“Best book EVER! Lisa really gives us the inside track on how to make it as an actor! There's so much to learn when getting started in Hollywood and this book is smart, concise and very insightful! A TRUE must-have for every parent and actor!” Tish Cyrus (Miley's Mom) Lisa London has been discovering new talent for over 20 years in her role as a top Hollywood Casting Director. Her experience with Hollywood began earlier during her childhood years when she accompanied her famous father, Television Director Jerry London, to the sets. Even then, she had an eye for talent as she watched well-known actors work. Lisa discovered and/or cast early in their careers, such notable actors as, Miley Cyrus, Jennifer Aniston, Jonah Hill, Emma Stone, Giovanni Ribisi, Victoria Justice, Selena Gomez, Megan Hilty, Ryan Phillippe, Mark Ruffalo Mariska Hargitay and many others. In this book, she will take you on a step by step journey, laying out what you need to know to have the best shot at stardom. Never before have so many details and insider secrets been revealed in such a way that is easy to understand and apply. The key to your success as a professional actor may be just be a chapter away. - How do you get started as an actor? - How to make the most of your headshots and resume? - When and how do you get an agent or manager? - Charisma over credits, which is more important? - Steps on how to audition. - How to find resources regardless of where you live. - What does a casting director look for? - Why do some actors get call backs and most do not? - Plus interviews with working Hollywood professionals and more… “What a great book - Lisa tells it like it is. I followed much of her advice and ended up making my dream come true of being on a Disney Channel series.” Adam Irigoyen (Shake It Up) “As both an Actor and Executive Producer, I think Lisa's book is fantastic! She really explains the process of casting so an actor can understand what they need to do. As a former 3-Time NBA World Champion, I know a winner when I see one. 'From Start to Stardom' is your key to a successful career.”Rick Fox, Actor and Executive Producer Today as never before thanks to computers, the internet and digital video, anyone in North America and even the world can audition for TV or film roles. This book will give you the basic, professional level information necessary to be taken seriously by the Casting Directors, Agents and Managers that are the gatekeepers of the entertainment industry. “Lisa London is a phenomenal resource for any actor, both new and seasoned, and her book is a wonderful tool and must-have for those wanting to know what's what in the entertainment industry.”Sarah Shyn, Manager, 3 Arts Entertainment “Lisa's book "From Start to Stardom" is an invaluable and amazing tool for actors of any age. I have known Lisa London for 20 years and she is a true gift to the entertainment business. Lisa is a wealth of information and she is one of the few people in Hollywood that cares.” Cindy Osbrink, Owner/Agent - The Osbrink Agency "I wish this book was available when I graduated from college and started auditioning. It's so great to hear this advice from a casting director's perspective. And Lisa is the best! I should know - she gave me my first TV job and we've been friends ever since!"Megan Hilty (Sean Saves The World, Wicked)

"Acts as a concise introduction to the study of both contemporary and historical stardom and celebrity. Collecting together in one source companion an easily accessible range of readings surrounding stardom and celebrity culture, this book is a worthwhile addition to any library." - Kerry Gough, Birmingham City University "Absolutely wonderful. The inclusion of seminal works and more recent works makes this a very valuable read." - Beschara Karam, University of South Africa "An engaging and often insightful book." - Media International Australia This book brings together some of the seminal interventions which have structured the development of stardom and celebrity studies, while crucially combining and situating these within the context of new essays which address the contemporary, cross-media and international landscape of today's fame culture. From Max Weber, Walter Benjamin and Roland Barthes to Catherine Lumby, Chris Rojek and Graeme Turner. At the core of the collection is a desire to map out a unique historical trajectory - both in terms of the development of fame, as well as the historical development of the field.

Marty Rendleman has over twenty-five years experience in the music business and is probably the only person to ever take two nine-year-olds and a fourteen-year-old to major-label contracts-two in Country and one in Pop. Singing Your Way to Stardom chronicles how that happened, and then offers invaluable advice and education for anyone seeking a career in the music business.

"This memoir is a peripatetic selection of Malden's enounters with larger-than-life Broadway figures... like Kazan, Strasberg, and Brando. The 1950s were Broadway's heyday but also the time of blacklisting, and Malden paints a vivid picture here of those times. Moreover, the actor eschews the 'down-and-dirty tell-all memoir' so common now to offer his views on the various acting techniques and methods he came upon. Recommended." - Library Journal

With 8 Pages of Black-and-White Photographs In this captivating history of stardom, Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr traces our obsession with fame from the dawn of cinema through the age of the Internet. Why do we obsess over the individuals we come to call stars? How has both the image of stardom and our stars' images changed over the past hundred years? What does celebrity mean if people can now become famous simply for being famous? With brilliant insight and entertaining examples, Burr reveals the blessings and the curses of celebrity for the star and the stargazer alike. From Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin, to Archie Leach (a.k.a. Cary Grant), Tom Cruise, and Julia Roberts, to such no-cal stars of today as the Kardashians and the new online celebrity, Gods Like Us is a journey through the fame game at its flashiest, most indulgent, occasionally most tragic, and ultimately it's most culturally revealing.

In the past stars have been studied as cogs in a mass entertainment industry selling desires and ideologies. But since the 1970s, new approaches have reopened debate, as film and cultural studies try to account for the active role of the star in producing meanings, pleasures, and identites for a diversity of audiences. Stardom brings together for the first time some of the major writing of the last decade which seeks to understand the phemomenon of stars and stardom. Gathered under four headings - The System, Stars and Society, Performers and Signs, Desire and Politics - these essays represent a range of approaches drawn from film history, sociolgy, textual analysis, audience research, psychoanalysis, and cultural politics. They raise important issues about the politics of representation and the cultural limitations and possibilities of stars.

DIVCritical biography of Sessue Hayakawa, a Japanese actor who became a popular silent film star in the U.S., that looks at how Hollywood treated issues of race and nationality in the early twentieth century./div

In the last 50 years, the social importance of stars has steadily grown, to the point that stars have now become key role models who strongly influence people’s behaviours. This book considers the connections between the three main media (cinema, television and the web) and each of the three phases into which the history of stardom can be divided. The first phase can largely be credited with the creation and codification of contemporary stardom, while the second is linked to the spread of television, which weakened the Hollywood stardom model and gradually transformed the figure of the star, making it more intimate and familiar. In the last of these phases, we have many ‘outsiders’ (personalities from a variety of professional domains and experiences) who are able to achieve considerable social visibility thanks to their skilful use of the web.

Bringing to light an often-ignored aspect of Hollywood studio system history, this book focuses on female stars who broke the mold of a male-dominated, often manipulative industry to dictate the path of their own careers through freelancing. Runner-up, Richard Wall Memorial Award, Theatre Library Association, 2016 During the heyday of Hollywood’s studio system, stars were carefully cultivated and promoted, but at the price of their independence. This familiar narrative of Hollywood stardom receives a long-overdue shakeup in Emily Carman’s new book. Far from passive victims of coercive seven-year contracts, a number of classic Hollywood’s best-known actresses worked on a freelance basis within the restrictive studio system. In leveraging their stardom to play an active role in shaping their careers, female stars including Irene Dunne, Janet Gaynor, Miriam Hopkins, Carole Lombard, and Barbara Stanwyck challenged Hollywood’s patriarchal structure. Through extensive, original archival research, Independent Stardom uncovers this hidden history of women’s labor and celebrity in studio-era Hollywood. Carman weaves a compelling narrative that reveals the risks these women took in deciding to work autonomously. Additionally, she looks at actresses of color, such as Anna May Wong and Lupe Vélez, whose careers suffered from the enforced independence that resulted from being denied long-term studio contracts. Tracing the freelance phenomenon among American motion picture talent in the 1930s, Independent Stardom rethinks standard histories of Hollywood to recognize female stars as creative artists, sophisticated businesswomen, and active players in the then (as now) male-dominated film industry.

"Everything you need to know to turn your love of music--and desire to play it--into something real"--P. [4] of cover.