Showing results by publisher "Phoenix Books" in Biographies & Memoirs

More than 40 speeches - considered among the greatest of all time - comprise this marvelous collection. All the works you'll hear are unabridged, and the most contemporary are live recordings. Included are speeches by Susan B. Anthony, Joan of Arc, Winston Churchill, Jefferson Davis, Amelia Earhart, and John F. Kennedy.

In 1980, at the age of 31, Brandon Tartikoff became president of NBC Entertainment; he was the youngest person ever to hold such a position. When he left NBC in 1991, he had held the job longer than anyone and NBC had attained a streak of dominance never equaled, after finishing first in the Nielsen ratings 68 weeks in a row. In The Last Great Ride, Mr. Tartikoff chronicles television history in this insightful and sometimes hilarious account of what goes into the job of providing viewers with 24-hour-a-day programming.

Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour is the long-awaited, detailed account of events that led to the mysterious death of Hollywood legend Natalie Wood off the coast of Catalina Island on November 28, 1981. It is a story told by a haunted witness to that fateful evening: Dennis Davern, the young captain of Splendour, the yacht belonging to Wood and husband Robert Wagner.

Famously neurotic comedian Richard Lewis finds himself on a gurney in the ER at the age of 44, hallucinating from excess cocaine use and his body poisoned by acute alcoholism. The same dysfunctions that had been the basis for his successful stage persona and inspired his best material had, it seemed, turned on him. In this very funny, deeply honest, and inspiring book, Lewis explores how he got there, how he finally got on the road to recovery, and how he copes with being Richard Lewis sober on a daily basis.

They were called the Class from Hell - 34 inner-city sophomores she inherited from a teacher who'd been "pushed over the edge". She was told "those kids have tasted blood. They're dangerous." But Louanne Johnson had a different idea. Where the school system saw 34 unreachable kids, she saw young men and women with intelligence and dreams.

Growing up in rural China during Mao's Cultural Revolution, Da Chen was part Horatio Alger, part Holden Caulfeld, befriending both a gang of young thugs, as well as an elegant, older Chinese woman who teaches him English - and opens the door to a new life. Chen's remarkable story of triumph is filled with the universal qualities that distinguish the very best memoirs as it masterfully recounts the concerns of childhood that transcend both time and place.

In this memoir, the pseudonymous author, Ruthie Bolton, tells how she overcame tremendous obstacles to find her place in the world. Born into poverty in a rural Southern town, Bolton was abandoned by her 13-year-old mother and raised by her step-grandfather, an abusive tyrant who beat his wife to death and terrorized his children. With remarkable candor yet no trace of self-pity, Bolton describes how she used alcohol and drugs to try to escape her nightmarish existence.

In December 1917, Vaslav Nijinsky, the most famous male dancer in the Western world, moved into a Swiss villa with his wife and three-year-old daughter and began to go mad. A prodigy from his youth in Russia, Nijinsky came to international fame as a principal dancer in Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. When psychosis struck, he began to imagine himself as married to God. Although he lived another 30 years, he never regained his sanity. This diary is Nijinsky's confession and his prophecy, the only sustained, on-the-spot account we have by a major artist of entering psychosis.

Nixon - loathed or admired, the name recalls one of the most extraordinary political survivors in American history. Author Jonathan Aitken interviewed the legendary politician and was granted unprecedented access to his private documents to root out answers to many questions. Why didn't he burn the Watergate tapes? What were his relationships with John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, and Henry Kissinger?

New York Times best selling author Gene Simmons is back, revealing his unique philosophy of life in this funny guide to getting more out of every aspect of life, Sex Money KISS...how he got it and how you can too.

What will you say right before they put you six feet under? Will you say "I wish I could have...," "I wish I would have...," "I wish I should have...," or will you say, "I did it all. Thank you and good night."

Leni Riefenstahl, "Hitler's filmmaker", remains one of the most controversial figures of the 20th century. Susan Sontag, though one of her severest critics, said that Triumph of the Will and Olympia, Riefenstahl's most noted films, "may be the two greatest documentaries ever made". Others see her story as an object lesson about opportunism.

This book tells the true story of the love between a man and a woman, a love that was both passionate and full of hope and yet ultimately hopeless. The woman was Diana, the Princess of Wales; the man was Captain James Hewitt. Their love lasted for nearly 5 years; this is their story.

Hear a firsthand account of the life under cover within the violence-prone Montana Freemen organization. This disturbing memoir is also a subtly scathing commentary on the FBI and gives a revealing view of the extreme risks involved and courage demanded by undercover work of this type.

Media and law enforcement work at cross-purposes. Law enforcement want to solve a case as fast as possible and put the guilty behind bars. The media want a case to drag on as long as humanly possible and do all they can to extricate every last bit of drama, drop by bloody drop, in order to hold the attention of the millions of viewers who have gotten hooked. Law enforcement must abide by rules. The media make their own rules, and even then break them or find ways to work loopholes into them.

On Thursday, August 28, 1947, a 30-year-old millionaire named Manuel Laureano Rodriguez—Manolete—and a Miura bull named Islero killed each other. The Death of Manolete recounts the extraordinary life and demise of this young bullfighter, from the childhood that made the Spanish boy and the sacrifice that made the man to the girl who brought him love and the acclaim that brought him incredible success.

In this comical collection of memories, storyteller Daniel Pinkwater tells how he grew into the beloved figure he is today: a robust genius of the printed page and rotund genie of the radio. In inimitable fashion, Pinkwater recounts the conversation with his father that suddenly made him an art major in college. He describes his inauguration as a sculptor in a sleazy Chicago art factory and recalls setting off for a bright center of the American Art Scene, or at least as close as Hoboken, New Jersey.

For more than twenty years, Kelsey Grammar played the brilliant but fussy psychiatrist Frasier Crane, first on Cheers, then on the wildly successful spinoff, Frasier. During those two decades, Grammer received 17 Emmy nominations, winning four as the psychiatrist-turned-radio host and another one for providing the voice of Sideshow Bob on yet another television classic, The Simpsons.

Purely by chance, renowned author Mary Summer Rain met No-Eyes, a blind Chippewa visionary who lives in a small, remote cabin in the Colorado mountains. Spirit Song the first volume in Summer Rain's No-Eyes tetralogy, introduces us to this remarkable, unforgettable woman. No-Eyes teaches her about many fascinating topics, including the history of the Chippewa people, the songs of the shaman, and the healing power of medicinal herbs.

Here's the unauthorized, best-selling biography of one of America's brightest - and most flamboyantly glamorous - stars. Elizabeth Taylor has beguiled audiences since National Velvet, and her many loves and peccadilloes have provided endless spice and interest for the movie-going and star-watching public. Biographer Kitty Kelley tells all - even the parts Liz would rather keep secret! - in this uncensored biography.

Secret Ceremonies is the story of the awakening of Deborah Laake. A devout Mormon, she attended Brigham Young University, received good grades, was popular - but most of all, she found the One, the man who declared that his claim to her was a matter of divine revelation. Thus, while still in her teens she was married in the sacred chambers of a Mormon temple. From there, her life began to disintegrate.