Stage and Screen Lives

Stage and Screen Lives, following on from the success of Brief Lives, was first published in hardback in 2001 and will now publish in paperback alongside Literary Lives and Political Lives.Did you know...Richard Burton once said that his ambition was simply 'to be a millionaire'. David Niven was expelled from public school for stealing. A young Charlie Chaplin worked as a glass blower to keep his family from poverty. Alfred Hitchcock appreciated good food. Eric Morecambe wrote a book...
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Stage and Screen Lives, following on from the success of Brief Lives, was first published in hardback in 2001 and will now publish in paperback alongside Literary Lives and Political Lives.Did you know...Richard Burton once said that his ambition was simply 'to be a millionaire'. David Niven was expelled from public school for stealing. A young Charlie Chaplin worked as a glass blower to keep his family from poverty. Alfred Hitchcock appreciated good food. Eric Morecambe wrote a book on fishing, appropriately titled Eric Morecambe on Fishing. At 9 years old Diana Dors declared, 'I am going to be film star, with a swimming pool and a cream telephone'. The public has always been interested in the lives of those who choose entertainment as a career. We seem constantly thirsty to find out what makes these people tick and we envy their lifestyles. For this unique collection, Michael Billington, writer, presenter, and drama critic, has selected from the Dictionary of National Biography around 100 such lives from the last 100 years of the world of entertainment. As Michael Billington outlines in his introduction, in itself a pleasure to read, the reasons behind his choices aren't necessarily based on the subject of the biography but often on the biographer themselves. Alan Bennett's account of his friend Russell Harty being victimized by the media during last few months of life is particularly poignant. In Spike Milligan's portrayal of the life of his fellow Goon, Peter Sellers, we learn how Sellers felt he had never been completely allowed to take his comedy to the level he wanted. And Barry Took's description of Kenneth Williams's life shows a rather lonely and confused character despite his confident and brash public image.Individually the biographies take a fascinating peek into the discrete lives of the subjects as seen through the eyes of each biographer. Viewed as a whole they open a window into the last century of stage and screen.Examples of entries:Moira Shearer on Frederick AshtonMichael Denison on Noël CowardElizabeth Pollitt on Gracie FieldsRachael Low on Cary GrantArthur Marshall on Tony HancockAlan Bennett on Russell HartyPaul Johnson on Philip Hope-WallaceRalph Richardson on Alexander KordaMargot Fonteyn on Lydia LopokovaEric Ambler on James MasonJohn Gielgud on Margaret RutherfordBarry Took on Kenneth Williams