went from being Cute Girls to Fabulous Women.

To know the Sweet Potato Queens is to love them, and if you haven't heard about them yet, you will. Their royal ringleader, Jill Conner Browne, introduces the Queens to the world with this sly, hilarious manifesto about love, life, men, and the importance of being prepared. For more wit and wisdom, don't miss The Sweet Potato Queens' Big-Ass Audiobook and Financial Planner.

From the moment the ship docked in Le Havre, en route to Paris, in the fall of 1948, Julia had an awakening that changed her life. Soon this tall, outspoken gal from Pasadena, California, who didn't speak a word of French and knew nothing about the country, was steeped in the language, chatting with purveyors in the local markets, and enrolled in the Cordon Bleu.

Ryan O’Neal and Farrah Fawcett: He was the handsome Academy Award-nominated star of Paper Moon and the classic romance Love Story. She was the beautiful, all-American Charlie’s Angel, whose poster adorned the bedroom walls of teenage boys everywhere. One of the most storied love affairs in Hollywood history, their romance has captivated fans and media alike for more than three decades.

A dramatic and revelatory account of Joe Torre’s 12 years as manager of the New York Yankees. Joe Torre is the most successful - and most respected - baseball manager of the modern era, steering the Yankees to six American League pennants and four World Series championships. When he left the team in 2007, it was front-page news around the country. Famously diplomatic during his tenure with the Yankees, Torre finally speaks out about what it was like building and managing the dynasty during those 12 glorious and tumultuous years.