Born Brilliant

Author: Christopher Stevens
Publisher: John Murray Publishers
ISBN: 9781848541962
Category : Actors
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Kenneth Williams was the stand-out comic actor of his generation. Beloved as the manic star of Carry On films and as a peerless raconteur on TV chat shows, he was also acclaimed for serious stage roles. Born Brilliant will include much previously unseen material from Williams's candid daily journal and also draw on rare in-depth interviews with friends and colleagues. Since the publication of edited extracts from his diaries, much controversy has surrounded Williams's personal and professional lives. This biography traces the complex contradictions that characterised an extraordinary life and presents the first full portrait of a star who was born brilliant.

Kenneth Williams Unseen: The private notes, scripts and photographs

Author: Wes Butters
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 000739604X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 68

Book Description
To mark the 20th anniversary of Kenneth Williams’ death, a beautiful coffee table book celebrating his life, including never-before-seen photographs, sketches and personal testimony from Williams’ closest friends, for the very first time.

Kenneth Williams: Born Brilliant

Author: Christopher Stevens
Publisher: John Murray
ISBN: 184854460X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 558

Book Description
Kenneth Williams was the stand-out comic actor of his generation. Beloved as the manic star of Carry On films and as a peerless raconteur on TV chat shows, he was also acclaimed for serious stage roles. Born Brilliant includes previously unseen material from Williams's candid daily journal and also draw on rare in-depth interviews with friends and colleagues. Since the publication of edited extracts from his diaries, much controversy has surrounded Williams's personal and professional lives. This biography traces the complex contradictions that characterised an extraordinary life and presents the first full portrait of a star who was born brilliant.

Fall of Giants

Author: Ken Follett
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101543558
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 1010

Book Description
Ken Follett’s magnificent historical epic begins as five interrelated families move through the momentous dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women’s suffrage. A thirteen-year-old Welsh boy enters a man’s world in the mining pits. . . . An American law student rejected in love finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson’s White House. . . . A housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with a German spy. . . . And two orphaned Russian brothers embark on radically different paths when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution. From the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty, Fall of Giants takes us into the inextricably entangled fates of five families—and into a century that we thought we knew, but that now will never seem the same again. . . .

The Kenneth Williams Diaries

Author: Kenneth Williams
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Actors
Languages : en
Pages : 896

Book Description
For more than 40 years broadcaster and comedian Kenneth Williams kept a journal of his experiences - this book is a one-volume selection of these diaries. In addition to offering conclusive evidence as to the nature of Williams' death in 1988, the diaries reveal different sides of his character.

The Kenneth Williams Letters

Author: Russell Davies
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0007291922
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 342

Book Description
Following the bestselling publication of THE KENNETH WILLIAMS DIARIES, the devastating self-portrait of one of our most loved and complex performers is completed with this marvellous selection of his letters. This is a wonderful treasure trove of correspondence with all manner of people, including Alec Guinness, Maggie Smith, Joe Orton, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and the Stokers' Mess of HMS Leverton. Kenneth Williams took letters very seriously, and he was always disgusted by a morning that failed to provide him with some material to pore over. Letters called forth the performer in Williams in a way that his diaries never did: many of them are virtual comic monologues, and in general they suggest more strongly than the diaries the likeable and constructive side of a man who remains, nevertheless, as outrageous and 'difficult' as ever.

Hello, Darlings!

Author: James Hogg
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1448168317
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 521

Book Description
Spontaneous, hilarious, irrepressible and, of course, trailblazing - Kenny Everett was revolutionary in television and radio comedy. Chris Evans, Chris Moyles, Rob Brydon and Steve Wright have all cited Kenny as a huge influence on their work - even the great Spike Milligan called him a genius. It was Kenny who developed the radio show format with which we are so familiar today: a mix of music, jingles, funny voices and sound effects. When he seamlessly made the move to television in the seventies, he created unforgettable characters such as Sid Snot, Cupid Stunt and Marcel Wave. Rarely seen without a smile on his face in public, in reality, Kenny was a deeply insecure man who suffered severe bouts of depression. He also struggled with his sexuality, only coming out to the public in 1985. Diagnosed with HIV in 1987, Kenny died in 1995. This in-depth and affectionate biography has been fully authorised by Kenny's family and contains original interviews with Kenny's sister, Kate and with his former wife, Lee, as well as entertainment figures such as Barry Cryer, Cliff Richard, Chris Tarrant and Paul Gambaccini. Packed with fabulous stories about the highs and lows of Kenny's life, his great friendships with The Beatles and Freddie Mercury, this is a book that any fan of comedy and entertainment must read.

Just Williams

Author: Kenneth Williams
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0007329938
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Book Description

The Assassin's Cloak

Author: Irene Taylor
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 1838852921
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 960

Book Description
'A diary is an assassin's cloak which we wear when we stab a comrade in the back with a pen', wrote William Soutar in 1934. But a diary is also a place for recording everyday thoughts and special occasions, private fears and hopeful dreams. The Assassin's Cloak gathers together some of the most entertaining and inspiring entries for each day of the year, as writers ranging from Queen Victoria to Andy Warhol, Samuel Pepys to Adrian Mole, pen their musings on the historic and the mundane. Spanning centuries and international in scope, this peerless anthology pays tribute to a genre that is at once the most intimate and public of all literary forms. This new updated edition is published to mark the twentieth anniversary of the book's original publication.

A Real Boy

Author: Christopher Stevens
Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books
ISBN: 1843177412
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
This extraordinarily moving account describes the heartbreak, and the unexpected joy, of autism. With raw honesty.