Sir Sean Connery
Sir Sean Connery

Author: John Parker

Publisher: John Blake

Published: 2020-11

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 9781789464580

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He was one of the world's true superstars, and the silver screen's most beloved James Bond. Sir Sean Connery - a proud Scotsman born in 1930 to a working-class family - died at home in the Bahamas on October 31, 2020. He left behind him a legacy to rival any actor. Connery bestrode Hollywood like a Colossus. He commanded some of the highest fees in the industry and was lauded by critics and the public alike. In July 2000, his unique contribution to the world of film was recognized when he was accorded a knighthood. John Parker traces the astonishing rise to stardom of a tough street kid from Edinburgh. The part of 007 became a monster that threatened to kill Connery as an actor; he escaped to establish himself as one of the world's most magnetic and commanding character actors, winning an Oscar for his role in iconic crime drama The Untouchables. The author has drawn on reminiscences of famous friends and colleagues, including Honor Blackman, Robert Hardy and Eric Sykes, to create an authoritative and entertaining portrait of a talented, complex actor - and, above all else, a magnificent man.

Being a Scot
Being a Scot

Author: Sean Connery

Publisher: Phoenix

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780753826317

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Previous ed. published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008.

Sean Connery
Sean Connery

Author: Christopher Bray

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-06-01

Total Pages: 469

ISBN-13: 1605987573

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A biography of a star and an investigation of what can happen to a man when the images he creates take over his life. Sean Connery’s creation of secret agent James Bond invigorated Britain and its cinema, allowing a cash-strapped, morale-sapped country in decline to fancy itself still a player on the world stage. How can such worship not play havoc with one’s soul—especially a soul as painfully unprepared for the pressures of stardom as Connery’s? Spirited and argumentative, Christopher Bray’s Sean Connery is the story of an actor learning his craft on the job and, at the end of his career, of a man pressing his stardom into the service of a burgeoning political awareness.

John Wayne: The Life and Legend
John Wayne: The Life and Legend

Author: Scott Eyman

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2015-04-21

Total Pages: 672

ISBN-13: 1439199590

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The celebrated Hollywood icon comes fully to life in this complex portrait by noted film historian and master biographer Scott Eyman. Exploring Wayne's early life with a difficult mother and a feckless father, "Eyman gets at the details that the bean-counters and myth-spinners miss ... Wayne's intimates have told things here that they've never told anyone else" (Los Angeles Times). Eyman makes startling connections to Wayne's later days as an anti-Communist conservative, his stormy marriages to Latina women, and his notorious--and surprisingly long-lived--passionate affair with Marlene Dietrich.

McQueen
McQueen

Author: Christopher Sandford

Publisher: Taylor Trade Publications

Published: 2003-02-19

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 087833307X

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This is the definitive story of the complex man behind the icon of cool.

American Rebel
American Rebel

Author: Marc Eliot

Publisher: Crown Archetype

Published: 2009-10-06

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 0307462498

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In American Rebel, bestselling author and acclaimed film historian Marc Eliot examines the ever-exciting, often-tumultuous arc of Clint Eastwood's life and career. As a Hollywood icon, Clint Eastwood--one of film's greatest living legends--represents some of the finest cinematic achievements in the history of American cinema. Eliot writes with unflinching candor about Eastwood's highs and lows, his artistic successes and failures, and the fascinating, complex relationship between his life and his craft. Eliot's prodigious research reveals how a college dropout and unambitious playboy rose to fame as Hollywood's "sexy rebel," eventually and against all odds becoming a star in the Academy pantheon as a multiple Oscar winner. Spanning decades, American Rebel covers the best of Eastwood's oeuvre, films that have fast become American classics: Fistful of Dollars, Dirty Harry, Unforgiven, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, and Gran Torino. Filled with remarkable insights into Eastwood's personal life and public work, American Rebel is highly entertaining and the most complete biography of one of Hollywood's truly respected and beloved stars–-an actor who, despite being the Man with No Name, has left his indelible mark on the world of motion pictures.

Some Kind of Hero
Some Kind of Hero

Author: Matthew Field

Publisher: The History Press

Published: 2015-10-12

Total Pages: 756

ISBN-13: 0750966505

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For over 50 years, Albert R. Broccoli's Eon Productions has navigated the ups and downs of the volatile British film industry, enduring both critical wrath and acclaim in equal measure for its now legendary James Bond series. Latterly, this family run business has been crowned with box office gold and recognised by motion picture academies around the world. However, it has not always been plain sailing. Changing financial regimes forced 007 to relocate to France and Mexico; changing fashions and politics led to box office disappointments; and changing studio regimes and business disputes all but killed the franchise. And the rise of competing action heroes has constantly questioned Bond's place in popular culture. But against all odds the filmmakers continue to wring new life from the series, and 2012's Skyfall saw both huge critical and commercial success, crowning 007 as the undisputed king of the action genre. Some Kind of Hero recounts this remarkable story, from its origins in the early '60s right through to the present day, and draws on hundreds of unpublished interviews with the cast and crew of this iconic series.

Lee
Lee

Author: Pamela Marvin

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 473

ISBN-13: 9780571195503

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Lee Marvin was one of the movies' most memorable tough guys. When he died, cinema was diminished, for there was no one to take his place. War had shown him man's capacity for cruelty and violence, and so enabled him to play evil characters in such a way that the audience knew that they too could be capable of such deeds.This book provides an intimate glimpse into the life of Lee Marvin from the woman who knew him best. The book celebrates their life together - not only the films but also the fishing exploits - and dramatizes the details of the palimony suit brought against Lee by an ex-lover, a case that made legal history. It also contains Lee Marvin's journals from the batttlefields of World War II, as well as an account of the errors and accidents that led to his premature death. Written with affection and respect, Pamela Marvin's biography paints a more rounded portrait of Lee Marvin than we have had before.

Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw

Author: John French

Publisher: Dean Street Press

Published: 2015-03-02

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 1910570095

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Robert Shaw is most celebrated today as the Oscar-nominated star in movies like From Russia with Love, A Man For All Seasons, The Sting and - most memorably of all - as Quint in the record-breaking Jaws. His breakthrough came when Hollywood was experiencing something of a British Invasion. Sean Connery, Peter O'Toole, Vanessa Redgrave and Richard Burton were among the new stars. But Shaw was arguably more talented than any, a figure of extraordinary and wide-ranging promise. More than just a mesmerising actor on stage and screen, he was also a gifted writer. He wrote no less than six published novels (winning the Hawthornden Prize), while his plays include the acclaimed Man in The Glass Booth. The flipside to Shaw's diverse abilities was his well-earned reputation as a hellraiser. A fiercely competitive man in all areas of his life, whether playing table tennis or drinking whisky, he emptied mini-bars, crashed Aston Martins, fathered nine children by three different women, made (and spent) a fortune, and set fire to Orson Welles' house. He died at 51, having driven himself too hard, too fast, but unable to get over his father's suicide when Shaw was just 11. John French, Shaw's biographer, knew him well, professionally and personally. Robert Shaw: The Price of Success is a perceptive, sympathetic, but unsparing portrait of the blessings and curses endowing this mercurial, enigmatic and deeply engaging man. This edition features a new foreword written by Richard Dreyfuss. Praise 'Both impressive and immaculate, a tremendously skilled biography... chillingly well told.' Sheridan Morley 'I liked Robert Shaw: The Price of Success tremendously, and applaud its digital rebirth.' Robert Sellers, author of Hellraisers and Don't Let The Bastards Grind You Down