Entertainment Professionals

Harry Cohn was the cofounder and president of Columbia Pictures, which he ran from the 1930s through the 1950s. Cohn—who abhorred personal publicity—left no writings, made no speeches, and rarely submitted to interviews. Despite this, acclaimed biographer Bob Thomas brilliantly illuminates the life of the powerful but elusive studio head in King Cohn: The Life and Times of Hollywood Mogul Harry Cohn. Thomas details the studio head's rise from a New York City song-plugger to a Poverty Row impresario, highlighting his reign as one of the most powerful men in Hollywood.

Allan Abbott ran the leading hearse, mortuary, and funeral services company in Hollywood and saw up close how celebrities really live and die. The Forrest Gump of the funeral industry, Abbott was everywhere celebrities died, from helping to prepare Marilyn Monroe's body for burial to standing next to Christopher Walken at Natalie Wood's funeral. This book tells the rags-to-shroud story of how a young man with a hearse became the funeral driver to the stars.

Dorothy Carvello knows all about the music biz. She was the first female A&R executive at Atlantic Records and one of the few in the room at RCA and Columbia. Featuring never-before-heard stories about artists like Michael Jackson, Madonna, Steven Tyler, Bon Jovi, INXS, Marc Anthony, Phil Collins, and many more, this audiobook is a must-hear for anyone who has ever wondered what it's really like to be a woman in a male-dominated industry.

The definitive biography of movie executive and philanthropist Sherry Lansing traces her groundbreaking journey to become the first female head of a major motion picture studio, shares behind-the-scenes tales from movie sets and Hollywood boardrooms, and explains what inspired her to walk away from it all to start the Sherry Lansing Foundation.

From watching his colleague get shot in the testicles by a jealous producer to running Hollywood's most successful television studio, Harris Katleman had a front row seat in the development of the television industry. Through a number of hilarious accounts, Harris Katleman shares his journey from office boy to talent agent to television producer, and finally to studio head at both MGM and 20th Century Fox. Along the way, we meet industry giants including Rupert Murdoch, Bob Iger, Barry Diller, Marvin Davis, Kirk Kerkorian, Mark Goodson, and Lew Wasserman.

Learn how to become a professional burlesque dancer with clear, detailed steps illustrated by real-life examples of famous performers from the 20th century and current stars, and benefit from a former performer’s insight.

When Haskell was young, his devoted mother, Mary, instilled in her son the values of character, faith, and honor by setting an example and asking him to promise to live his life according to her lessons. He did, and those promises have served Haskell consistently from his Mississippi boyhood to his long career at the venerable William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills.

In 1900, aged 22, Charles Stewart Rolls was the best known motorist in Britain, better known than Jeremy Clarkson today, having won the "Thousand Mile Trial" of that year, the event that launched motoring as a practical popular concept. Rolls followed his success in the Trial by racing in highly dangerous inter-city races in Europe.

Howard Bloom - called “the greatest press agent that rock and roll has ever known” by Derek Sutton, the former manager of Styx, Ten Years After, and Jethro Tull - is a science nerd who knew nothing about popular music. But he founded the biggest PR firm in the music industry and helped build or sustain the careers of our biggest rock legends, including Michael Jackson, Prince, Bob Marley, Bette Midler, Billy Joel, Billy Idol, Chaka Khan, and 100 more. What was he after? He was on a hunt for the gods inside of you and me.

Many people consider music theory to be intimadating, when in all actuality, it is the very language that connects us. This book is a step-by-step guide providing the basics and laying the foundation necessary to provide you with the skills to compose and orient your ideas when creating music.

How to Stunt in Hollywood was designed to put the spotlight on the men and women who perform and design the fantastic feats and awe-inspiring stunts that you've come to love. Most importantly, the book will give you insight and advice to help motivate you in your life's continuing journey. This book is comprised of interviews from some of Hollywood’s top stunt professionals. All together, they have worked on some of the biggest films and TV shows of all time. They all come from different walks of life but share similar traits and characteristics that have helped them succeed.

Barry Avrich - a self-made, Montreal-born film producer-director, flamboyant advertising executive, and legendary biographer and connector of moguls and stars. For over three decades, he has relentlessly produced films on some of the most notorious show-business titans and also found the time to market and promote feature films, concerts, and the biggest shows on Broadway.

Nice women never wore makeup. Even the word was taboo in polite society—until Max Factor entered the scene. Born in Poland in 1877, Factor worked as a beautician for the Russian royal family, the Romanovs. In 1904, he fled to America, where he opened a cosmetics store in Los Angeles. Creating makeup originally for silent films, then the talkies, and, ultimately, color motion pictures, Factor designed looks for Katharine Hepburn, Rita Hayworth, Bette Davis, and countless other beauties of the day. Soon women everywhere wanted to look like their favorite glamorous stars, and Factor was there to help, bringing his innovative cosmetics to the general public.

In 2008, Simon Fitzmaurice was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease. He was given four years to live. In 2010, in a state of lung-function collapse, Simon knew with crystal clarity that now was not his time to die. Against all prevailing medical opinion, he chose life. Despite the loss of almost all motor function, thanks to miraculous technology he has continued to work, help raise his children, and write this astonishing, life-affirming memoir.

Professional stage actors are expected to have ready knowledge of a multitude of unwritten yet well-established protocols. Traditionally, this knowledge was passed along from one generation of stage actors to the next via word of mouth, or were learned by having one’s missteps corrected—until now.

A. E. Hotchner first met Paul Newman in 1955 when the virtually unknown actor assumed the lead role in Hotchner’s first television play, based on an Ernest Hemingway story. The project elevated both men from relative obscurity to recognition and began a close and trusted friendship that lasted until Newman’s death in 2008.

Part hidden history, part love letter to creative innovation, this is the true story of an unlikely friendship between a dancer, Loie Fuller, and a scientist, Marie Curie, brought together by an illuminating discovery.

Over his 30-year career at Condé Nast, Nicholas Coleridge has witnessed it all. From the anxieties of the Princess of Wales to the blazing fury of Mohamed Al-Fayed, his story is also the story of the people who populate the glamorous world of glossy magazines. With relish and astonishing candour, he offers the inside scoop on Tina Brown and Anna Wintour, David Bowie and Philip Green, Kate Moss and Beyonce and a surreal weekend away with Bob Geldof and William Hague.

An irresistible inside look at one of the world’s great dance companies, Winter Season is also a sensitive, intimate, and almost painfully honest account of the emotional and intellectual development of a young woman dedicated to one of the most demanding of all the arts.

In this candid memoir, featuring a foreword by Barbra Streisand, renowned designer Donna Karan shares intimate details about her lonely childhood, her four-plus decades in the fashion industry, her two marriages, motherhood, and her ongoing quest for self-acceptance and spiritual peace.