The award-winning actress documents her rise from an everyday girl to an acclaimed performer while exploring her defining relationship with her mother and how their shared and separate dreams influenced their experiences.

The film legend and Hollywood icon shares the highs and lows of her life as an actress during Hollywood's Golden Age, stories from her lifelong friendship with Elizabeth Taylor, and intimate details of her marriages and family life.

"1936 looked like it would be a great year for the movie industry. With the economy picking up after the Great Depression, Americans everywhere were sitting in the dark watching the stars--and few stars shined as brightly as one of America's most enduring screen favorites, Mary Astor. But Astor's story wasn't a happy one. She was born poor, and at the first sign that she could earn money, her parents grabbed the reins and the checks. Widowed at twenty-four,...

Richard Pryor was arguably the single most influential performer of the second half of the twentieth century, and certainly he was the most successful black actor/comedian ever. Controversial and somewhat enigmatic in his lifetime, Pryor's performances opened up a new world of possibilities, merging fantasy with angry reality in a way that wasn't just new--it was heretofore unthinkable. His childhood in Peoria, Illinois, was spent just trying to survive....

A one hundredth-birthday tribute to the iconic entertainer collects one hundred short reflections on subjects ranging from his childhood in Hoboken and emergence in the 1940s to his romantic entanglements and bonds with the Rat Pack.

Bad news ... ... for anyone who thought Carrie Fisher had finally stopped talking about herself: Sorry, but after all of her seemingly endless blathering on about her nosebleed, high-class problems, it appears she has yet another brand-new problem to overshare about (though don't expect to relate to it). This time, the electro-convulsive shock therapy she's been regularly undergoing is threatening to wipe out (what's left of) her memory. But get

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Draws on the actor, director, and producer's personal documents to offer insight into his complex life behind his famous roles, discussing the death of his son, his relationship with Sydney Pollack, and his establishment of the Sundance Film Festival.

"An Improvised Life" is Oscar winner Alan Arkin's wise and unpretentious recollection of the process--artistic and personal--of becoming an actor, and a revealing look into the creative mind of one of the best practitioners on stage or screen.