Biography & Autobiography : Entertainment & Performing Arts

Combines cultural theory, biography, and musical analysis to shed light on Monk's music and on the jazz canon itself. This book shows how the work of this nonconformist composer emerged from the jazz world's fringes to find a central place in its canon. It considers how Monk's stature has grown, from the narrowly focused wing of the avant-garde. more...

Price: $21.95

The first American biography of one of film's greatest comedians, MR. STRANGELOVE is the story of a screamingly funny, desperately unhappy soul—a man who thought he was empty. Sellers, who could mimic anyone and don any mask at will, was privately convinced that his personality had no core—that there was no personal substance under the put-on characters he so readily and hilariously assumed. “The Goon Show” made him famous; “I Love You, Alice B. Toklas” and “What's New, Pussycat?” turned him into a 60s flower-power icon that still resonates today. more...

Price: $10.95

The irrepressibly entertaining Jacki Weaver writes generously and wittily on her life, her loves and her passions. more...

Price: $19.95

She is one of the most recognizable women of our time. America knows Jane Fonda as an actress and an activist, a feminist and a wife, a workout guru and a role model. Now, in this extraordinary memoir, Fonda reveals that she is so much more. From her youth among Hollywood’s elite and her early film career to the challenges and triumphs of her life today, Jane Fonda reveals intimate details and universal truths that she hopes “can provide a lens through which others can see their lives and how they can live them a little differently. more...

Price: $16.95

One of the most recognizable big-screen stars of the past half-century, Sir Roger Moore played the role of James Bond longer than any other actor. Beginning with the classic Live and Let Die , running through Moonraker and A View to a Kill , Moore brought his finely honed wit and wry charm to one of Hollywood's most beloved and long-lasting characters. Still, James Bond was only one in a lifetime of roles stretching back to Hollywood's studio era, and encompassing stardom in theater and television on both sides of the Atlantic. From The Saint to Maverick , Warner Brothers to MGM, Hollywood to London to extreme locations the world over, Roger Moore's story is one of the last of the classic Hollywood lives as yet untold. Until now. From the dying days of the studio system and the birth of television, to the quips of Noël Coward and David Niven, to the bedroom scenes and outtakes from the Bond movies, Moore has seen and heard it all. Nothing is left out—especially the naughty bits. The "special effects" by which James Bond unzipped a dress with a magnet; the spectacular risks in The Spy Who Loved Me's opening scene; and Moore's preparation for facing down villains (he would imagine they all have halitosis): the stories in My Word is My Bond are priceless. Throughout his career, Moore hobnobbed with the glamorous and powerful, counting Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Seymour, and Cary Grant among his contemporaries and friends. Included are stories of a foul-mouthed Milton Berle, a surly Richard Burton, and a kindhearted Richard Kiel, infamous as Bond enemy Jaws. As much as it is Moore's own exceptional story, My Word is My Bond is a treasure trove of Hollywood history. more...

Price: $19.99