‘After reading this affectionately candid biography, it is hard not to echo Olivier’s response on hearing of Burton’s death: “He was so young, so young”’ Daily MailA man of contradictions, Richard Burton’s life and remarkable career are revealed by a writer who knew him from 1968 up to Burton’s last film. Recounting Burton’s deepest and often darkest thoughts and secrets, as well as hell-raising stories quashed by the Hollywood system, such as affairs with Monroe and Lana Turner, be...

David Niven appeared in films for over 50 years of his life, from swashbucklers such as The Prisoner of Zenda and The Guns of Navarone to the Pink Panther series. Despite his on-screen persona, Niven wasn’t always the perfect gentleman. He was insecure both privately and professionally and used people to get ahead. But he did, he said, ‘at least try to be a decent man.’ He knew he often failed, although it isn’t easy to find people who ever had a bad word to say about him. In this fascinat...

In the summer of 1970 McQueen and author Michael Munn took a road trip in England while the actor’s film Le Mans was on hold. McQueen told stories of being a kid on the street, petty theft, rolling drunks, gangs and losing his virginity to a whore who took cakes in exchange for sexual favours.Munn met McQueen on other occasions, last speaking in 1980, and in this poignant, personal account, recalls the story of one of the greatest American anti-heroes of all time. Dubbed the King o...

The design patterns in this book capture best practices and solutions to recurring problems in machine learning. The authors, three Google engineers, catalog proven methods to help data scientists tackle common problems throughout the ML process. These design patterns codify the experience of hundreds of experts into straightforward, approachable advice.In this book, you will find detailed explanations of 30 patterns for data and problem representation, operationalization, repeatab...

Most intermediate-level machine learning books focus on how to optimize models by increasing accuracy or decreasing prediction error. But this approach often overlooks the importance of understanding why and how your ML model makes the predictions that it does.Explainability methods provide an essential toolkit for better understanding model behavior, and this practical guide brings together best-in-class techniques for model explainability. Experienced machine learning engineers a...

Hitler believed himself to be as much an artist as a politician, and his rise to power owed a great deal to the creation of myth around his own personality. In his Germany politics and culture became one, the cult of celebrity nurtured and driven by Hitler and his acolyte Joseph Goebbels. In their version of Hollywood there were scandals, starlets, secret agents, premieres and the infamous 'casting couch'. But one of the actresses was a Soviet agent who held the key to killing the Führer. ...

This is not just the story of what was perhaps the most daring raid undertaken by the commandos during the war, but it is also the true and remarkable account of a desperate escape by Marine Sparks and Major 'Blondie' Hasler across German-occupied France. For nearly three months, while they desperately sought assistance from the suspicious French Resistance and dodged German soldiers at every turn, Sparks and Hasler found themselves avoiding capture and certain death.

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 seminal biography of legendary actor Peter Lawford. As Publisher's Weekly writes: From Bobby-Sox idol to Kennedy spouse and Marylin Monroe intimate, his life was a dizzying whirl of sex, scandal, an secrets even the tabloids dared not print... Once, Peter Lawford seemed to have it all: a handsome face, a sophisticated wit, a talent that won him overnight stardom and entree into a world of beautiful, powerful people. Veteran of film roles in Easter Parade, Little Women, Good News, and T...

The Windsors are England's most famous family, but what are they really like when they're out of the public gaze? Behind closed doors in every Royal residence, from Buckingham Palace to Clarence House, there are two families - one upstairs and one down - and nobody knows a Royal quite like a Royal servant, intimately acquainted as they are with every quirk, foible and eccentricity. And there are a fair few! This is the inside story of the Royal Family through the eyes of those who know the...

Even before Lady Diana Spencer married into the most revered family on earth, she had her suspicions that the kith and kin of Prince Charles were not all they seemed-to-be. No sooner had she become the Princess of Wales and moved into Kensington Palace than her fears were confirmed: the House of Windsor constituted a flawed dynasty. Diana’s Nightmare reveals the previously untold secrets Diana discovered about her royal relatives. This book exposes how intensely Charles and Camilla Parker ...

The hardback of this first and authorised biography received very good reviews and immediately reprinted. It tells the story of one of the heroines of post-war British comedy, on radio, film and TV.Hattie Jacques is known as the billowing, imposing Matron in the Carry On films, as the star of such BBC radio classics as ITMA, Educating Archie and Hancock’s Half Hour, and as the fictional sister of Eric Sykes in his long-running TV sitcom.But the formidable, frumpy galleon-in...