Barry Kitcher’s delightful memoir tells the improbable story of a boy from the Australian bush who fell under the spell of ballet and found himself in the midst of some of the most exciting developments in Australian ballet history. He danced with the Borovansky Ballet, Australia’s most important and successful professional company before government subsidy lead to the formation of The Australian Ballet, of which he then became a founding member.Major figures like Edouard Borovansk...

"Gripping. . . . In the deftest prose, Picardie plots one of the most extraordinary lives of the twentieth Century. . . . Lavishly illustrated." — Mail on SundayCoco Chanel was an extraordinary inventor, conjuring up the little black dress, bobbed hair, trousers for women, contemporary chic, bestselling perfumes, and the most successful fashion brand of all time. But she also invented herself, fashioning the myth of her own life with the s...

This book is a perceptive and critical account of the first 75 years of The Royal Ballet, tracing the company's growth, and its great cultural importance - an indispensable book for all lovers of ballet.In 1931, Ninette de Valois started a ballet company with just six dancers. Within twenty years, The Royal Ballet - as it became - was established as one of the world's great companies. It has produced celebrated dancers, from Margot Fonteyn to Darcey Bussell, and one of the richest ...

The name Chanel brings immediately to mind the signature scent of No. 5 and the understated but sophisticated glamour of a simple black dress and pearls. But to consider Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel (1883–1971) as simply a fashion designer fails to capture her social and cultural significance. As Linda Simon reveals in this biography, Chanel was an iconoclastic entrepreneur who rebelled against and manipulated gender expectations of her time. With her menswear-inspired designs, her loose jersey...

The inspirational memoir by the international classical music star and winner of Britain's Got Talent, now a major motion picture starring James Corden.One Chance is the remarkable true story of Paul Potts. When Potts, a shy, bullied shop assistant by day and an amateur opera singer by night, stepped onto the stage in the premiere season of Britain's Got Talent, no one expected the phenomenal voice that would emerge. Judge Simon Cowell and...

Over the course of his career, Pavarotti never lost his enthusiasm for performing, and he devoted his last years to singing for charities and humanitarian causes - until sudden ill-health made it impossible for him to continue to appear on stage.

Daria Klimentová's sizzling chemistry with Russian dancer Vadim Muntagirov, who is nearly 20 years her junior, has reignited the prima ballerina's career - and marks a metamorphosis after her Black Swan-style torments depicted in BBC Four's Agony and Ecstasy, the gripping documentary series aired last year. There has been a metamorphosis since the 'old ballerina' allowed herself to be browbeaten by domineering choreographer Derek Deane, and Daria and Vadim are being applauded as the new Fo...

Florence Broadhurst, the one-time chanteuse of Shanghai, Bond Street salon owner, world-renowned wallpaper designer and Sydney socialite lived a life steeped in subterfuge and deception. Here for the first time we get a glimpse at the fascinating woman behind the hand-printed brocades.Late in the afternoon of 16 October 1977, seventy-eight year-old Florence Broadhurst was brutally murdered. Her killer was never found.The mystery surrounding Florence's death...

This edition does not include illustrations.Please note that due to the level of detail, the family tree is best viewed on a tablet.The wayward life (1898–1979) of the voracious art collector and great female patron of world-famous artists.‘Mrs Guggenheim, how many husbands have you had?’ ‘Do you mean my own, or other people’s?’ Peggy Guggenheim was an American millionairess art collector and legendary lover, whose father died on the Titanic returning from installin...

**Lavishly illustrated and annotated, this first and definitive collection of letters to and from the great English playwright provides a divine portrait of an age, from the Blitz to the Ritz and beyond."Superb.... The portrait of a complex, charming, driven, serious and, frankly, courageous artist." —The Wall Street Journal**The incomparable Noël Coward loved to correspond with friends, enemies, the famous and infamous, the talented and the powerful, including Vir...

From British interior designer Nicholas Haslam, a dazzling and witty account of a frenetic and full life—from the 1940s to the present—in Europe and America, in a crowd of friends and acquaintances that includes virtually all of the cultural icons of our time.Haslam has found himself at the center of some of the most interesting circles wherever he is—at parties, opening nights, royal weddings. In London in the late 1950s he crossed paths—and more—with Cecil Beaton, Francis Bacon, ...