Book Description

Book Description

Kenneth Tynan (1927–1980) lived one of the most intriguing theater lives of his century. A brilliant writer, critic, and agent provocateur, he made friends or enemies of nearly every major actor, playwright, impresario, and movie mogul of the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. He wrote for the Evening Standard, the Observer, and the New Yorker; served eleven years as dramaturg for Britain’s newly formed National Theatre, and spent his final years in Los Angeles. This biography offers the first complete appraisal of Tynan’s powerful contribution to post-war British theater, set against the context of the fifties, sixties, and seventies and his own turbulent life.

Dominic Shellard highlights Tynan’s writings of 1952–1963, when the coruscating young critic came to prominence. He discusses how Tynan took his place at the vanguard of the new realist movement, helped to establish subsidized theater, fought censorship, and assisted in the creation of such groundbreaking theatrical phenomena as Oh Calcutta! in 1970. The book reveals both the public and private Tynan, an outspoken, explicit, and sometimes savage critic who became one of the most influential theater figures of the twentieth century. ... Read more

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This is the most thorough and comprehensive biography to date of writer and activist Paul Green (1894-1981). Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his play In Abraham's Bosom and author of the pioneering symphonic drama The Lost Colony, Green was a literary figure of national prominence during the 1920s and 1930s. During this time of experimentation and boldness in American theater, Green was praised by directors and critics, had a play chosen three times for the collection Year's Best Plays, and gained the respect of African American actors longing for meaningful roles. Green's personal and political convictions fully complemented the social-realist leanings of his art, a literary output comprising plays in many forms, essays, folklore collections, novels, and film scripts. In places like his native North Carolina, Green stood apart even from other proponents of integration by claiming that sexual as well as social intermingling of the races was a natural occurrence in human society.

Drawing on his complete access to Green's papers and on interviews with surviving family members, John Herbert Roper covers all the important aspects of Green's life and career--his childhood, military service, education, travels, and marriage, as well as his many literary undertakings and friendships.

By word and deed, Paul Green spread the faith of liberalism across the New South, which he insistently called the "Real South." Long after literary fashion had left him behind, he wrote daily and remained at the forefront of causes concerning race relations, militarism, women's and workers' rights, and capital punishment. As an artist and an individual, Green set an early and enduring standard of courage and forthrightness. ... Read more

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This is the first authorized literary biography of Nobel Prize-winning poet and dramatist Derek Walcott. It traces the creative contradictions in his life from colonial St. Lucia, where he was part of a tiny English-speaking Protestant mulatto elite in an overwhelmingly French-Creole Roman Catholic black society, to 1999 when, a star of international literature and a symbol of cultural decolonization, he wanted to be Poet Laureate of England. The author had had access to letters, diaries, uncollected and unpublished writings, and conducted numerous interviews in the Caribbean, North America, and Europe. Walcott is seen as someone driven by the need to justify his life and fulfill his talents before an unknowable God, but who, in mastering the ways of the world often regards himself as an example of fallen humanity. Besides offering an approach to Walcott as a poet, dramatist, theater director, arts critic, and teacher, the book shows how his desire to be a painter influenced his vision and the way he works. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

From the provinces to Stockholm-a professional career
In this exhaustive and thorough 714page biography, Bruce King sets out the development of Derek Walcott as a poet and dramatist whose ambition and talent led him from the colonial backwaters of the Caribbean of the forties to the Nobel stage in Stockholm in 1992. The reader will not find a gossipy, tell-all chronicle.King follows Walcott from his earliest years as a child prodigy in Saint Lucia through university in Jamaica,life in Trinidad where he formed his Trinidad Theatre Workshop and on to his jet setting years as an international writer whose personal friends were Joseph Brodsky, Seamus Heaney, Les Murray, Susan Sontag, Robert Lowell, Paul Simon et al.Through his close detailing of Walcott's relative poverty, his incessant travelling to read his work, his disappointments, his successes,his sheer prolific output of writing and art, King fulfills his goal to demonstrate the effects on a major literary talent of cultural decolonialisation, the recognition of national literatures, the place of the U.S.in encouraging artists like Walcott.Walcott's is a very modern life,an example of the changing face of the once imperial-international literary and artistic scene.Walcott's work, as seen in his most recentTieopolo's Hound (an integration of poetry and art), continues to defy literature boundaries.King's biography will further understanding of the writer, his work, the culture from which he comes, and the larger movements in 20th century arts and letters.A must for general libraries, literary collections, and for readers and students of modern literature. A recommended companion volume is also King's earlier "Derek Walcott and West Indian Drama"(Oxford,1995).

From the provinces to Stockholm-a professional career
In this exhaustive and thorough 714page biography, Bruce King sets out the development of Derek Walcott as a poet and dramatist whose ambition and talent led him from the colonial backwaters of the Caribbean of the forties to the Nobel stage in Stockholm in 1992. The reader will not find a gossipy, tell-all chronicle.King follows Walcott from his earliest years as a child prodigy in Saint Lucia through university in Jamaica,life in Trinidad where he formed his Trinidad Theatre Workshop and on to his jet setting years as an international writer whose personal friends were Joseph Brodsky, Seamus Heaney, Les Murray, Susan Sontag, Robert Lowell, Paul Simon et al.Through his close detailing of Walcott's relative poverty, his incessant travelling to read his work, his disappointments, his successes,his sheer prolific output of writing and art, King fulfills his goal to demonstrate the effects on a major literary talent of cultural decolonialisation, the recognition of national literatures, the place of the U.S.in encouraging artists like Walcott.Walcott's is a very modern life,an example of the changing face of the once imperial-international literary and artistic scene.Walcott's work, as seen in his most recentTieopolo's Hound (an integration of poetry and art), continues to defy literature boundaries.King's biography will further understanding of the writer, his work, the culture from which he comes, and the larger movements in 20th century arts and letters.A must for general libraries, literary collections, and for readers and students of modern literature. A recommended companion volume is also King's earlier "Derek Walcott and West Indian Drama"(Oxford,1995). ... Read more

Book Description

Dowling spares no blushes in his recounting of the shenanigans, partying, and bed-hopping that went on during his time in theater. This book will be enjoyed by anyone who loves life and the theater. ... Read more

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Toward the end of his life, master actor John Barrymore became an embarrassment: he was a classic drunken has-been who could neither pull it together nor pack it in. But this unusual biography spends most of its pages on Barrymore's golden age in the 1920s and 1930s, describing in amazing pre-videotape detail his performances at the height of his powers, playing what may be the 20th century's definitive Hamlet, along with Macbeth and other classical roles. Michael Morrison draws on books, memories, reviews, and other material to presentpainstaking line-by-line recreations of Barrymore's most shining performances. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Hard Work Pays Off
This is one of the best books ever written on the performing arts. By focusing in on Barrymore's Shakespearean acting only, Morrison manages to show how a second-rate light comedian turned himself into a great artist by sheer hard work -- and then, horrifyingly, how an artist transformed himself into a clown through laziness and dissipation. Through the use of the actor's playbooks and impressive research, Morrison does the impossible and brings Barrymore's stage performances as Richard III and Hamlet so vividly alive you'll swear you're in the theater watching them (I was holding my breath at the end of "Hamlet"). Along the way there are vivid portraits of the idealistic, progressive theater in the 1920's and, a decade later, the ancestry of today's poisonous and envious celebrity culture. Once you read this book you'll never look at Barrymore the same way again.

Inspiring & Heartbreaking
Michael Morrison's book fills a much needed gap in the large Barrymore biographical canon: it tells the story of Barrymore the artist. Many of the other great biographies of the man and family (Margot Peter's THE HOUSE OF BARRYMORE, anything by James Kotsilibas-Davis, to name only two of many excellent others) understandably short-shrift the details found here, in favor of the fabulous "bon mots" and the large tragic arc of his life. Morrison, if it's possible to believe, makes that tragedy all the more heartbreaking by detailing the hard work that Barrymore put himself through to transform himself from a light comedian into the greatest tragic actor of his generation - and arguably the last great tragic actor of the American theatre.

The detailed recreations of Barrymore's acting in RICHARD III and HAMLET are facinating. They provide all of us who have come after some small picture of what it must have been like to actually see him on stage. It helps, I suppose, to be familiar with his film work, to have heard at least some of his Shakespearean recordings, in order to fully visualize Barrymore's "flashing, rapier" genius at work - but it's probably not necessary. A must for all Barrymore fans, actors, and theatre lovers, this book is a treasure. But beware, its story could break your heart.

A stunning overview of an American legend.
Michael Morrison has provided us with a stirring portrait of one of America's greatest actors, John Barrymore. His book is a vivid account of Barrymore's innovative approach to Shakespearean acting and subsequent rise to fame. This book is required reading for Shakespearean scholars and Barrymore enthusiasts alike. ... Read more

Book Description

In this first modern book-length biography of native Englander William E. Burton, theatre historian David L. Rinear explores Burton’s diary, letters, published reviews, and various reminiscences to reveal the tumultuous personal and professional lives of the mid-nineteenth-century actor/manager and his role in American literary history. Stage, Page, Scandals, and Vandals: William E. Burton and Nineteenth-Century American Theatre also provides insight into the cultural and artistic climate of an early period in American history when the country was still forming a national identity.

Burton fled England in 1834 and came to America in the wake of a public scandal caused by his marriage to a sixteen-year-old orphan. Burton was then already married with a ten-year-old son. Settling in Philadelphia, the thirty-two-year-old actor rapidly established himself in the city’s theatrical productions and quickly became an audience favorite. In 1837, while continuing to act, Burton founded and edited The Gentleman’s Magazine, a monthly literary publication later called Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine. Burton hired struggling author Edgar Allan Poe as coeditor, and the journal achieved literary acclaim as it first published many of Poe’s short stories and poems.Burton sold the journal in 1841 and used the money to build a new theatre, which he managed, although the depression of the early 1840s soon drove his venture out of business. After declaring bankruptcy the following year, Burton worked as a touring actor before returning to theatre management in 1845. For the next thirteen years, Burton managed a succession of theatres in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York. Burton’s work as a producer of Shakespearean comedies and romances marks him as the first of the intellectual theatre managers to raise the theatrical experience from mere popular culture to high art. Burton made a fortune in his ventures, amassed the finest private Shakespearean library in the country, and built a grand seaside estate in Glen Cove, Long Island. Shrewd in his personal affairs and in business, Burton also had a violent temper, which led him to viciously attack his competitors. His peculiar domestic relationships marred his brilliant career as an actor, manager, and man of letters; he may have been married to three women at once and lived with two of these women simultaneously. Fully revealing Burton’s contributions to American culture, Rinear traces Burton’s personal and professional pursuits from his emigration to his death in 1860. Bolstered by twenty-two illustrations, Stage, Page, Scandals, and Vandals sheds light on the history of American entertainment during the antebellum era, exposes the ruthless business practices required to succeed in theatre and literary magazine publishing, and reveals a sense of what constituted celebrity status in mid-nineteenth-century America. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Broadway, the Golden Years
Long is an author with many interests, witness his list of credits--Ingmar Bergman: Film and Stage (CH, Jul'94), The Films of Merchant Ivory (CH, Feb'92), The Great Succession: Henry James and the Legacy of Hawthorne (CH, Jul'80), to name just a few of his many books. Now he turns to musical theater and how some choreographers have taken over the entire direction of a show. He gives separate consideration to Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Gower Champion, Michael Bennett, and Tommy Tune. A final chapter presents shorter treatments of Graciela Daniele, Rob Marshall, and Susan Stroman. For each he gives a fairly standard resume of the artist's career, moving from show to show. He acknowledges his interviews with many theatrical folk, but his account is primarily an amalgamation of data from published material (endnotes are helpful, and the bibliography is excellent). Good one-stop shopping for material on principal choreographers and a link to fuller accounts, this is a good book for performing arts collections and large academic and public libraries, despite a mediocre section of photographs that does little to illumine the text.

A terrible shame - dozens or errors make this book worthless
I had such high hopes for this book, but reading it drove me crazy. I counted more than 50 factual errors, misspellings, grammar errors, homonym errors, misidentified songs, directors, chracters, relationships, dates -- and those are just the ones I caught. This book needs an editor and a fact checker, and the author needs to learn to spell Anne Bancroft's name, among others.

It's an interesting subject, but how can you take the book seriously or trust any of its information when its riddled with mistakes? I got the impression while reading this that the author has not seen or read about many of the shows he discusses -- he couldn't have and still made those mistakes.

Don't waste your money on this awful book.

The "Spacious New Life" of Collaborative Genius
As with the word "Hollywood," the word "Broadway" refers less to a location than to a culture. In this brilliantly written and thoroughly entertaining book, Robert Emmet Long examines several of Broadway's most productive, creative, and dynamic choreographers and choreographer-directors of that culture: Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins (to whom Long devotes three chapters), Bob Fosse, Gower Champion, Michael Bennett, and Tommy Tune. Long also includes an insightful Epilogue ("Broadway Today") followed by Notes and a first-rate Bibliography.

Friends of mine who claim to "love" Broadway musicals have seen few of them performed on stage. What my friends really mean is that they appreciate the music written for those musicals which they probably first heard when seeing adaptations and/or listening to sound tracks from films such as Carousel, The King and I, Oklahoma!, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and South Pacific. I consider myself fortunate having been able to see, live, the original cast performances of several of the musicals which Long discusses in his book. They include The Bells Are Ringing, Bye Bye Birdie, Fiddler on the Roof, The Music Man, Pajama Game, and West Side Story. Film adaptations of musicals can only suggest the energy and excitement of the choreography devised by those whom Long discusses in this book. What I especially appreciate is the fact that Long tells his reader so much about their personal lives as well as about their professional careers. Many of them collaborated on major musical productions. For example, as choreographer-director of West Side Story, Robbins worked closely with Hal Prince and Robert Griffith (co-producers), Leonard Bernstein (composer), Authur Laurents (librettist), and Stephen Sondheim (lyricist). Throughout his career, Robbins was directly or indirectly involved with many of the musicals which were introduced during what Long characterizes as Broadway's "Golden Years."

Today, given the development and production costs of new musicals as well as the negative impact of the economy on those who are prospective investors in them, there is legitimate concern about the fate of choreographer-directors. Does Long share that concern? "It is far too soon to write [their] obituary. With all these gleamings of fresh life in the theater recently, it is entirely possible that the choreographer-director will after all endure -- or more than endure, will go on to triumph again and again." Long carefully explains how exceptionally high creative standards were established on the Great White Way during the past 60 years by Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Gower Champion, Michael Bennett, and Tommy Tune, among others. My fervent hope is that, in years to come, others will accept the challenge and indeed triumph "again and again" as their Broadway ancestors once did. ... Read more

Book Description

"He's a marvelous storyteller: gossipy, candid without being cruel, and very funny. This vivid, entertaining book is also one of the most penetrating works to be written about the theater." - Publishers Weekly ... Read more

Book Description

It is the genius of Carroll O'Connor that millions of fans will forever confuse him with his most unforgettable creation, Archie Bunker. But O'Connor has lived the kind of rich, momentous life that Archie could never have imagined -- from growing up in Depression-era New York and serving in the merchant marines during World War II to nurturing a fifty-year marriage and enjoying scores of classic Hollywood moments with the likes of Rob Reiner and Jean Stapleton (All in the Family), Howard Rollins (In the Heat of the Night), Clint Eastwood (Kelly's Heroes), and Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra).

But Hollywood is also the source of O'Connor's most painful memory: the cocaine addiction and suicide of his son, Hugh. Here, he speaks honestly about both his loss and his efforts to educate others about the horrors of drug abuse.

Candid and insightful, spirited and funny, O'Connor emerges from behind the actor's mask to reveal television history in the making, and with his Irish charm, tell the story of all the families he has been able to call his own. In a career graced with landmark achievements, I Think I'm Outta Here stands as one of the most moving and memorable of all. ... Read more

Reviews (19)

This Book Was Good
I liked this book on tape. I usually prefer reading the book, but after reading the book, THEN listening to it, it was more interesting to hear Carroll O'Connor read it his way!

Interesting, but not about All in the Family
I'm a huge fan of that show, and believe O'Connor's long portrayal of Archie is the greatest and most groundbreaking acting performance in television history. So the fact that he offers almost no insight into that work in this memoir is a major letdown.
Still, he had a fascinating life and this is a very good read, even though he certainly doesn't always come off as a likeable or tolerant fellow. He has deep, strident beliefs, little affection for those who differ, and he bluntly tells us so.

The final chapter about his beloved son's descent into addiction, madness, and suicide, and a father's inability to stop it, is truly wrenching. That could have been a book by itself.

All In The Mind
I'm not going to say much here; Only that this book may be the least interesting autobiography I have ever read. You know Carrol from "All In The Family" moreso than any other role he has portayed, yet he avoids discussing his tenure on that ground-breaking show from the 70's, instead telling us many things about his early history.
It appears he may feel the show overshadowed everything else he did, so to answer that, left it out of his book.
I was disappointed reading it and would not recommend the book to anyone.

I loved this book!!
It tells the whole story thru the eyes of Carroll O'Connor!
It is a wonderful book to get lost in.
I started out a fan of All in the Family and ended a fan of O'Connor!!

Not any of the Family
I love Archie Bunker and still consider him one of the best TV characters ever created. But I do not like Carroll O'Connor. I THINK I'M OUTTA HERE is a convoluted, self-centered work showing O'Connor to have been a man oblivious to the world around him. This book is dreadful. His belligerence likely sent his editor into hiding, for what else could explain why O'Connor was allowed his digressions into Irish history and his ridiculous footnotes about nothing? At one point, he tells of the "Divil" on his shoulder (with a footnote explaining how the "Divil" is another form of the "Devil") who speaks with an Irish accent, and how this Divil helped steer him through life.

I'm sure that O'Connor worked very hard to get where he did, to get the roles he did. But he makes it seem as if he deserved everything: he was born to his roles, and everyone in Hollywood thought so, too. I'd admire the man more if he told us how hard he did work to become a star. I'd enjoy hearing more about his friends in entertainment, and what he thought of working with Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers.

O'Connor follows the path of others who are known for doing one great thing and then write about it: he skirts around his most important accomplishment. He tells us how brilliant he was when he recreated Norman Lear's Archie Bunker, about how great Jean Stapleton was as Edith (no argument there), but then says something like "Those of you looking for a rehashing of what happened during the production of that show won't find it here," then jumps to his life post-cancellation of the show. Nothing new here.

The final chapter of this book is pitiful, but also made me pity Carroll O'Connor, which I'm sure would have angered the man greatly. His son, Hugh, succumbed to his drug habit, committing suicide after O'Connor attempted numerous interventions with his family at his side. It wasn't enough. Only in this final chapter do we see O'Connor as just another person -- vulnerable, powerless to control the lives of others -- a real man. It's sad that he could not have broken free of the reins of pretentiousness and told us his whole story with such emotion.

If you're a fan of All in the Family, steer clear. If you're a fan of Carroll O'Connor, rent some of his movies, watch episodes of All in the Family and In the Heat of the Night, then turn off your TV. This book does him no justice. ... Read more

Book Description

Samuel Beckett was perhaps the most unconventional playwright of the twentieth century. His plays broke all the rules by dispensing with traditional concepts of plot, scene, and character, concentrating instead on the experience of the drama itself. An intensely private man, Beckett's work was profoundly influenced by his relationship with his mother and what he called her "savage loving," and by the tensions and hypocrisies of his divided country. In his work, he presents us with our own humanity; the hopelessness and the solitude, the bizarre tragicomedy of life itself.

Many of the items collected in this volume have never been published, among them the transcription of a 1938 letter from James Joyce to Beckett's brother Frank, assuring that Beckett was recovering under the Joyce family's care after an unprovoked stabbing by a Paris pimp. Photos from many of Beckett's play productions, his childhood home and family in Dublin, and manuscript pages complement an incisive biography by Beckett scholar Gerry Dukes, providing a unique introduction to the life and work of one of drama's great masters. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Great read!
~ Wow, I finally got a moment to start your book, well once started I couldn't stop. Amazing read. So many wonderful and tragic moments. I am forever indebted to you for your gift of memory and the efforts to preserve and enliven the Hair experience. So many times I felt "We need this movement today, our country is going down the same road it was in the 60's." Sending you my love, and gratitude. ... Read more

Book Description

John E. Owens (1823–1886), one of the wealthiest, most popular comic actors in America, refined the stage yankee and won critical and popular acclaim for his eccentric characters and tender, evocative portrayals of garrulous old men. His most famous role was Solon Shingle in J.S. Jones’ The People’s Lawyer, which he played over 2000 times, earning over $250,000 from it alone. As a manager, Owens had an eye for a hit, and he produced, directed, and performed in several of the nation’s most successful productions of the 1850s and 1860s.

This biography chronicles his childhood and apprenticeship with William Burton, his early lead roles, his first efforts at management, and his marriage to Mary C. Stevens. It then discusses how he developed the roles of Solon Shingle and Caleb Plummer that brought him so much fame, the broadening of his audience and refining of his craft around the time of the Civil War, his performances in the West and expansion of his repertoire, his new ways of touring, and the loss and recovery of his audiences amid the rise of Joseph Jefferson. It ends with a discussion of his theatrical success, financial loss and exhaustion with acting and managing, and his illness and death. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Great resource!
I had to use this book for a college course.It was an excellent resource.I hope to read more about this author.

superb work!
This book has everything you wanted to know about John Owens and more. ... Read more

Book Description

Originally published in the Soviet Union in 1963, this is a Stanislavsky centennial collection. It contains excerpts from memoirs referring to the great Russian actor and stage director. There are passages by Maxim Gorky, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, Yevgeny Vakhtangov, Sergei Eisenstein, Emile Verhaern, Maurice Maeterlinck, Max Reinhardt, Jacques Copeau, etc. Most of the materials presented in this collection, including the brilliant letters by Stanislavsky, are little known abroad, and appear in English for the first time. The collection is lavishly illustrated."The theatre is the finest medium of intercourse between nations.It reveals their most cherished aspirations. If only these aspirations were revealed more often ... the nations would shake hands, and lift their caps, instead of training guns on each other." - Konstantin Stanislavsky ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The Greatest Solo Actress Ever
How accessible Ruth Draper has become! It used to be that the few recordings of her monologues were not only hard to buy, but usually stolen from the library collections and never returned. (I won't mention any names.) However, having access to information on this remarkable performer's life is as important as having access to the history of the Peloponnesian War. There wasn't anyone like her.

Born into New York society in the late 1800's; her father a Doctor (and co-founder of New York University Hospital), her mother a musician; young Ruth, with her serious eyes, demonstrated early on a remarkable talent for mimicry. She imitated the family governess to the delight of her siblings, and before long moved from the nursery to the family parlor, entertaining houseguests with her unique brand of theater.

She was enrolled in "Miss Spence's" school (for girls), but found the environment not suited to her personality. A German Governess was hired to tutor her at home, and under her guidance Ruth Draper the student flourished.

Mrs. Warren has written a wonderful biography of Ruth Draper. Her record is notable because she was actually a friend, and ardent admirer of RD. They were acquaintances through family, and after noticing Dorothy Warren attending a great deal of performances, Ruth Draper instructed the stage manager to allow her to come and go as she wished; that she would no longer have Dorothy Warren paying to see her perform.

This book should be, in addition to her recordings, fundamental reading for theater students. Mentioned in the same catagory as Shakespeare, Stanislavsky, Tennessee Williams, and The Group Theater. I'm shocked when drama students tell me they've never heard of Ruth Draper!

Read this book, and Mrs. Warren's compilation of Ruth Draper's letters. (Available here together!) Then go to drapermonologues.com and order yourself writer Susan Mulcahy's fantastic compilations of the classic Ruth Draper recordings, and some that were never released.

I envy the person who has yet to discover her work, and life! What a treat you're in for. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Illuminating contextualization
In a series of interviews between 1971 and 1993 Gussow (longtime _New York Times_ drama critic, who also coaxed a fascinating set of comments from Tom Stoppard) got Pinter to talk about how he works. Pinter refuses to commenton what his work "means," but is eager to clear the air aboutmisperceptions about himself (such as being in a chronic state of outrage).Pinter comes across as generous as well as politically committed,suspicious of audiences, but grateful to (fellow) actors. And he clearlyhas a sense of humor (too rarely appreciated in his plays). ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (8)

Better than commented on
Having seen her perform in Pal Joey in London and again in My Old Lady in Hollywood, I was quite interested to read her story. I was not disappointed. The book tells HER story, not the story of O'Toole and others. For the lady who wanted gossip, I suggest getting the scandal sheets at your local super market when you check out.

The book covers not only her stage career and O'Toole relationship, but her thoughts and feelings about both and many other aspects over about a 40 year period.It is an intimate commentary on what she was going through from day, week, month and year onward.

For the comment that O'Toole wrote a good book... that is rubbish. He can't hold a candle to her as a writer. His "style" is awful. A poor man's James Joyce! And Joyce was bad enough himself.

I wanted more dirt
If you want to hear droning stories about British theatre life, then this is your baby. However, if you're hoping for some juicy revelations about Peter O'Toole, look someplace else. What a crushing disappointment this is. Sian was married to O'Toole for 20 years and during the height of his world-wide fame. She was with him during his breakthrough role as Lawrence of Arabia, in Becket, Goodbye Mr. Chips, and all his other stellar 60's roles. I expected gobs of gossip on Taylor and Burton, but Sian merely relates Peter's drinking binges with Burton and the fact Kate Hepburn referred to Liz and Richard as "fat pigs."

And what about O'Toole's drinking? As one of the most famous drunk actors of all time, in the league of Lee Marvin, Burton, Oliver Reed and Richard Harris, I expected some fireworks in this area. Forget it. Sian clinically describes Peter's addictions, his out of control lifestyle and racing cars, but it's all told in a desperately dry manner. All very disappointing.

Fascinating!
I loved this book! First of all because I think that Sian Phillips is an amazing actress who is terribly underappreciated -at least in this country. (I can't help but wonder what she would have achieved had Peter O'Toole allowed her to work more often.) I think her book is an honest, insightful picture of what her life was like - being married to a superstar, trying to juggle a career and a family, with less than no support from a husband who felt her only place was in the home - or at his beck and call - all pretty standard views at that time. Certainly the frustration she felt comes through very clearly, as does the turmoil she felt when she had to make the choice whether to stay in the marriage and go on the way they had been, or leave and find her own life. Obviously the success she has had (in Britain, anyway) since the marriage ended would indicate she made the right choice. But the stories of their life and adventures make for a fascinating and enjoyable read.

As for the reviewer who complained that there was nothing about her childhood in Wales - the reason is simple. This is the second part of her autobiography. Her life in Wales and her early days in London - up to the time she met Peter O'Toole - was beautifully told in the first book - "Private Faces" which was never released in this country, but which you can get through amazon.co.uk. It too is a fascinating story, since I doubt very many of us can even imagine what it would be like growing up in a very rural part of Wales.

I can't recommend this book highly enough - if only for more people to discover this amazinglybeautiful and talented woman.

Delicious Stories of an Adventurous Life
I loved reading this book. Sian Phillips took me places I wouldn't dream of venturing. One ride with O'Toole as driver and I would have said, "Enough already!" But she seems to adore a daring life -- and it takes her places. I was thrilled to go along, sinking ever deeper into my armchair. I'm reading to others at a Christmas party for booklovers the sequence that starts with her arrival in Cambodia in a "little girl" Mary Quant outfit that enrages her husband through the Hong Kong roaming in a neighborhood too dangerous for the police to enter.

Disappointing Bio
I was really looking forward to reading this book, but I'm severely underwhelmed by it on a number of levels.

First of all, there's practically nothing about her childhood. Her mother does have a part to play in the book, and there is a peek into a complicated and interesting relationship there, but the dearth of detail about her early life is odd. I wanted to learn about what it was like to grow up in Wales, speaking Welsh, and what that contributed to her identity, but she hardly touched on that. (Interesting that her ex-husband managed to mine an entire book, and an interesting one at that, just from his childhood.)

Other reviewers have complained of the lack of depth in discussing her most famous roles, especially the utterly fascinating Livia, whom Sian Phillips practically dismisses in a few sentences. That landmark role deserves much more!!

Phillips does prattle on a bit about her daughters, but I got absolutely no sense of them as personalities or real people.

There's way too much about what a heartless cold person her first ex-husband was capable of being. Sure, I was disappointed to learn that my favorite actor could be so cruel and unsentimental, not to mention apparently having an obsession with his wife's lack of virginity, but Phillips really went on and on about those things too much, to the point of overkill.

I still admire the woman for her acting talent, but she has no aptitude for writing a memoir. ... Read more

Book Description

Geoffrey Holder, a Guggenheim Award-winning painter and the Tony Award- winning director and designer of the Broadway musical The Wiz, is also a well- respected choreographer and set and costume designer, for his own company as well as for the Dance Theater of Harlem and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. As readers learn in this exuberant portrait, this transplanted Trinidadian is also a man with a compelling story to tell about his experiences as an artist and outsider who found success in America.

Jennifer Dunning, a dance critic at the New York Times, provides an appreciation of this multitalented artist and his many contributions to the arts community, while the illustrations reveal his wide-ranging creativity and exciting social life in Paris, New York, and the Caribbean.
250 illustrations, 150 in full color, 224 pages, 101/4 x 121/2" ... Read more