Robert Sellers

1971 was a great year for cinema Woody Allen Robert Altman Dario Argento Ingmar Bergman Stanley Kubrick Sergio Leone George Lucas Sam Peckinpah Roman Polanski Nicolas Roeg and Steven Spielberg among many others were behind the camera while the stars were also out in force Warren Beatty Marlon Brando Michael Caine Julie Christie Sean Connery Faye Dunaway Clint Eastwood Jane Fonda Dustin Hoffman Steve McQueen Jack Nicholson Al Pacino and Vanessa Redgrave all featured in films released in 1971 The remarkable artistic flowering that came from the New Hollywood of the 70s was just beginning while the old guard was fading away and the new guard was taking over With a decline in box office attendances by the end of the 60s along with a genuine inability to come up with a reliable barometer of box office success studio heads gave unprecedented freedom to young filmmakers to lead the way Featuring interviews with cast and crew members bestselling author Robert Sellers explores this landmark year in Hollywood and in Britain when this new age was at its freshest and where the transfer of power was felt most exhilaratingly

There are so many insights even hardcore Bond fans will be surprised. Indispensable. David Lowbridge-Ellis MBEOnly six men can lay claim to wearing the famous Savile Row tuxedo of James Bond; more people have stepped on the Moon. Yet, hundreds more came within an inch of winning the coveted 007 role the pinnacle for so many actors.The Search for Bond tells the extraordinary story of how cinemas most famous secret agent was cast, featuring exclusive interviews with many of the actors who were at one time considered to play Bond, interviewed for the role, or went as far as to be screen tested. From Ranulph Fiennes to Colin Firth, their memories and stories give a fascinating insiders glimpse into the process of how the Bond producers, Broccoli and Saltzman, came up with the right man to play their famous spy.

I dont know what people expect when they meet me. They seem to be afraid that Im going to piss in the potted palm and slap them on the ass.Marlon BrandoI should have been dead ten times over. I believe in miracles. Its an absolute miracle that Im still around.Dennis HopperYou only lie to two people in your life: your girlfriend and the police.Jack NicholsonThe best time to get married is noon. That way, if things dont work out, you havent blown the whole day.Warren Beatty Theyre the baddest bad-asses Hollywood as ever seen: Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper, Warren Beatty, and Jack Nicholson. They are men to whom rules did not apply; normal standards of behavior were simply too wearisome to worry about. These are men who brawled, boozed, snorted, and screwed their way into legendhoodbut along the way they changed acting and the way movies were made forever. Hollywood Hellraisers is a whistle-stop tour of jaw-dropping sexual activity, misbehavior of an Olympic standard, all-out excess, and genuine madness. Its a wonder Hollywood survived.

1971 was a great year for cinema.Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Dario Argento, Ingmar Bergman, Stanley Kubrick, Sergio Leone, George Lucas, Sam Peckinpah, Roman Polanski, Nicolas Roeg and Steven Spielberg, among many others, were behind the camera, while the stars were also out in force. Warren Beatty, Marlon Brando, Michael Caine, Julie Christie, Sean Connery, Faye Dunaway, Clint Eastwood, Jane Fonda, Dustin Hoffman, Steve McQueen, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino and Vanessa Redgrave all featured in films released in 1971.The remarkable artistic flowering that came from the New Hollywood of the 70s was just beginning, while the old guard was fading away and the new guard was taking over. With a decline in box office attendances by the end of the 60s, along with a genuine inability to come up with a reliable barometer of box office success, studio heads gave unprecedented freedom to young filmmakers to lead the way.Featuring interviews with cast and crew members, bestselling author Robert Sellers explores this landmark year in Hollywood and in Britain, when this new age was at its freshest, and where the transfer of power was felt most exhilaratingly.

Peter OToole was supremely talented, a unique leading man and one of the most charismatic and unpredictable actors of his generation. Described by Richard Burton as the most original actor to come out of Britain since the war, OToole regularly seemed to veer towards self-destruction.With the help of exclusive interviews with colleagues and close friends, Peter OToole: The Definitive Biography paints the first complete picture of this much loved man and reveals what drove him to extremes, why he drank to excess and hated authority. But it also describes a man who was fiercely intelligent, with a great sense of humour and huge energy. Always insightful, at times funny, at times deeply moving, this is a fitting tribute to an iconic actor who made a monumental contribution to theatre and cinema.

Hes the man with short fat hairy legs who kept us laughing for decades, his comic timing sparking perfectly with the genius of his partner Eric Morecambe. Yet little has been known about Ernies amazing story, until now.Little Ern! takes us from Ernies childhood in Leeds, where he supported his family by performing on stage, to being left to fend for himself in London at thirteen, a star in the making. We see his friendship with the young comic Eric grow when they toured the theatres of war-torn Britain as teenagers, and discover how their double-act evolved. They survived numerous setbacks on the road to television stardom - and we learn the impact fame had on their lives and friendship. Fully exploring the crucial contribution he made to the act, this charming biography reminds us why Ernie Wise deserves his place in the pantheon of comedy greats.

Enthralling . . . an essential read, particularly for fans of 007. - Cinema RetroWhen Harry Met Cubby is a fitting tribute to two extraordinary men. If you love behind the scenes stories about the making of movies, theres plenty of drama to sate you here. - Entertainment FocusAlbert R. Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman remain the most successful producing partnership in movie history. Together they were responsible for the phenomenally successful James Bond series; separately they brought kitchen-sink drama to the screen, made a star out of Michael Caine in the Harry Palmer films and were responsible for the childrens classic Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. But their relationship was fraught almost from the very beginning. With such contrasting personalities, their interactions often span out of control. They managed to drive away their coveted star, Sean Connery, and ultimately each other.Loved and hated in equal measure, respected and feared by their contemporaries, few people have loomed as large over the film industry as Broccoli and Saltzman, yet their lives went in very different directions. Broccoli was feted as Hollywood royalty, whereas Saltzman ended up a forgotten recluse. When Harry Met Cubby charts the changing fortunes and clashing personalities of two titans of the big screen.

The 1970s were the era of the three-day week, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the winter of discontent, trade union Bolshevism and wildcat strikes. Through sitcoms, Raising Laughter provides a fresh look at one of our most divisive and controversial decades. Aside from providing entertainment to millions of people, the sitcom is a window into the culture of the day.Many of these sitcoms tapped into the decades sense of cynicism, failure and alienation, providing much-needed laughter for the masses. Shows like Rising Damp and Fawlty Towers were classic encapsulations of worn-out, run-down Britain, while the likes of Dads Army looked back sentimentally at a romanticised English past.For the first time, the stories behind the making of every sitcom from the 1970s are told by the actors, writers, directors and producers who made them all happen. This is nostalgia with a capital N, an oral history, the last word, and an affectionate salute to the kind of comedy programme that just isnt made anymore.

It all started when Beatle George Harrison stepped in to fund Life of Brian when Monty Pythons original backers pulled out. His company, HandMade films, went on to make some of the best British films of the 80s (Withnail and I, Time Bandits and Mona Lisa among them), but then things started to go wrong... This is the incredible and often hilarious insiders story of what happened...

Oliver Reed may not have been Britains biggest film star - for a period in the early 70s he came within a hairsbreadth of replacing Sean Connery as James Bond - but he is an august member of that small band of people, like George Best and Eric Morecambe, who transcended their chosen medium, became too big for it even, and grew into cultural icons.For the first time Reeds close family has agreed to collaborate on a project about the man himself. The result is a fascinating new insight into a man seen by many as merely a brawling, boozing hellraiser. And yet he was so much more than this. For behind that image, which all too often he played up to in public, was a vastly complex individual, a man of deep passions and loyalty but also deep-rooted vulnerability and insecurities. Why was a proud, patriotic, intelligent, successful and erudite man so obsessed about proving himself to others, time and time again?Although the Reed myth is of Homeric proportions, he remains a national treasure and somewhat peculiar icon.Praise for other books by Robert Sellers:Hellraisers: The Life and Inebriated Times of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter OToole, and Oliver Reed: So wonderfully captures the wanton belligerence of both binging and stardom you almost feel the guys themselves are telling the tales.GQ.Vic Armstrong: The True Adventures of the Worlds Greatest Stuntman:This is the best and most original behind-the-scenes book I have read in years, gripping and revealing. Roger Lewis, Daily Mail.Dont Let the Bastards Grind You Down: ...a rollicking good read... Sellers has done well to capture a vivid snapshot of this exciting time. Lynn Barber, Sunday Times.

Alan Bates, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Tom Courtenay, Albert Finney, Richard Harris, Peter OToole, Robert Shaw and Terence Stamp: They are the most formidable acting generation ever to tread the boards or stare into a camera, whose anti-establishment attitude changed the cultural landscape of Britain.This was a new breed, many culled from the working class industrial towns of Britain, and nothing like them has been seen before or since. Their raw earthy brilliance brought realism to a whole range of groundbreaking theatre from John Osbornes Look Back in Anger to Joan Littlewood and Harold Pinter and the creation of the National Theatre. And they ripped apart the staid, middle-class British film industry with kitchen-sink classics like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, This Sporting Life, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, A Kind of Loving and Billy Liar before turning their sights on international stardom: Connery with James Bond, OToole as Lawrence of Arabia, Finney with Tom Jones and Caine in Zulu.Dont Let the Bastards Grind You Down brings alive the trail-blazing period of theatre and film from 1956-1964 through the vibrant energy and exploits of this revolutionary generation of stars who bulldozed over austerity Britain and paved the way for the swinging 60s. What Peter Biskinds Easy Riders Raging Bulls did for American cinema writing so Dont Let the Bastards will do for the British cinema.

An A-Z of Hellraisers is the last word on inebriated misbehaviour, and the miscreant mob in this whopper of a book constitute the most amazing grouping to see print: from Alexander the Great, whose drunken revelries once ended with the destruction of an entire city; to W. C. Fields, who passed critical judgement on a brass band by urinating over them from a hotel balcony; Dylan Thomas, who drove a sports car onto Charlie Chaplins private tennis court; to Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, suffocating on his own vomit after consuming forty measures of vodka - what a night out that was!This hilarious volume makes for an ideal bedside companion or pub reading fodder, as it scrutinises and salutes these glorious individuals, from Winston Churchill to Keith Moon, George Best to Ernest Hemingway, Wild Bill Hickok to Sam Peckinpah, Ozzy Osbourne to Errol Flynn. Just thank God we didnt have to live next door to any of them.

God put me on this earth to raise sheer hell.Richard BurtonI was a sinner. I slugged some people. I hurt many people. And its true, I never looked back to see the casualties.Richard HarrisBooze is the most outrageous of all drugs, which is why I chose it.Peter OTooleI dont have a drink problem. But if that was the case and doctors told me I had to stop Id like to think I would be brave enough to drink myself into the grave.Oliver ReedThis is the story of four of the greatest thespian boozers who ever walked - or staggered - off a film set into a pub. Its a story of drunken binges of near biblical proportions, parties and orgies, broken marriages, drugs, riots and wanton sexual conquests. They got away with it because of their extraordinary acting talent and because the public loved them. They were truly the last of a breed, the last of the movie hellraisers.

Spontaneous, hilarious, irrepressible and, of course, trailblazing - Kenny Everett was revolutionary in television and radio comedy. Chris Evans, Chris Moyles, Rob Brydon and Steve Wright have all cited Kenny as a huge influence on their work - even the great Spike Milligan called him a genius. It was Kenny who developed the radio show format with which we are so familiar today: a mix of music, jingles, funny voices and sound effects. When he seamlessly made the move to television in the seventies, he created unforgettable characters such as Sid Snot, Cupid Stunt and Marcel Wave.Rarely seen without a smile on his face in public, in reality, Kenny was a deeply insecure man who suffered severe bouts of depression. He also struggled with his sexuality, only coming out to the public in 1985. Diagnosed with HIV in 1987, Kenny died in 1995.This in-depth and affectionate biography has been fully authorised by Kennys family and contains original interviews with Kennys sister, Kate and with his former wife, Lee, as well as entertainment figures such as Barry Cryer, Cliff Richard, Chris Tarrant and Paul Gambaccini. Packed with fabulous stories about the highs and lows of Kennys life, his great friendships with The Beatles and Freddie Mercury, this is a book that any fan of comedy and entertainment must read.

I dont know what people expect when they meet me. They seem to be afraid that Im going to piss in the potted palm and slap them on the ass.Marlon BrandoI should have been dead ten times over. I believe in miracles. Its an absolute miracle that Im still around.Dennis HopperThe best time to get married is noon. That way, if things dont work out, you havent blown the whole day.Warren BeattyYou only lie to two people in your life: your girlfriend and the police.Jack NicholsonTheyre the baddest bad asses Hollywood has ever seen: Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson. These are men for whom rules did not apply, men for whom normal standards of behaviour were simply too wearisome to worry about. These are men who brawled, boozed, snorted and shagged their way into legend-hood - but along the way they changed acting and the way movies were made forever.Hollywood Hellraisers is a whistle-stop tour of jaw-dropping sexual activity, misbehaviour of an Olympic standard, all-out excess and genuine madness. Its a wonder Hollywood survived.

Still Laughing is a lively, deeply nostalgic exploration of the golden age of the 1980s British sitcom. From Only Fools and Horses, Blackadder and Yes Minister to Red Dwarf and The Young Ones, Robert Sellers revisits the comedies that defined a turbulent decade shaped by Thatcherism, social change and the arrival of Channel 4.As politics grew sharper, so too did sitcom. Bread and Desmonds captured working-class and Black British life with new confidence, while Executive Stress, Girls on Top and Birds of a Feather showcased complex, ambitious roles for women. Alternative comedy broke through, reshaping the tone of television humour for good.Still Laughing explores these famous shows, bringing back a host of memories in the process. It also spotlights the shows weve forgotten in most cases for good reason. Rich with behind-the-scenes insight and sharp commentary, it is both a joyful return to appointment-to-view television and a fresh appraisal of a transformative era in British comedy.This is nostalgia with a capital N, an oral history, the last word, but also a slice of TV history and an affectionate salute to those shows that so many of us grew up with.

You may not know it, but youve seen Vic Armstrongs work in countless movies. From performing stunts in the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice to directing the actions scenes for recent blockbusters The Green Hornet and Thor, the Academy Award-winning Vic Armstrong has been a legend in the movie industry for over 40 years. Along the way hes been the stunt double for a whole host of iconic heroes, including 007, Superman, and most memorably, Indiana Jones - as Harrison Ford once joked to him, "If you learn to talk Im in deep trouble." As a stunt co-ordinator and second unit director, Vic is behind the creation of such movies as Total Recall, The Mission, Dune, Rambo III, Terminator 2, Charlies Angels, Gangs of New York, War of the Worlds, I Am Legend and Mission: Impossible III, to name but a few, as well as several Bond films. Hes got a lot of amazing stories to tell, and theyre all here in this hugely entertaining movie memoir, which also features exclusive contributions from many of Vics colleagues and friends, including Harrison Ford, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Pierce Brosnan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Angelina Jolie, Kenneth Branagh and Sir Christopher Lee. With an introduction by Steven Spielberg, and over 100 previously unpublished on-set photos from Vics own collection.