The unusual, gravity-defying first act of improvisational theater’s founding father—now in paperbackDudley Riggs didn’t have to run away from home to join the circus: home was the circus. Son of the acclaimed aerial flyers Riggs and Riggs, he made his circus debut as a polar prince parading in a wagon pulled by a polar bear. At the age of five, he graduated to a risqué vaudeville act during the circus off- season; at eight, he outgrew his cutes (and his child stard...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The legendary Hollywood star of classic films and TV shows such as The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bye Bye Birdie, and Mary Poppins shares intimate stories from six decades of his renowned career.“Earnest, funny, and appealing . . . captures the essence of an eventful life lived on and off the small screen.”—The Washington PostWith a foreword by Carl ReinerDick...

Rue McClanahan, best known for her portrayal of Blanche Devereaux on the Emmy-award winning series The Golden Girls reveals her life in and out of the spotlight in a laugh-out-loud funny memoir about love, marriage, men, and getting older that is every bit as colorful as the characters she played.Raised in small-town Oklahoma in a house “thirteen telephone poles past the standpipe north of town,” Rue developed her two great passions—theater and men—at an e...

"Beautifully written and unexpectedly moving . . . . [Baldwin] is a highly literate and fluent writer." —New York TimesOver the past three decades, Alec Baldwin has established himself as one of Hollywood's most gifted, hilarious, and controversial leading men. From his work in popular movies, including Beetlejuice, Working Girl, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Cooler, and Martin Scorsese's The Departed to his role as Jack Donag...

If you think you’re funny, buy this book!Whether you dream of becoming a star . . .A better public speaker . . .A more effective communicator . . .A funnier, happier human being . . .You can learn to leave ‘em laughing!David Letterman learned to do it. Jay Leno learned to do it. Roseanne Barr learned to do it. So can you!Now successful sta...

Talking Music is a collection of nineteen of Holger Petersens in-depth radio interviews with artiststhe pioneering men and women who created the blues and roots sounds that have influenced the course of popular culture and music in North America. Many of his interview subjects are no longer with ustheir stories need to be told. The book is divided into four collections of interviews: British Blues Revival, Delta and Memphis Blues, Artists Who Helped Build Stony Plain, and Bonus Tracks. Eac...

A remarkable memoir by one of the most popular and beloved entertainers of the twentieth centuryWhen in the mid-1950s Andy Williams reached a low point in his career, singing in dives to ever-smaller audiences, the young man from Wall Lake, Iowa, had no inkling of the success he would one day achieve. Before being declared a national treasure by President Ronald Reagan, Williams would chart eighteen gold and three platinum albums, headline at Caesars Palace in Las ...

An unforgettable story about a couple who follow their dream of converting a run-down country house into a working bed and breakfast, and what they learn along the way from an old home, a close-knit community, and a parade of extraordinary guests.One spring, Carol Eron Rizzoli and her husband Hugo bought a dilapidated farmhouse in the tiny village of Royal Oak, Maryland, on the edge of the Chesapeake Bay. They spent two years transforming it into a bed and breakfas...

Jim Morrison: Friends Gathered TogetherJim Morrison… We know the stories, but does anyone know the real man? If you don’t know where the truth ends and the fiction begins, you’re not alone. Lies, myths, rumors and tall tales spread by people who didn’t know him have masked Jim Morrison and clouded what he accomplished.Fearing that the real Jim would become hopelessly fictionalized, Frank Lisciandro, Jim’s friend and film collaborator, gathered together more than a ...

Show-business legend Dick Van Dyke is living proof that life does get better the longer you live it. Who better to offer instruction, advice, and humor than someone who's entering his ninth decade with a jaunty two-step? Van Dyke isn't just a born song-and-dance man; his irrepressible belief in embracing the moment and unleashing his inner child has proved to be the ultimate elixir of youth. When he was injured during the filming of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, his doctor warned him h...

Roger Angell, the acclaimed New Yorker writer and editor, returns with a selection of writings that celebrate a view from the tenth decade of an engaged, vibrant life.Long known for his range and supple prose (he is the only writer elected to membership in both the Baseball Hall of Fame and the American Academy of Arts and Letters), Angell won the 2015 American Society of Magazine Editors’ Best Essay award for “This Old Man,” which forms a centerpiece for ...

Robert Englund, legendary star of A Nightmare on Elm Street, peels back the Freddy Krueger mask and reveals the stuff of every horror buff’s dreams.ONE...TWO...FREDDY'S COMING FOR YOU...You've seen him in the A Nightmare on Elm Street series—and in your darkest dreams. The sadistic killer with the flame-charred face. The knife-blade claws. The razor-sharp wit. Freddy...But you've never seen him like this. Unflinching. Unc...