English Actors

Packed with insider secrets from a working Hollywood actress, Playing Small: The Actor’s Guide to Becoming a Booking Magnet is an incredibly listenable and rich tapestry for any actor, especially those pursuing a career in film and television. Life and career coach Christine Horn pulls back the curtain of her own successful career to teach us one simple yet complicated lesson: Your thoughts are sabotaging your career. And she is brave enough to allow the piece to unfold with a distinct straightforward simplicity that never loses its edgy intellect.

Mastering the Russian Accent: A Guide for Actors is the essential resource for performers looking to convincingly portray Russian characters. This comprehensive audiobook breaks down the core differences between Russian and English phonetics, building a strong foundation for authentic accent work. It thoroughly covers the key sounds of a Russian accent, including consonant variations, pure vowels, and the distinctive rolled "r," along with techniques for developing appropriate vocal placement, resonance, and breath control for a natural delivery.

In the 1960s, the most popular actor in the world was Richard Burton, a hard-drinking Welshman who was nevertheless so professional that he was one of the preeminent stage performers of his day. In fact, he performed Shakespeare so magnificently that he was compared to British legend Laurence Olivier, and that success ultimately led to a film career that earned him seven Academy Award nominations, as well as BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for Best Actor.

From his agent's phone call offering him the role of Estragon, Lucian Msamati brings brilliantly to life the experience of co-starring with Ben Whishaw in James Macdonald's celebrated production of Waiting for Godot in London's West End. Through rehearsal room highs and lows, workaday laughs and tears, literal stumbles and grumbles, we journey with Lucian, his fellow actors and creatives, and Beckett's play, sharing in the personal and dramaturgical discoveries they make and the inevitable emotional contours of an experience as intense as this one.

Discover the captivating life of Vivien Leigh, the legendary actress best known for her iconic role as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind and her Academy Award-winning performance in A Streetcar Named Desire. This intimate biography explores her extraordinary career on stage and screen, her complex marriage to Laurence Olivier, and her struggles behind the curtain with love, fame, and illness. A portrait of brilliance and fragility, this book reveals the woman behind the star—an unforgettable story of beauty, talent, and resilience that continues to inspire generations.

There has never been a show business book quite like The Show Won't Go On, the first comprehensive study of a bizarre phenomenon: performers who died onstage. From the comedy magician who dropped dead on live television to the amateur thespian who expired during a play called The Art of Murder, the book is a celebration of lives both famous and obscure, as well as a dramatic and accurate recounting of events leading to the moments they died "doing what they loved."

A remarkably candid biography of the remarkably candid - and brilliant - Carrie Fisher. Sourced by friends, colleagues, and witnesses to all stages of Fisher’s life, Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge is an empathic and even-handed portrayal of a woman who - as Princess Leia, but mostly as herself - was a feminist heroine, one who died at a time when we need her blazing, healing honesty more than ever.

The goddaughter of Igor Stravinsky and a graduate of Hollywood High, Eve Babitz posed in 1963, at age 20, playing chess with the French artist Marcel Duchamp. She was naked; he was not. The photograph made her an instant icon of art and sex. Babitz spent the rest of the decade rocking and rolling on the Sunset Strip, honing her notoriety. There were the album covers she designed: for Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds, to name but a few. There were the men she seduced: Jim Morrison, Ed Ruscha, Harrison Ford, to name but a very few.

In 1969, Illeana Douglas' parents saw the film Easy Rider and were transformed. Taking Dennis Hopper's words - "That's what it's all about, man" - to heart, they abandoned their comfortable upper-middle-class life and gave Illeana a childhood filled with hippies, goats, free spirits, and free love. Illeana writes, "Since it was all out of my control, I began to think of my life as a movie, with a Dennis Hopper-like father at the center of it." I Blame Dennis Hopper is a rollicking, funny, at times tender exploration of the way movies can change our lives.

As he did in his bestselling biographies of Jimmy Stewart and Clint Eastwood, acclaimed Hollywood biographer Marc Eliot digs deep beneath the myth in this revealing look at the most legendary Western film hero of all time; the man with the distinctive voice, walk, and demeanor who was an inspiration to many and a symbol of American masculinity, power, and patriotism.

Before she became a teenager, Elizabeth Taylor was already a star, appearing in such films as Lassie Come Home and National Velvet. One of the few child actors to transition to a successful film career as an adult, Taylor starred in such classics as Father of the Bride, A Place in the Sun, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In addition to receiving two Academy Awards, Taylor led a tumultuous personal life that kept her in the headlines for decades.

The Camera Lies unpacks Hitchcock's legacy both as a director who continuously taught audiences to distrust appearance and as a man with an uncanny insight into the human capacity for deceit and misinterpretation.

The Tony Award-nominated writer of The Tale of the Allergist's Wife and the long-running hit Off-Broadway play Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, and a Sundance Festival award winner Charles Busch has created a unique place in the entertainment world as a playwright, LGBT icon, drag actor, director, and cabaret performer, with his extraordinary gift for both connecting with and channeling the leading ladies of show business.

In 1948 American polls rated Bing Crosby "the most admired man alive", and it's no surprise given how popular he was across every major form of entertainment during the decade. With a string of major hits, Crosby was the most popular singer in the country during that era. Of all the show business icons in American history, one of the most beloved was Bob Hope, whose career spanned over six decades across film, television, vaudeville, comedy, and touring and earned him uncountable accolades.

This empowering and accessible audiobook guide offers dyslexic actors a range of techniques to tackle common challenges, improve your creative practice, and fulfil your ambitions. You'll find loads of practical information and advice on: Understanding your dyslexic identity – so you can learn and perform at your best, and unlock your full potential. Developing the key skills you need as an actor – with tools to help you master each of them, such as text work, line-learning, movement, voice, Shakespeare and more.

Born as Frances Ethel Gumm, Judy Garland’s journey from vaudeville toddler to global icon was filled with triumph, transformation, and tragedy. With a voice that could pierce hearts and a screen presence that captivated generations, she became one of the most beloved entertainers of the 20th century. But behind the sparkling eyes of Dorothy Gale and the glamour of MGM’s golden girl was a vulnerable woman navigating a world that often demanded everything and gave little in return.

Actor and director Lilia Sixtos has seen thousands of auditions and taught hundreds of artists. By raising her two creative children, she has learned every possible way a creative person’s journey can be helped or hindered by their parents. Now, in Oh My God, My Child Wants to Be an Actor, she shows you how to help your child explore the world of acting.

From best-selling author Julie Klam comes a lively and engaging exploration of celebrity: Why celebrities fascinate us, what it means to be famous today, and why celebrities are so important. “When I was young I was convinced celebrities could save me”, Julie Klam admits in The Stars in Our Eyes, her funny and personal exploration of fame and celebrity. As she did for subjects as wide-ranging as dogs, mothers, and friendship, Klam brings her infectious curiosity and crackling wit to the topic of celebrity.

Tallulah Bankhead was known just as much for her off-stage presence as she was for her on-stage performances. Fearless from birth, Tallulah charted her own course in life. She trudged off to New York to make it big in theater when she was still a teen. She then saw opportunity calling on the other side of the Atlantic and didn’t hesitate to hop on a steamship and head to England, chasing her dreams until they became a certain reality.

A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history's most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees?