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Author: Robert Ross
Publisher: Titan Books (US, CA)
ISBN: 085768602X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 562
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Book Description
Mike Myers thinks he was “a genius”, while John Cleese regards him as “a true cultural icon”. He was an architect of British comedy, paving the way for Monty Python, and then became a major Hollywood star, forever remembered as Igor in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein. A writer, director, performer and true pioneer of his art, he died aged only 48. His name was Marty Feldman, and here, at last, is the first ever biography. Acclaimed author Robert Ross has interviewed Marty’s friends and family, including his sister Pamela, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Michael Palin and Terry Jones, and also draws from extensive, previously unpublished and often hilarious interviews with Marty himself, taped in preparation for the autobiography he never wrote. No one before or since has had a career quite like Marty’s. Beginning in the dying days of variety theatre, he went from the behind the scenes scriptwriting triumphs of Round the Horne andThe Frost Report to onscreen stardom in At Last the 1948 Show and his own hit series Marty. That led to transatlantic success, his work with Mel Brooks, and a five-picture deal to write and direct his own movies. From his youth as a tramp on the streets of London, to the height of his fame in America – where he encountered everyone from Orson Welles to Kermit the Frog, before his Hollywood dream became a nightmare – this is the fascinating story of a key figure in the history of comedy, told in full for the first time.
Author: Robert Ross
Publisher: Titan Books (US, CA)
ISBN: 085768602X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 562
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Book Description
Mike Myers thinks he was “a genius”, while John Cleese regards him as “a true cultural icon”. He was an architect of British comedy, paving the way for Monty Python, and then became a major Hollywood star, forever remembered as Igor in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein. A writer, director, performer and true pioneer of his art, he died aged only 48. His name was Marty Feldman, and here, at last, is the first ever biography. Acclaimed author Robert Ross has interviewed Marty’s friends and family, including his sister Pamela, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Michael Palin and Terry Jones, and also draws from extensive, previously unpublished and often hilarious interviews with Marty himself, taped in preparation for the autobiography he never wrote. No one before or since has had a career quite like Marty’s. Beginning in the dying days of variety theatre, he went from the behind the scenes scriptwriting triumphs of Round the Horne andThe Frost Report to onscreen stardom in At Last the 1948 Show and his own hit series Marty. That led to transatlantic success, his work with Mel Brooks, and a five-picture deal to write and direct his own movies. From his youth as a tramp on the streets of London, to the height of his fame in America – where he encountered everyone from Orson Welles to Kermit the Frog, before his Hollywood dream became a nightmare – this is the fascinating story of a key figure in the history of comedy, told in full for the first time.
Author: Marty Feldman
Publisher: Coronet
ISBN: 9781444792737
Category : Comedians
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
Author: Robert Ross
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
ISBN: 1783529199
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 684
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Book Description
In this long overdue and affectionate salute, celebrated comedy historian Robert Ross pays tribute to some of the finest, funniest and most fascinating names in comedy from both sides of the Atlantic. Monty Python’s Terry Jones wrote the foreword. With the passionate input of such comics as Tim Brooke-Taylor, Hattie Hayridge, Roy Hudd, Michael Palin, Ross Noble, Chris Addison and Bernard Cribbins, Ross honours these legends of humor who, for a variety of reasons, didn't quite reach the heady heights of stardom or, once they had, couldn't cope with the pressures. Whether it is a favorite from the distant smoke- and ale-stained world of the Music Hall like the great George Robey, or the downbeat poetry of Hovis Presley, who dropped disenchanted bombs on the late 1990s, Forgotten Heroes of Comedy will finally elevate them to the Hall of Fame where they belong. Forgotten, no longer. UK Joe Baker UK Eric Barker UK Alfie Bass UK Michael Bates India (to English parents) David Battley UK Michael Bentine UK Harold Berens UK Wilie Best USA Alec Bregonzi UK Michael Ward UK Douglas Byng UK Marti Caine UK Esma Cannon Australia (but moved to UK) Patrick Cargill UK Jimmy Clitheroe UK Danny Ross UK Billy Dainty UK Janet Davies UK Florence Desmond UK Jerry Desmonde UK Eddie Leslie UK Maidie Dickson UK Charlie Drake UK Jimmy Edwards UK Gus Elen UK Ray Ellington UK Dick Emery UK Pierre Etaix France Barry Evans UK Mario Fabrizi UK Doug Fisher UK Ronald Frankau UK Leslie Fuller UK Dustin Gee UK Peter Glaze UK Tommy Godfrey UK Harry Locke UK Ken Goodwin UK Bernard Gorcey Russia (died USA) Bert Gordon USA Monsewer' Eddie Gray UK Raymond Griffith USA Deryck Guyler UK Brian Hall UK Lloyd Hamilton USA Arthur Haynes UK Richard Hearne UK Dickie Henderson UK Gerard Hoffnung Germany (died UK) Shemp Howard USA Nat Jackley UK Rex Jameson UK Spike Jones USA John Junkin UK Dave King UK Roy Kinnear UK Dennis Kirkland UK Patsy Knox USA Debbie Linden UK Hugh Lloyd UK Malcolm McFee UK Moore Marriott UK Graham Moffatt UK Ray Martine UK Zeppo Marx USA Glenn Melvyn UK Eric Merriman UK Christopher Mitchell UK Albert Modley UK Robert Moreton UK Gladys Morgan UK Lily Morris UK Richard Murdoch UK Tom E. Murray USA David Nixon UK Larry Noble UK Ole Olsen USA Chic Johnson USA Ken Platt UK Sandy Powell UK Vince Powell UK Hovis Presley UK Cardew Robinson UK Joe E. Ross USA Patsy Rowlands UK Derek Roy UK Derek Royle UK Leslie Sarony UK Larry Semon USA Ronald Shiner UK Johnnie Silver USA Dennis Spicer UK Larry Stephens UK Jake Thackray UK Thelma Todd USA Jack Train UK Karl Valentin Germany Liesl Karlstadt Germany Norman Vaughan UK Tom Walls UK Ralph Lynn UK Elsie and Doris Waters UK Rita Webb UK John Wells UK George and Kenneth Western UK Gordon Wharmby UK Bert Wheeler USA Robert Woolsey USA Albert Whelan Australia (died UK) Robb Wilton UK Mike and Bernie Winters UK Georgie Wood UK Dolly Harmer UK Harry Worth UK Mario Zampi Italy (died UK)
Author: John Cleese
Publisher: Crown Archetype
ISBN: 0385348258
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 397
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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “John Cleese’s memoir is just about everything one would expect of its author—smart, thoughtful, provocative and above all funny. . . . A picture, if you will, of the artist as a young man.”—The Washington Post The legendary writer and performer of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers fame takes readers on a grand tour of his ascent in the entertainment world John Cleese’s huge comedic influence has stretched across generations; his sharp irreverent eye and the unique brand of physical comedy he perfected now seem written into comedy’s DNA. In this rollicking memoir, Cleese recalls his humble beginnings in a sleepy English town, his early comedic days at Cambridge University (with future Python partner Graham Chapman), and the founding of the landmark comedy troupe that would propel him to worldwide renown. Cleese was just days away from graduating Cambridge and setting off on a law career when he was visited by two BBC executives, who offered him a job writing comedy for radio. That fateful moment—and a near-simultaneous offer to take his university humor revue to London’s famed West End—propelled him down a different path, cutting his teeth writing for stars like David Frost and Peter Sellers, and eventually joining the five other Pythons to pioneer a new kind of comedy that prized invention, silliness, and absurdity. Along the way, he found his first true love with the actress Connie Booth and transformed himself from a reluctant performer to a world class actor and back again. Twisting and turning through surprising stories and hilarious digressions—with some brief pauses along the way that comprise a fascinating primer on what’s funny and why—this story of a young man’s journey to the pinnacle of comedy is a masterly performance by a master performer.
Author: Mel Brooks
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 059315911X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 481
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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • At 95, the legendary Mel Brooks continues to set the standard for comedy across television, film, and the stage. Now he shares his story for the first time in “a wonderful addition to a seminal career” (San Francisco Chronicle), “infused with nostalgia and his signature hilarity” (Parade). ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: New York Post • “Laugh-out-loud hilarious and always fascinating, from the great Mel Brooks. What else do you expect from the man who knew Jesus and dated Joan of Arc?”—Billy Crystal For anyone who loves American comedy, the long wait is over. Here are the never-before-told, behind-the-scenes anecdotes and remembrances from a master storyteller, filmmaker, and creator of all things funny. All About Me! charts Mel Brooks’s meteoric rise from a Depression-era kid in Brooklyn to the recipient of the National Medal of Arts. Whether serving in the United States Army in World War II, or during his burgeoning career as a teenage comedian in the Catskills, Mel was always mining his experiences for material, always looking for the perfect joke. His iconic career began with Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows, where he was part of the greatest writers’ room in history, which included Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, and Larry Gelbart. After co-creating both the mega-hit 2000 Year Old Man comedy albums and the classic television series Get Smart, Brooks’s stellar film career took off. He would go on to write, direct, and star in The Producers, The Twelve Chairs, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie, High Anxiety, and Spaceballs, as well as produce groundbreaking and eclectic films, including The Elephant Man, The Fly, and My Favorite Year. Brooks then went on to conquer Broadway with his record-breaking, Tony-winning musical, The Producers. All About Me! offers fans insight into the inspiration behind the ideas for his outstanding collection of boundary-breaking work, and offers details about the many close friendships and collaborations Brooks had, including those with Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner, Gene Wilder, Madeleine Kahn, Alfred Hitchcock, and the great love of his life, Anne Bancroft. Filled with tales of struggle, achievement, and camaraderie (and dozens of photographs), readers will gain a more personal and deeper understanding of the incredible body of work behind one of the most accomplished and beloved entertainers in history.
Author: Marty Feldman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781444792744
Category : Authors, English
Languages : en
Pages : 311
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Book Description
Completed before he died, thirty years ago, this is the newly discovered autobiography of one of the most influential comedians of recent times, Marty Feldman. Marty was a professional writer, and considered himself a writer first, and an actor second. Feldman created a number of immensely successful and influential shows such as Marty, The Frost Report and sketches for Monty Python. He was one of the most essential creative forces in British comedy embodied also by his close friends and creative partners from Beyond the Fringe (especially Peter Cook and Dudley Moore) and Monty Python (especially John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Eric Idle). Marty played the fool, often very happily and with tremendous talent and volcanic, anarchic energy, for his entire life. His face is what many people most immediately remember. It was a face that David Frost, one of his bosses, characterised as 'too grotesque' for television - see what Feldman has to say about Frost, and Francis Bacon, and John Lennon...Marty Feldman finished, and set aside Eye Marty soon before travelling to Mexico to shoot his final film. He did not know that he would die there, although he certainly felt he might die soon, and was haunted by the notion. The book is exactly as Feldman wrote it, his great friend Mark Flanagan, had it transcribed, with even the photos inserted where Feldman had noted where they should go. Hilarious, deeply charming, aphoristic, ironic, charged throughout with lust for life and filled with scenes of great vanished eras and and portraits of other performers and friends, eYE Marty is the amazing discovery of the story of a man who was at the heart of the British comedy revolution.
Author: Patrick McGilligan
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062560964
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 772
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Book Description
A deeply textured and compelling biography of comedy giant Mel Brooks, covering his rags-to-riches life and triumphant career in television, films, and theater, from Patrick McGilligan, the acclaimed author of Young Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane and Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. Oscar, Emmy, Tony, and Grammy award–winner Mel Brooks was behind (and sometimes in front the camera too) of some of the most influential comedy hits of our time, including The 2,000 Year Old Man, Get Smart, The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein. But before this actor, writer, director, comedian, and composer entertained the world, his first audience was his family. The fourth and last child of Max and Kitty Kaminsky, Mel Brooks was born on his family’s kitchen table in Brooklyn, New York, in 1926, and was not quite three-years-old when his father died of tuberculosis. Growing up in a household too poor to own a radio, Mel was short and homely, a mischievous child whose birth role was to make the family laugh. Beyond boyhood, after transforming himself into Mel Brooks, the laughs that came easily inside the Kaminsky family proved more elusive. His lifelong crusade to transform himself into a brand name of popular humor is at the center of master biographer Patrick McGilligan’s Funny Man. In this exhaustively researched and wonderfully novelistic look at Brooks’ personal and professional life, McGilligan lays bare the strengths and drawbacks that shaped Brooks’ psychology, his willpower, his persona, and his comedy. McGilligan insightfully navigates the epic ride that has been the famous funnyman’s life story, from Brooks’s childhood in Williamsburg tenements and breakthrough in early television—working alongside Sid Caesar and Carl Reiner—to Hollywood and Broadway peaks (and valleys). His book offers a meditation on the Jewish immigrant culture that influenced Brooks, snapshots of the golden age of comedy, behind the scenes revelations about the celebrated shows and films, and a telling look at the four-decade romantic partnership with actress Anne Bancroft that superseded Brooks’ troubled first marriage. Engrossing, nuanced and ultimately poignant, Funny Man delivers a great man’s unforgettable life story and an anatomy of the American dream of success. Funny Man includes a 16-page black-and-white photo insert.
Author: Riva Castleman
Publisher: ABRAMS
ISBN: 9780810961814
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Published to accompany the 1994 exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, this book constitutes the most extensive survey of modern illustrated books to be offered in many years. Work by artists from Pierre Bonnard to Barbara Kruger and writers from Guillaume Apollinarie to Susan Sontag. An importnt reference for collectors and connoisseurs. Includes notable works by Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso.
Author: Bernard F. Dick
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813159512
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
Hal Wallis might not be as well known as David O. Selznick or Samuel Goldwyn, but the films he produced -- Casablanca, Jezebel, Now Voyager, The Life of Emile Zola, Becket, True Grit, and many other classics (as well as scores of Elvis movies) -- have certainly endured. As producer of numerous films, Wallis made an indelible mark on the course of America's film industry, but his contributions are often overlooked and no full-length study has yet assessed his incredible career. A former office boy and salesman, Wallis first engaged with the business of film as the manager of a Los Angeles movie theater in 1922. He attracted the notice of the Warner brothers, who hired him as a publicity assistant. Within three months he was director of the department, and appointments to studio manager and production executive quickly followed. Wallis went on to oversee dozens of productions and formed his own production company in 1944. Bernard F. Dick draws on numerous sources such as Wallis's personal production files and exclusive interviews with many of his contemporaries to finally tell the full story of his illustrious career. Dick combines his knowledge of behind-the-scenes Hollywood with fascinating anecdotes to create a portrait of one of Hollywood's early power players.
Author: Joe Simon
Publisher: Titan Books (US, CA)
ISBN: 0857687913
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
"Gripping from the first page... If you love comic books, history, or just love a story of a real self-made man, you must read this book." - Shadowlocked "A true visionary, Simon's book is laced with never-before-seen photos and illustrations, and told in his own words. If you're at all curious about the history of comics and one of its earliest visionaries, My Life in Comics is a must-read." - IGN "... a lovely memoir, often funny, sometimes thought-provoking, and never ostentatious. It’s a true pleasure to read." - Graphic Novel Reporter "... essential reading for any fan of comic book history and storytelling." - ComicBook.com -- In his own words, this is the life of Joe Simon, one of the most important figures in comics history, and half of the famous creative team Simon and Kirby. Joe Simon co-created Captain America, and was the first editor in chief of Marvel Comics (where he hired Stan Lee for his first job in comics). Simon began his prolific career in the Great Depression, and this book recounts his journey to New York City, his first comic book work, his meeting with Jack Kirby, and the role comics played in wartime America. He remembers the near-death of the comics, and the scramble to survive. And he reveals what it was like to bring comics out of their infancy, as they became an American art form.