Showing titles in Actors

Fights Worth Fighting by Dolph Lundgren is a powerful and unflinchingly honest memoir from one of the most enduring icons of action cinema. Best known for his role as Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, Lundgren skyrocketed to fame in the 1980s and has since built a remarkable career spanning over a hundred...

The Hollywood way of life has long been a potent mix of scandal, secrecy, and sensation: exactly like the Hollywood way of death.... In this unique study, Peter Underwood charts the lives, loves, and deaths of 30 of Tinseltown’s most glittering stars. Many deaths were sad or senseless; some were tragic; others were the revenge of old age, while a few were the revenge of something altogether more sinister.

He was the unlikeliest of presidential candidates - dismissed by opponents as a movie actor, a right-winger trying to undo the work of liberals stretching back to Franklin Roosevelt. Yet Ronald Reagan made it to the White House, taking office in a time of economic turmoil, waning prestige abroad, and a general dampening of the American spirit. Reagan's patriotism, wit, and optimism lifted the nation and brought it through several crises.

Alan Rickman was one of Britain’s most beloved actors. His portrayal of the cunning Hans Gruber in the 1988 blockbuster Die Hard set a new standard for movie villains with his perfect blend of charm and menace. Rickman then became a household name playing Professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series. His performance captured the layers of emotion and complexity that made Snape one of the most memorable and celebrated figures in the series.

For more than six decades, Joe Besser brought gales of laughter to millions—in vaudeville, on Broadway, on radio, in motion pictures, and on television. From his days working as a bumbling assistant to the world-famous Thurston the Magician, he carved out success with his own act—that of a childlike sissy who brandished his foils with a flick of the wrist and such hilarious verbal assaults as “Ooh, you crazy you!” and “Not so f-a-s-t!

At the age of two, Mimi began working as a child actress, sharing the screen with the some of the legends from the Golden Age of Hollywood: Cary Grant, Sophia Loren, John Wayne, Loretta Young, Jane Wyman, Dorothy McGuire and many, many more. This is a tale of the kid-actors filming on the sound stages of 1950s Hollywood, kid-actors playing their parts in a very adult world, learning hard lessons with sometimes life-altering consequences.

Betty White was more than just an actress and comedienne—she was a force of nature who dazzled audiences for nearly a century. Few in show business could match her energy, charisma, or longevity. While many of her peers slowed down, Betty remained active well into her 90s. Incredibly, she lived to be 99 years old, passing away just weeks shy of her 100th birthday. Throughout her extraordinary life, Betty White built a career that spanned over eight decades. She was breaking new ground in radio and television when the mediums were still in their infancy.

George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937-June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor, and author in a career that spanned from the 1960s to the 2000s. He was known for his dark comedy and reflections on politics, English, psychology, religion, and sociocultural criticism of American society.

Brimming with previously untold stories and insights, How Coppola Became Cage both revels in and demystifies Cage's onscreen eccentricities. No other modern actor has explored such profound creative extremes while bending the boundaries of good taste. Here is the origin story of an actor who truly is wild at heart and weird on top.

Hollywood remembers the faces it creates—but it forgets the hearts it breaks. From sweeping stages at age twelve to standing beneath the blazing lights of the Academy Awards, Charlie Lovetts lived every note of the American dream—and every dissonant chord behind it. He rose from a poor Depression-era boy to a celebrated actor, musician, and the fearless host of Famous or Infamous, the groundbreaking show that exposed the truth behind the glitter of the stars.

Do you like secrets? We dug deep to uncover only the most interesting facts and movie trivia for you to enjoy. We're big movie fans too, so we know just what you love to read about. You want all the amazing facts behind your favourite movies. Not just the regular stuff that is easy to find. And you don't just want to be entertained, you want to enrich your movie-watching experience. So this audiobook is full of random facts about your favourite actors and actresses.

When Robert Redford first entered the national spotlight in the early 1960s, he was hardly viewed as a serious actor, and with his red hair, blond complexion, and athletic build, he was seen more as a handsome man than a skilled one. On top of that, he came at a time in which most Hollywood stars were tall, dark, and slender - like one of his most famous costars, Paul Newman - and by comparison, Redford looked more like a surfer.

Betty Grable: The Reluctant Movie Queen is a fascinating and intimate account of the famous star who was for many years the highest-paid woman in America and a favorite pin-up all over the world.

In the 1940s, there were few actors who personified the all-American look like Burt Lancaster, who set Hollywood ablaze quickly with performances in movies like The Killers, The Flame and the Arrow, and The Crimson Pirate. Indeed, his status as a heartthrob was cemented by 1953's From Here to Eternity, when he and Deborah Kerr shot a romantic scene on a Hawaiian beach that ensured the film's inclusion in the American Film Institute's Top 100 Romantic Films of the 20th century.

As it turned out, however, that was just the first phase in a critically acclaimed career that would span over 40 years. As Lancaster grew older, he wisely veered away from the early kinds of roles he had as a leading man and branched out into more distinguished roles that were also more challenging, earning him brand new levels of acclaim. In time, he would go on to be nominated for four Academy Awards for Best Actor, including a win for Elmer Gantry (1960) when he was in his late 40s. By the time he was finished, the American Film Institute named him 19th on its list of the 50 best actors of the 20th century.

From his agent's phone call offering him the role of Estragon, Lucian Msamati brings brilliantly to life the experience of co-starring with Ben Whishaw in James Macdonald's celebrated production of Waiting for Godot in London's West End. Through rehearsal room highs and lows, workaday laughs and tears, literal stumbles and grumbles, we journey with Lucian, his fellow actors and creatives, and Beckett's play, sharing in the personal and dramaturgical discoveries they make and the inevitable emotional contours of an experience as intense as this one.

Your Worshipfulness is the story of how a teenage Carrie Fisher created Star Wars's greatest character, Princess Leia. Leia began as little more than a damsel in distress, albeit one with cinema's most iconic hairstyle. Over three films, Carrie made her a complicated character, beloved the world over. Then Darth Vader died, the Ewoks danced, the credits rolled, and that was that. Carrie now had the rest of her life to live, stuck in Leia's shadow.

Like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin is an American legend for his longevity and success across a garden variety of different platforms. Martin began as a nightclub singer, performed in a comedy act, starred in films, recorded hit albums, and capped his career by serving as a television host. In fact, there may be no star who was better able to transcend the different avenues of entertainment.

Olivia de Havilland is one of the last few living actresses who worked during the Golden Era of Hollywood, but also one of the most decorated, winning dozens of awards over the course of a 50 year career. Among those, she most notably won the Academy Award for Best Actress for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949), more than a decade after she got her start as an 18 year old in Hollywood.

Dana Andrews (1909-1992) worked with distinguished directors such as John Ford, Lewis Milestone, Otto Preminger, Fritz Lang, William Wyler, William A. Wellman, Mervyn Le Roy, Jean Renoir, and Elia Kazan. He played romantic leads alongside the great beauties of the modern screen, including Joan Crawford, Elizabeth Taylor, Greer Garson, Merle Oberon, Linda Darnell, Susan Hayward, Maureen O'Hara, and most important of all, Gene Tierney, with whom he did five films.

In the 1920s, the burgeoning movie industry was starting to come into its own, and virtually no actor was as famous - or infamous - as John Barrymore. Like many other film stars his age, Barrymore’s career had started in other forms of entertainment, in his case theater. By the time movies were becoming popular, Barrymore was one of the world’s foremost Shakespearean actors.