Gore Vidal claimed there was no such thing as “gay,” only gay sexual acts. But what was the truth about his sex life and sexuality—and how did it affect and influence his writing and public life? With In Bed with Gore Vidal: Hustlers, Hollywood, and the Private World of an American Master, Tim Teeman interviews many of Vidal’s closest family and friends, including Claire Bloom and Susan Sarandon, as well as surveying Vidal’s own rich personal archive, to build a rounded portrait of who thi...

The legendary movie star's revelatory memoir is "a mesmerizing account of his Candide-like journey through Hollywood" ( The New York Times Book Review ).National BestsellerIn 1950, at the end of Hollywood's Golden Age, a remarkably handsome young boy, still a teenager, gets "discovered" by a big-time movie agent. The boy's name was Tab Hunter—a true Hollywood product, a movie star created from a st...

Bosworth’s unforgettable portrait of one of Hollywood’s most magnetic, timeless, and tragic stars—Montgomery CliftFrom the moment he leapt to stardom with the films Red River and A Place in the Sun, Montgomery Clift was acclaimed by critics and loved by fans. Elegant, moody, and strikingly handsome, he became one of the most definitive actors of the 1950s, the first of Hollywood’s “loner heroes,” a group that includes Marlon Brando and James Dean....

In a witty and elegant autobiography that takes up where his bestelling Palimpsest left off, the celebrated novelist, essayist, critic, and controversialist Gore Vidal reflects on his remarkable life.Writing from his desks in Ravello and the Hollywood Hills, Vidal travels in memory through the arenas of literature, television, film, theatre, politics, and international society where he has cut a wide swath, recounting achievements and defeats, friends and enemies made (and sometim...

An intimate yet frank biography of Gore Vidal, one of the most accomplished, visible and controversial American novelists and cultural figures of the past century. The product of thirty years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini's biography probes behind the glittering surface of Vidal's colourful life to reveal the complex emotional and sexual truth underlying his celebrity-strewn life. But there is plenty of glittering surface as well - a virtual Who's Who of the American ...

Gore Vidal—novelist, playwright, critic, screenwriter, memoirist, indefatigable political commentator, and controversialist—is America's premier man of letters. No other living writer brings more sparkling wit, vast learning, indelible personality, and provocative mirth to the job of writing an essay.This long-needed volume comprises some twenty-four of his best-loved pieces of criticism, political commentary, memoir, portraiture, and, occasionally, unfettered score settling. It will stand...

Rita Hayworth dancing by candlelight; Elizabeth Taylor tenderly wrapping him in her Pashmina scarf; streaking for Sir Laurence Olivier in a drafty English castle; terrifying a dozing Jackie Onassis; carrying an unconscious Montgomery Clift to safety on a dark New York street...Captured forever in a unique memoir, Frank Langella's myriad encounters with some of the past century's most famous human beings are profoundly affecting, funny, wicked, sometimes shocking, and utterly irresi...

The Golden Age is the concluding volume in Gore Vidal's celebrated and bestselling Narratives of Empire series-a unique pageant of the national experience from the United States' entry into World War Two to the end of the Korean War.The historical novel is once again in vogue, and Gore Vidal stands as its undisputed American master. In his six previous narratives of the American empire-Burr, Lincoln, 1876, Empire, Hollywood, and Washington, D.C.-he has created a fi...

This biography of the legendary actor "offers a fascinating look into his charismatic genius" ( Library Journal).In 1948 Marlon Brando stunned audiences and critics alike with his revolutionary, raw, and improvisational approach to acting. He became a symbol of a new, rebellious generation that was sick of conventions and committed to genuine emotion and unvarnished truth. From his breakout role as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire to h...

Outrageous, outspoken, and uninhibited, Tallulah Bankhead was an actress known as much for her vices -- cocaine, alcohol, hysterical tirades, and scandalous affairs with both men and women -- as she was for her winning performances on stage. In 1917, a fifteen-year-old Bankhead boldly left her established Alabama political family and fled to New York City to sate her relentless need for attention and become a star. Five years later, she crossed the Atlantic, immediately taking her place as...

'Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.' – Marilyn MonroeIt is now over 100 years since Hollywood became the centre of American cinema and, while it has always presented itself as a place of glamour and home to the beautiful and talented, from its very creation there was a darker side to Tinseltown. Film-makers didn’t just move to southern California for its sunny weather, they went West to evade the patent la...

A film journalist's insider account of the truth behind some of the movie industry's biggest legends and scandals—a perfect gift for film buffs.Hollywood exists to create and sell myth. Often, however, the myths created on screen are secondary to the rumors, half-truths, and lies that circulate through studio back lots and the press. Discover the real stories behind Hollywood's greatest myths, as veteran film critic and Hollywood reporter Joe Williams sorts fact fro...