Reference

The 2006 edition of Screen World highlights the surprise Academy Award-winner for Best Picture, Crash, featuring Matt Dillon, Terrence Howard, and Sandra Bullock, which also won Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing; the groundbreaking gay love story Brokeback Mountain, winner of three Academy Awards, with Oscar-nominated performances by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal; the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, which earned a Best Actress Academy Award for Reese Witherspoon and a Best Actor nomination for Joaquin Phoenix; Philip Seymour Hoffman's uncanny, Oscar-winning Best Actor impersonation of Truman Capote in Capote; Best Supporting Actress winner Rachel Weisz in The Constant Gardener; plus George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck, and Syriana, the former bringing him Oscar nominations as director and writer, the latter the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Screen World's outstanding features include: A color section of highlights and a comprehensive index. Full-page photograph s of the four Acadmey Award-winning actors as well as photos of all acting nominees; A look at the year's most promising new screen personalities; Complete film information: cast and characters, credits, production company, date released, rating, capsule plot summary, and running time; Biographical entries: a priceless reference on over 2,400 living stars, including real name, school, and date and place of birth; Obituraries for 2005; The top box office stars and top 100 box office films. Includes over 1000 color and b&w photos.

If Broadway's triumphant musical hits are exhilarating, the backstage tales of Broadway failures are tantalizing soap operas in miniature. Second Act Trouble puts you with the creators in the rehearsal halls, at out-of-town tryouts, in late-night, hotel-room production meetings, and at after-the-fact recriminatory gripe fests. Suskin has compiled and annotated long-forgotten, first-person accounts of 25 Broadway musicals that stubbornly went awry. Contributions come from such respected writers as Patricia Bosworth, Mel Gussow, Lehman Engel, William Gibson, Lewis H. Lapham, and John Gruen. No mere vanity productions, these; you can't have a big blockbuster of failure, it seems, without the participation of Broadway's biggest talents. Caught in the stranglehold of tryout turmoil are Richard Rodgers, Jule Styne, Jerry Herman, Cy Coleman, Charles Strouse, John Kander, Mel Brooks, and even Edward Albee. The infamous shows featured include Mack & Mabel; Breakfast at Tiffany's; The Act; Dude; Golden Boy; Hellzapoppin'; Nick and Nora; Seesaw; Kelly; and How Now, Dow Jones.

Shirley Temple was a phenomenon, a child star whose talent and personality earned her a permanent place in Hollywood history. The extraordinary six-year-old entertainer struck a chord with audiences all over the globe. Her career sparked a marketing sensation, spurring the production of anything and everything bearing her image-from dolls to tin whistles-in all corners of the globe, both authorized and unauthorized. Despite the decades-long interest in everything Temple, never before has there been a lavishly illustrated art book examining the phenomenon that was Shirley Temple as a child star in the 1930s. Many of the rare and unusual Shirley Temple collectibles have never been featured in print. Along with an informal, concise history of the childhood career of Ms. Temple (featuring film stills, many never-before-seen photographs, and personal snapshots of Shirley as well as several taken by her), this book is a visual treat befitting the magic of the most famous child star of all time, as well as the Golden Age of Hollywood.

The classic Skinner method to speech for the stage! This 75-minute audio CD and booklet is a companion to the paperback Speak with Distinction (ISBN 1557830479). Revised with new material added by Timothy Monich and Lilene Mansell.

Introduction by Pete Hamill. When Manhattan joints were hung out to dry, the Booze-oizie sniveled, then pirouetted on their stools to find reasonably palatable Speakeasy facsimiles. These Prohibition hangouts each had their own flavor, decorum, dcor and formula for ducking the law. Each found its own alcoholic substratum: its own inimitable characters behind, at and under the bar. Fear not - all has not been lost to the repeal of the 18th Amendment, Starbucks corporate latte, and the wrecking ball. One intoxicating artifact remains, a book of lustrous vintage - Al Hirschfeld's The Speakeasies of 1932, wherein Hirschfeld nails these dipsomaniacal outposts with his pen and brush in the manner of a dour Irish bartender sizing up a troublesome souse. Provided as well is the recipe for each of the speakeasy's cocktail claim to fame. The resulting concoction is the perfect antidote to the Cappuccino Grande Malaise, a book that will make everyone yearn for a Manhattan, old fashioned, and straight up. His comments are as swooping and witty as his lines. - The New Yorker

Talking Funny for Money is a two-CD voice-over workshop (with demonstrations by professional voice-over performers), accompanied by an exercise manual and companion text. If you're a person who's been gifted with vocal variety, a hard working actor who wants to expand your casting potential, or just someone who's been told, You have an interesting sound, you may wish to consider a career in the cartoon/character/looping area of voice-overs. Pamela Lewis, an accomplished voice-over artist and coach, has developed a CD workshop for people who are curious about breaking into the exciting world of talking funny for money. In this workshop, you will learn: how to assemble a competitive cartoon/character voice-over demo; shortcuts to mastering the most requested dialects, age groups and celebrity impersonations; film looping/dubbing technique and terminology; and the varied employment opportunities in the cartoon/character/looping world. This workshop is an excellent introduction to a creative and lucrative area of voice-overs. As Ms. Lewis puts it, What could be better than making funny noises for a living?

The first 30 years of the 20th-century produced a theatrical explosion whose reverberations are still felt today. Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Vakhtanghov, Michael Chekhov in Russia; Reinhardt, Piscator & Brecht in Germany; and Copeau, Barrault & Artaud in France collectively demolished the 19th-century aesthetic and, in their wake, created the modernity which is the hallmark of today's theatre. Most of these men have already been turned into modern icons; there is no shortage of bios on the pioneers of the Moscow Arts Theatre, and the achievements of the others are chronicled and archived for posterity. Only one of these artists remains murky and ill-defined. He is Michael Chekhov (1891-1955), nephew of the famous playwright Anton Chekhov, the man that Stanislavsky described as the most brilliant actor in all of Russia. A charismatic actor, an inspiring director and a teacher that developed a dynamic antidote to Russian Naturalism, Chekhov remains the invisible man of the modern theatre. Was he, as Lee Strasberg alleged, a dangerous mystic who would subvert the vigor of Stanislavsky's teachings and undermine the integrity of The Group Theatre? Or was he, as his disciples - Yul Brynner, Gregory Peck, Ingrid Bergman, Anthony Quinn, Jack Palance, Leslie Caron, Jennifer Jones, Patricia Neal, Anthony Hopkins, Jack Nicholson & Marilyn Monroe - believed, a man who had discovered a unique approach to acting which transcended the precepts enshrined in Stanislavsky's System. Charles Marowitz was granted special access to the Chekhov archives in Devon, England, and he interviewed actors and directors who worked closely with Chekhov both in Europe and America. The book chronicles Chekhov's influential period in Hollywood when he was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as the avuncular psychiatrist in Alfred Hitchcock's 1945 film Spellbound. It also describes his close association with Marilyn Monroe at the most delicate stage of her career.

The Broadway Musical Quiz Book includes nearly 80 quizzes on every aspect of the Broadway musical, including sections devoted to the careers of major Broadway stars, songwriters, directors, and producers, ranging from Ethel Merman to Stephen Sondheim. It also features thematic quizzes - such as musicals set in France, adaptations from literature, food and drink, British shows, references to sports, biographical shows, and jukebox musicals - and quizzes covering each decade from 1900 to the present. With over 700 shows mentioned, and over 1200 questions, The Broadway Musical Quiz Book is detailed and thorough: the answer section doesn't merely list the answers, it provides further information on the quizzes' subjects (and often on wrong answers, too!). The Broadway Musical Quiz Book is more than just a compendium of trivia; it's a anecdotal history of musical theatre, with something for everyone who loves The Great White Way!

From his unlikely start as a Jewish All-American and three-letter man in segregated Baltimore, Merle Debuskey was for fifty years - beginning just after World War II and ending in the mid-'90s - New York theater's top publicist, handling more Broadway shows than any press agent in Broadway history. He was Joe Papp's right-hand man for thirty years, and was the first mouthpiece for legendary nonprofits Circle in the Square and Lincoln Center Theater. He was the unseen player who, with Papp, fought Robert Moses, ensuring that Shakespeare in the Park remained free; made sure How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying kept its title; saved Zero Mostel's life; housed redbaiters target John Henry Faulk, befriending the blacklisted; manhandled George C. Scott and Mort Saul; and romanced Kim Stanley, all the while puffing on his pipe, banging away at his old manual typewriter, and never seeming to break a sweat. He was Broadway's last gentleman press agent.

Now in paperback, the complete story of the actor's career, including his secret gay life. Raymond Burr (1917-1993) was an enigma. A film noir regular known for his villainous roles in movies like Rear Window, he eventually became one of the most popular stars in television history as the lead actor on two top-rated dramas, Perry Mason and Ironside, which between them ran virtually uninterrupted for 20 years. But Raymond Burr was leading a secret gay life at a time in Hollywood when exposure would have been career suicide. To protect his secret, Burr fabricated a tragic past for himself as a grieving husband and father. He claimed to have been twice widowed - he said his first wife had died in a plane crash, and his second marriage had ended with his wife's early death from cancer. And there was also a dead son - 10-year-old Michael, who lost his battle with leukemia. Neither of the wives nor Michael ever existed. But that didn't stop these lies from being perpetuated again and again, even in Burr's New York Times obituary. Hiding in Plain Sight examines the totality of Raymond Burr's career and his personal life, including his 35 years with partner Robert Benevides. The author interviewed over 30 people who knew or worked with Burr, including Angela Lansbury, Barbara Hale, Robert Wagner, Gale Storm, and more.