Halfway to Hollywood: Diaries 1980--1988

Author: Michael Palin
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429995939
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 649

Book Description
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction of 2011 title The second volume of Michael Palin's diaries covers the bulk of the 1980s, a decade in which the ties binding the Pythons loosened—they made their last film Monty Pyton's Meaning of Life in 1983. For Michael, writing and acting took over much of his life, culminating in his appearances in A Fish Called Wanda, in which he played the hapless, stuttering Ken, and won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor. Halfway to Hollywood follows Palin's torturous trail through seven movies and ends with his final preparations for the documentary that was to change his life—Around the World in 80 Days. During these years he co-wrote and acted in Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits as well as spearing in Gilliam's follow-up success Brazil. Palin co-produced, wrote and played the lead in The Missionary opposite Maggie Smith, who also appeared with him in A Private Function, written by Alan Bennett. In television the decade was memorable for East of Ipswich, inspired his links with Suffolk. Such was his fame in the US, he was enticed into once again hosting the enormously popular show Saturday Night Live. He filmed one of the BBC's Great Railway Journeys as well as becoming chairman of the pressure group Transport 2000. His life with Helen and the family remains a constant, as the children enter their teens. Palin's joy of writing is evident once more in Halfway to Hollywood as he demonstrates his continuing sense of wonder at the world in which he finds himself. A world of screens large and small.

Hollywood Strip

Author: Shamron Moore
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0765332302
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
Moving to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, Midwestern girl Callie Lambert endures a grueling schedule of waitressing and auditions before landing a role that she hopes will be a big break only to encounter new challenges in the form of murder, betrayal and love.

Hollywood Ending

Author: Kellye Garrett
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
ISBN: 0738755435
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Book Description
And the award goes to... ...Dayna Anderson, the semi-famous actress turned PI who steps up her sleuthing swagger in this follow-up to breakout hit Hollywood Homicide, winner of the Lefty Award and the Agatha Award for Best First Novel! Tinseltown's awards season is in full swing, and everyone is obsessed with dressing up, scoring free swag, and getting invited to the biggest awards shows of the year. But when celebrity publicist Lyla Davis is killed, the festive mood comes to an abrupt halt. Apprentice private eye Dayna Anderson thinks she's uncovered the killer. Unfortunately, what starts as an open-and-shut case turns out to be anything but. Diving deeper into the investigation, Dayna gets a backstage look at gossip blogging, Hollywood royalty, and one of entertainment's most respected awards shows—all while trying to avoid her own Hollywood ending. Praise for Hollywood Ending: A 2019 Lefty Award Nominee Named Best of 2018 by Suspense Magazine "Garrett continues to build an appealingly quirky crime-solving team."—Kirkus Reviews "Garrett, who wrote for TV's Cold Case, brings a smart insider's view of contemporary Hollywood to this lighthearted series."—Publishers Weekly "Fans of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series will feel right at home."—Library Journal "Day's funny and determined, the sort of woman who really WOULD make a wisecrack when faced with danger."—Donna Andrews, New York Times bestselling author of the Meg Langslow series "Kellye Garrett's Hollywood Ending glitters with stardust. A fun, fast-paced mystery, it's definitely an A-lister."—Elaine Viets, author of the Dead-End Job mysteries "Fasten your seatbelts. A star is born!"—Nancy Martin, author of the Blackbird Sisters mysteries "An entertaining whodunit that provides readers a peek behind Hollywood's star-studded curtain."—Diane Kelly, award-winning author Praise for Hollywood Homicide: Winner of the 2018 Agatha Award for Best First Novel Winner of the 2018 Anthony Award for Best First Novel Winner of the 2018 Lefty Award for Best Debut Winner of the 2018 IPPY Gold Medal for Best First Book "[A] winning first novel and series launch...Garrett writes with humor and insight about the Hollywood scene."—Publishers Weekly (starred review) "A smart, sassy debut."—Library Journal (starred review) and Debut of the Month "Veteran TV writer Garrett uses her Cold Case experience to inform her debut, which sets up more than one charming character and isn't afraid to go cynical on all things LA."—Kirkus Reviews "Funny, lively characters populate this new Detective by Day series."—RT Book Reviews "Dayna Anderson is a heroine readers will fall in love with."—Kyra Davis, New York Times bestselling author "A non-stop, fun read with humor sharp as a stiletto heel."—Ellen Byron, USA Today bestselling author "Toss in a hit-and-run, a steep reward, and more one-liners than a Marx Brothers marathon and you've got Hollywood Homicide."—Catriona McPherson, Agatha Award-winning author "Has a heart as big as Los Angeles."—Rachel Howzell Hall, author of the LAPD Detective Elouise Norton series "Garrett has written a novel with great voice, characters, hilarious moments, and a lot of Hollywood."—BookRiot

Hollywood Park

Author: Mikel Jollett
Publisher: Celadon Books
ISBN: 1250621542
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 341

Book Description
**THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** “A Gen-X This Boy’s Life...Music and his fierce brilliance boost Jollett; a visceral urge to leave his background behind propels him to excel... In the end, Jollett shakes off the past to become the captain of his own soul. Hollywood Park is a triumph." —O, The Oprah Magazine "This moving and profound memoir is for anyone who loves a good redemption story." —Good Morning America, 20 Books We're Excited for in 2020 "Several years ago, Jollett began writing Hollywood Park, the gripping and brutally honest memoir of his life. Published in the middle of the pandemic, it has gone on to become one of the summer’s most celebrated books and a New York Times best seller..." –Los Angeles Magazine HOLLYWOOD PARK is a remarkable memoir of a tumultuous life. Mikel Jollett was born into one of the country’s most infamous cults, and subjected to a childhood filled with poverty, addiction, and emotional abuse. Yet, ultimately, his is a story of fierce love and family loyalty told in a raw, poetic voice that signals the emergence of a uniquely gifted writer. We were never young. We were just too afraid of ourselves. No one told us who we were or what we were or where all our parents went. They would arrive like ghosts, visiting us for a morning, an afternoon. They would sit with us or walk around the grounds, to laugh or cry or toss us in the air while we screamed. Then they’d disappear again, for weeks, for months, for years, leaving us alone with our memories and dreams, our questions and confusion. ... So begins Hollywood Park, Mikel Jollett’s remarkable memoir. His story opens in an experimental commune in California, which later morphed into the Church of Synanon, one of the country’s most infamous and dangerous cults. Per the leader’s mandate, all children, including Jollett and his older brother, were separated from their parents when they were six months old, and handed over to the cult’s “School.” After spending years in what was essentially an orphanage, Mikel escaped the cult one morning with his mother and older brother. But in many ways, life outside Synanon was even harder and more erratic. In his raw, poetic and powerful voice, Jollett portrays a childhood filled with abject poverty, trauma, emotional abuse, delinquency and the lure of drugs and alcohol. Raised by a clinically depressed mother, tormented by his angry older brother, subjected to the unpredictability of troubled step-fathers and longing for contact with his father, a former heroin addict and ex-con, Jollett slowly, often painfully, builds a life that leads him to Stanford University and, eventually, to finding his voice as a writer and musician. Hollywood Park is told at first through the limited perspective of a child, and then broadens as Jollett begins to understand the world around him. Although Mikel Jollett’s story is filled with heartbreak, it is ultimately an unforgettable portrayal of love at its fiercest and most loyal.

Diaries

Author: Michael Palin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description

Vampyres of Hollywood

Author: Adrienne Barbeau
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429991860
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 341

Book Description
Film, television and Broadway star Adrienne Barbeau and New York Times bestselling author Michael Scott have teamed up to deliver this sexy, scary, and deliciously clever novel full of Hollywood glamour, behind-the-scenes secrets, and the truly bloodthirsty reality of Tinseltown. So grab some popcorn and some holy water and lose yourself in the high-stakes, back-stabbing world of the Vampyres of Hollywood. Hollywood, California: Three gruesome deaths within two weeks and every one of them a major star - an Oscar winner, an ingénue, and an action hero. A serial killer is working through the Hollywood A-list and celebrities are running scared. Each crime scene is worthy of a classic horror movie, and all three victims share a connection to the powerful scream queen, Ovsanna Moore. The stunning and formidable Moore is the legendary head of a Hollywood studio, as well as the writer and star of seventeen blockbuster horror films (and a few that went straight to DVD). She's also a 500 year old vampyre... but this is Hollywood after all, and no one ever looks their age. Beverly Hills Police Detective Peter King knows a lot about the City of Angels, but he certainly doesn't know that most of the famous actors in town are actually an established network of vampires. Or that secretive and seductive Ovsanna Moore happens to be their CEO. Moore and King may be from opposite sides of the Hollywood Hills, but both have something to gain by stopping the killer who the tabloids have dubbed the Cinema Slayer. Ovsanna must protect her vampire legacy and her production schedule, while King just wants to keep his Beverly Hills beat as blood-free as possible. But when the horror queen and the cop with the movie star looks form an unholy alliance, sparks fly and so do the creatures of the night.

Hooked on Hollywood

Author: Leonard Maltin
Publisher: Paladin Communications
ISBN: 1732273502
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 570

Book Description
Leonard Maltin is America's best-known film historian, film reviewer, and author of books that have sold more than 7 million copies. He remains a thought leader on past and present Hollywood through his website www.leonardmaltin.com, and a social media presence that includes an active Facebook page and a Twitter feed with more than 66,000 followers. In Hooked on Hollywood, Maltin opens up his personal archive to take readers on a fascinating journey through film history. He first interviewed greats of Hollywood as a precocious teenager in 1960s New York City. He used what he learned from these luminaries to embark on a 50-year (and counting) career that has included New York Times bestselling books, 30 years of regular appearances coast-to-coast on Entertainment Tonight, movie introductions on Turner Classic Movies, and countless other television and radio performances. Early Maltin interviews had literally been stored in his garage for more than 40 years until GoodKnight Books brought them to light for the first time in this volume to entertain readers and inform future film scholars. Teenaged Leonard Maltin landed one-on-ones with Warner Bros. sexy pre-Code siren Joan Blondell; Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated actor Burgess Meredith; Cecil B. DeMille's right-hand-man Henry Wilcoxon; Oscar-winning actor Ralph Bellamy; playwright, novelist, and MGM screenwriter Anita Loos; early screen heartthrob George O'Brien; classic Paramount director Mitchell Leisen; and others. Later in his career, Maltin sat down with men and women who worked inside the top studios during the heyday of movies and early television. This second set of in-depth interviews reveals what life was like under Louis B. Mayer, Jack Warner, Harry Cohn, and the other titans of Hollywood. What emerges is a fascinating and at times uproarious homage to Golden Era Hollywood. In addition, key feature articles from Maltin's newsletter Movie Crazy are published here for the first time, providing new perspectives on the Warner Bros. classics Casablanca and Gold Diggers of 1933 as well as many other masterpieces—and bombs—from Hollywood history. Finally, Maltin looks back at what he considers Hollywood's "overlooked" studio, RKO Radio Pictures, which gave us such classics as King Kong and the many dance musicals of Astaire and Rogers. In Leonard's unique and witty style, he looks at dozens of obscure RKO features from the 1930s, including saucy pre-Codes, musicals, comedies, and mysteries. Leonard Maltin's love of movies and vast knowledge about their history shines through from the first page to the last in this unique volume, which includes 150 rare photos and a comprehensive index.

Hollywood Godfather

Author: Gianni Russo
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250181399
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
Hollywood Godfather is Gianni Russo's over-the-top memoir of a real-life mobster-turned-actor who helped make The Godfather a reality, and his story of life on the edge between danger and glamour. Gianni Russo was a handsome 25-year-old mobster with no acting experience when he walked onto the set of The Godfather and entered Hollywood history. He played Carlo Rizzi, the husband of Connie Corleone, who set her brother Sonny—played by James Caan—up for a hit. Russo didn't have to act—he knew the mob inside and out: from his childhood in Little Italy, where Mafia legend Frank Costello took him under his wing, to acting as a messenger for New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello during the Kennedy assassination, to having to go on the lam after shooting and killing a member of the Colombian drug cartel in his Vegas club. Along the way, Russo befriended Frank Sinatra, who became his son's godfather, and Marlon Brando, who mentored his career as an actor after trying to get Francis Ford Coppola to fire him from The Godfather. Russo had passionate affairs with Marilyn Monroe, Liza Minelli, and scores of other celebrities. He went on to become a producer and starred in The Godfather: Parts I and II, Seabiscuit, Any Given Sunday and Rush Hour 2, among many other films. Hollywood Godfather is a no-holds-barred account of a life filled with violence, glamour, sex—and fun.

Diaries 1969–1979

Author: Michael Palin
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429918330
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 807

Book Description
The amazingly insightful, funny and brilliant record of Michael Palin's prime years as a member of the famed comedic group, Monty Python. Michael Palin has kept a diary since newly married in the late 1960s. This volume of his diaries reveals how Python emerged and triumphed, how he, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, the two Terrys---Jones and Gilliam---and Eric Idle came together and changed the face of British comedy. But this is but only part of Palin's story. Here is his growing family, his home in a north London Victorian terrace, which grows as he buys the house next door and then a second at the bottom of the garden; here, too, is his solo effort---as an actor, in Three Men in a Boat, his writing endeavours (often in partnership with Terry Jones) that produces Ripping Yarns and even a pantomime. Meanwhile Monty Python refuses to go away: the hugely successful movies that follow the TV (his account of the making of both The Holy Grail and the Life of Brian movies are page-turners), the at times extraordinary goings-on of the many powerful personalities who coalesced to form the Python team, the fight to prevent an American TV network from bleeping out the best jokes on U.S. transmission, and much more---all this makes for funny and riveting reading. The birth and childhood of his three children, his father's growing disability, learning to cope as a young man with celebrity, his friendship with George Harrison, and all the trials of a peripatetic life are also essential ingredients of these diaries. A perceptive and funny chronicle, the diaries are a rich portrait of a fascinating period. "A wealth of fascinating stuff about Monty Python." ---The Independent (UK)

Trejo

Author: Danny Trejo
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 198215084X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “If you’re a fan like I am this is definitely the book for you.” —Pete Davidson, actor, producer, and cast member on Saturday Night Live “Danny’s incredible life story shows that even though we may fall down at some point in our lives, it’s what we do when we stand back up that really counts.” —Robert Rodriguez, creator of Spy Kids, Desperado, and Machete Discover the full, fascinating, and inspirational true story of Danny Trejo’s journey from crime, prison, addiction, and loss—it’s “enough to make you believe in the possibility of a Hollywood ending” (The New York Times Book Review). On screen, Danny Trejo the actor is a baddie who has been killed at least a hundred times. He’s been shot, stabbed, hanged, chopped up, squished by an elevator, and once, was even melted into a bloody goo. Off screen, he’s a hero beloved by recovery communities and obsessed fans alike. But the real Danny Trejo is much more complicated than the legend. Raised in an abusive home, Danny struggled with heroin addiction and stints in some of the country’s most notorious state prisons—including San Quentin and Folsom—from an early age, before starring in such modern classics as Heat, From Dusk till Dawn, and Machete. Now, in this funny, painful, and suspenseful memoir, Danny takes us through the incredible ups and downs of his life, including meeting one of the world’s most notorious serial killers in prison and working with legends like Charles Bronson and Robert De Niro. An honest, unflinching, and “inspirational study in the definition of character” (Kevin Smith, director and actor), Trejo reveals how he managed the horrors of prison, rebuilt himself after finding sobriety and spirituality in solitary confinement, and draws inspiration from the adrenaline-fueled robbing heists of his past for the film roles that made him a household name. He also shares the painful contradictions in his personal life. Although he speaks everywhere from prison yards to NPR about his past to inspire countless others on their own road to recovery and redemption, he struggles to help his children with their personal battles with addiction, and to build relationships that last. Redemptive and painful, poignant and real, Trejo is a portrait of a magnificent life and an unforgettable and exceptional journey.