Showing results by publisher "Beacon Audiobooks" in Entertainment & Celebrities

"Iron" Mike Tyson was one of the most feared opponents to ever step into a boxing ring. With unbelievable power that floored or stopped all but two of his first 28 professional opponents, Tyson began an unprecedented ascent to the top of the boxing world, becoming the youngest champion in history with a second-round TKO over Trevor Berbick, the last man to box and defeat Muhammad Ali.

Jason Molina: Riding with the Ghost details Molina’s personal trials and triumphs and reveals for the first time the true story of Molina’s last months and works, including an unpublished album unknown to many of his fans. Offering unfettered access to the mind and artistry of Molina through exclusive interviews with family, friends, and collaborators, the audiobook also explores the Midwest music underground and the development of Indiana-based label Secretly Canadian.

Throughout the history of Hollywood, perhaps no actor has a reputation as unique as Johnny Depp. Depp began his career in a very traditional manner by being a teen heartthrob on shows like 21 Jump Street, but as he once admitted, "As a teenager I was so insecure. I was the type of guy that never fitted in because he never dared to choose. I was convinced I had absolutely no talent at all. For nothing. And that thought took away all my ambition too."

In 1985, Stanley Kubrick encouraged Matthew Modine to keep a journal and take photographs while playing the lead role of Pvt. Joker - a combat correspondent - on the set of his Vietnam War film, Full Metal Jacket. In 2005, Modine published a limited edition book of his diary and photos which later became an interactive experience for the iPad. Now, with the Full Metal Jacket Diary audiobook, fans can listen to Modine as he performs his diary with sound effects and original music.

In many ways, Judy Garland's rise to fame seems almost predestined. Not only was she a national sensation at a young age, but her parents and sisters were all vaudeville entertainers. On top of that, Garland's parents owned and operated a movie theater, making it all the easier to draw the conclusion that singing and acting were simply professions which she was born into by virtue of her pedigree.

Nearly everything the American public has seen, read, and heard in the media for nearly 80 years about the so-called Amelia Earhart mystery is intentionally false or inadvertently misleading. The widely accepted myth that the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan during their ill-fated world-flight attempt in July 1937 is among the greatest aviation mysteries of the 20th century is an abject lie, the result of decades of government propaganda that continues unabated to this day.

When Bogart died in 1957, Bacall was still in her 30s, yet from 1957 onward her name scarcely surfaces in popular culture, as though Bacall was simply wiped away with her late husband.

My RAD Career is a roller coaster ride through Hollywood in the 1980s as seen through the eyes of one of the cult figures of the era, Bill Allen (star of the movie RAD). Starting as a teen actor on his first ill-fated film alongside a young George Clooney, Bill shares his personal and professional relationships through film and television roles with some of the greatest actors and directors of a generation. Told like you're sitting with him over drinks at a bar, Bill takes you inside the show biz bubble to reveal his most jaw-dropping experiences spanning three decades. 

"The Opposite" wasn't just the classic Seinfeld episode in which George Costanza followed the opposite of his instincts to land success. The method behind the madness has been championed in industries worldwide and even likened to the rise of Trump. The award-winning writer who helped Costanza win, and first pondered "the opposite" in his own life, identifies traces of it in the legends he mined for anecdotes before the cameras rolled at his first high-profile Hollywood job.

At age 62, TV producer, writer, and brother of show business icon Billy Crystal, experiences chest pain while playing golf and learns he needs an aortal valve replacement. Without the highly innovative and challenging surgery, he would die. Facing his own mortality, Richard successfully undergoes the surgery. During his days and nights of recovery in the hospital, he revisits his past and a flood of memories rush in, allowing him to rediscover the dramatic events that shaped his life. He uses his life-affirming memories to accelerate the healing process.

After 26 years starring as nurse Lillian Raines on the hit soap opera Guiding Light, Tina Sloan knows a thing or two about surviving the pitfalls of growing older in front of the world. From depleted storylines, to transitioning from sizzling screen diva to a mature grandmother, Changing Shoes shows that even TV grandmothers can have style and flair.

Author Sandra Martin shares these stories which are fundamentally about the bones of her life: the structure from which she has built her life; her goals, her spiritual search, and her career.

For more than 20 years, music critic Bernard Holland reviewed the most celebrated artists of the 20th century. He reported both sides of the culture war between an honored past and radical change. Throughout his writings, Holland discusses what classical music really is, destroys the myth of high and low art, and defines the job of the music critic. Along the way, the listener will chat with Herbert von Karajan, take a plane trip with Yo-Yo Ma, and walk the slow walk with Robert Wilson.

Growing up in a single parent home with a father that inspired perseverance and fairness, Marques Ogden learned how to define his values and set goals. Ogden attended Howard University from 1998-2002, where he played Division I football. He followed his dream and his brother Jonathan's footsteps, eventually getting drafted into the NFL in 2003. Overall, he played for five years as an offensive lineman with the Titans, Bills, Ravens and Jaguars. Even during the off season, Ogden helped train football players in Europe, both physically and mentally. At the age of 27, he founded a construction company called Kayden Premier Enterprises, a business that grew rapidly in its first few years, but Ogden and the business eventually went bankrupt, after Ogden loss almost two million dollars on one project in a time period just under 90 days. At his darkest point, the NFL came in and helped Ogden restructure his life. With hard work and determination, he became a motivational speaker and marketing leader, helping to build others up to succeed. Through it all, Ogden dealt with his own personal demons of drinking and gambling to make it regardless of obstacles that were in his path!

Few actresses lived their lives in the public eye more than Marilyn Monroe, and yet her life remains shrouded in mystery to this day. While it's common knowledge that Marilyn's life is a rags-to-riches story, her life is bookended by hazy details surrounding her early life and even more mysterious death.

A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history’s most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors' British Legends series, listeners can get caught up to speed on the lives of Great Britain’s most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known.

A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history’s most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors’ American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America’s most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known.

In 1942, Pete Reiser was on the road to baseball superstardom. Then he crashed into a wall—an unpadded concrete outfield wall as he tried to make a game-saving catch. And for Pete, nothing was ever the same. A year earlier, at age 22, he had won a batting title, a rookie of the year award, and a pennant with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Sportswriters could not stop marveling at his skill set, highlighted by a keen batting eye, a rifle throwing arm, and speed that whisked him from home to first in three-point-six seconds. 

The year 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the song “Timothy”. Banned by radio stations and called "the worst song ever recorded", its lyrics about cannibalism in a Pennsylvania coal mine eerily parallel the real-life Sheppton disaster. Still, the Billboard hit launched the career of The Buoys, later known as Dakota. Here is the story of an amazing American AOR band who, despite the “Dakota Curse” and the Coal Region Hoodoo, achieved acclaim abroad. Their story is also a cautionary tale of substance abuse, the pitfalls of fame, and the true price of rock and roll.