In the original dustsheet. Black cloth binding with silver title on the spine.

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Winner of the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography. Drawing on a lifetime of writing about theatre and film, Callow takes us behind the curtain and behind the camera to introduce us to the performers and performances that have shaped him as an actor and as a public persona. They include giants like Orson Welles, Charles Dickens, Tommy Cooper, Charles Laughton and Laurence Olivier. The book reconstructs the highlights of his career, including his breakthrough roles as the foul-mouthed Mozart in Amadeus, and as Reverend Beebe in the film of A Room With a View, at the personal insistence of producer Ismail Merchant. The pieces are interspersed with commentaries on pantomime, nudity, homosexuality, and the many other aspects of a rich and varied life, both on and off the stage.

Reviews

• Simon Callow has compiled a work that demonstrates perfectly the essential role that art plays in our lives. It shows how art and the creative experience, (a book, a piece of music, a poem, a painting, a play), brings happiness, love, acceptance and a closer understanding of how we all fit together, how we can accept each other, I suppose in other words – how we all tick.His remarkable, hilarious and poignant book, is told with the knowledge and understanding of what it takes to stand up in front of an audience that will one day adore you and the next tear you down. He has borne the venom, slings and arrows of malicious theatre critics, and still wants to stand on stage and say here I am, this is what I have to say. His recollections of pantomime, comedians, especially Mrs Shufflewick and the director Milos forman had me in tears of laughter. His portraits of Gielgud, Olivier, Richardson, Bennett, Eyre, Guinness, Ismail Merchant and Denholm Elliot are insightful, sensitive, moving and very funny. This is essential reading for anyone who loves the theatre, the arts, or who wants to know about the theatre and the arts.
  Callow’s not simply a terrific actor who happens to write. You could as well call him a terrific writer who happens to act. –The Times

• Essential… a gift for transforming personal experience into blazingly intelligent, objective, critical appreciation. –Observer

• First rate… the best writer-actor we have. –David Hare, Guardian The Author – SIMON CALLOW is best known for his performances in Four Weddings and a Funeral and Shakespeare in Love, as well as his many starring roles in the West End, most recently in Waiting for Godot with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. He is the best-selling author of Being An Actor (Penguin), Love is Where it Falls (NHB) and two biographies – of Charles Laughton and Orson Welles.

Simon Phillip Hugh Callow CBE (born 15 June 1949) is an English actor. Known as a character actor on stage and screen, he has received numerous accolades including an Olivier Award and Screen Actors Guild Award as well as nominations for two BAFTA Awards. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to acting by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999. Callow rose to prominence originating the title role of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the 1979 Peter Shaffer play Amadeus for which he received a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role nomination. He joined the Miloš Forman 1984 film adaptation this time portraying Emanuel Schikaneder. In 1992 he won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director of a Musical for Carmen Jones. As an actor he won acclaim for his comedic roles in A Room with a View (1985) and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) earning BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for each. Other notable roles include in Maurice (1987), Howards End (1992), Shakespeare in Love (1998), and The Phantom of the Opera (2004).

His television roles include Tom Chance in the Channel 4 series Chance in a Million (1984) and The Duke of Sandringham in the series Outlander from 2014 to 2016. He portrayed Napoleon in The Man of Destiny (1981), and Charles Dickens in numerous television projects. He’s also appeared on numerous shows such as Midsomer Murders, Rome, Angels in America, Doctor Who, Galavant, Hawkeye, and The Witcher.