Theatre Biographies

An intimate and penetrating examination of the world's most famous woman, Dame Edna Everage, by the man who knows her best. In this unauthorised biography, acquired for an unprecedented advance and in spectacular secrecy, long-time manager and the man who was there from the very beginning, Barry...

'This is the biography - truthful, sympathetic and thorough - that Coward deserves' DAILY TELEGRAPH The voice, the dressing-gown, the cigarette in its holder, remain unmistakable. There is rarely a week when one of Private Lives, Hay Fever, and Blithe Spirit is not in production somewhere in the...

Daniel Day-Lewis is an actor regarded by many as the finest of his generation. His portrayal of cerebral-palsy sufferer Christy Brown in My Left Foot won him his first Oscar in 1990, and in 2008 another Oscar followed for his role in There Will Be Blood. His roles in The Age of Innocence, The Last of the Mohicans and In the Name of the Father further cemented his reputation as well as grossing millions at the box office, making Day-Lewis one of Hollywood's most bankable stars.

Timeless and surprisingly current, The Art of the Theatre, published after her death at age 78, is the final and most in-depth record of the great actress' views on acting and the theatre. Here "The Divine Sarah" shares advice on everything from speech, movement, role preparation, vocal warmups, and make-up tips to why she preferred to play Hamlet instead of Ophelia.

In her new book, Dame Judi Dench tells us of her life on the stage, on the screen, and, above all, behind the scenes... You might think you know Judi Dench. In a seven-decade career, she's been a spymaster, an Oscar-winning queen and has starred in musicals, blockbusters, tragedies and comedies...

A short biography of Charles Dickens by acclaimed actor and writer Simon Callow that offers a fresh perspective on one of the greatest novelists in the English language in a lively, highly readable account. "It has all the gusto that a popular biography of Dickens—a man who “could do nothing...

Few actors have had a career as dynamic as that Kathleen Turner's; success has followed her from the television screen to major blockbusters, from indie films to the theater stage. Over her 40-year career, Turner has developed an instinctual knowledge of what it takes to be a successful actor, and, in her conversations with esteemed film professor Dustin Morrow, she shares these lessons with the world.

This audiobook contains the voices of Black prima ballerina Lydia Abarca Mitchell, founding Dance Theatre of Harlem member Shelia Rohan, daughter of late founding member Gayle McKinney-Griffith, Khadija Tariyan McKinney-Griffith, and first-generation dancers Karlya Shelton-Benjamin and Marcia...

'Zindagi ek safar hai suhana...' He was the most outrageous performer of the Hindi film screen - loved for his voice, adored for his comedy, and famous for his eccentricity. His big-screen performances - such as Half Ticket, Pyar Kiye Jaa, Padosan - could make you laugh hard, but his songs -...

'Fluent and witty . . . confident . . . highly readable' Kathryn Hughes, GUARDIAN 'Brilliant - so vivid and so sharp, fantastically clever and consistently fascinating' KATHERINE RUNDELL, author of Super-Infinite Was Shakespeare gay? The answer is both simpler and more complex than you might...

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NOTABLE BOOK Finalist for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography The forgotten story of a pioneering group of five Black ballerinas and their fifty-year sisterhood, a legacy erased from history—until now. “This is the kind of history I wish...

Sheridan Morley writes: "When my father died at eighty-four on the morning of Derby Day 1992 (one of the few he ever missed), he and I had been together for just over fifty years. In the immediate aftermath of his sudden death, I knew two things; how much I would always miss the sheer joy of his company, and how much I wanted to write about him, if only to explain to myself and my children the life and career of the last great Boulevardier of his or any other time."

Insightful, incisive & enlightening, the first volume of Simon Callow's comprehensive biography of Orson Welles. Now in abridged audio, Callow's vastly entertaining chronicle of Welles's first 26 years seems even finer than it did in 1995. The author's ability to skewer his subject's evasions...

Before "Fred and Ginger" there was "Fred and Adele", a show-business partnership and cultural sensation like no other. In our celebrity-saturated era, it's hard to comprehend what a genuine phenomenon these two siblings from Omaha were. At the height of their success in the mid-1920s, the Astaires seemed to define the Jazz Age. They were Gershwin's music in motion, a fascinating pair who wove spellbinding rhythms in song and dance. In this book, the first comprehensive study of their theatrical career together, Kathleen Riley traces the Astaires' rise to fame from humble midwestern origins.

From Broadway debuts to landmark productions. Score a front row seat to hear hundreds of stories about the most important stages in the world, seen through the eyes of the producers, actors, stage hands, writers, musicians, company managers, dressers, designers, directors, ushers, and door men who bring The Great White Way to life each night. You'll never look at Broadway the same way again.

In 1959, the year Terry Galloway turned nine, the voices of everyone she loved began to disappear. No one yet knew that an experimental antibiotic given to her mother had wreaked havoc on her fetal nervous system, eventually causing her to go deaf. As a self-proclaimed "child freak," she acted out her fury with her boxy hearing aids and Coke-bottle glasses by faking her own drowning at a camp for crippled children

In interviews ranging from 1960 to 1972, Noël Coward talks about being a legend; whether he is a cynical writer; his early days in acting and about his early reputation for upsetting fellow actors on stage. He also discusses acting with Laurence Olivier; his affection for the Navy; his...

Clara Blow is a one-woman play in two acts about the life and times of Clara Bow. The "It" Girl was the movies' first American sex goddess. The star of Wings, the first film to win the Best Picture Oscar, Clara Bow's unhappy life, in many ways, paralleled that of her successor, Marilyn Monroe. A longtime victim of insomnia, Ms. Bow lies awake on the morning of her estranged husband's funeral and painfully remembers the mentally ill mother who once tried to kill her; her career as the ultimate "flapper" her many nervous breakdowns; and affairs with the likes of Gary Cooper, Gilbert Roland, director Victor Fleming, and, as is said, the USC football team.

Bloomsbury presents Wade McClusky and the Battle of Midway by David Rigby, read by Keith MacKechnie. During the Battle of Midway in June 1942, US Navy dive bomber pilot Wade McClusky proved himself to be one of the greatest pilots and combat leaders in American history, but his story has never...

This perfect gift audiobook for fans of Downton Abbey will take them behind the scenes of the Grand Dame who brings the Dowager Countess to life. No one does glamour, severity, girlish charm or tight-lipped witticism better than Dame Maggie Smith. Michael Coveney's biography shines a light on...