“I don’t know what people expect when they meet me. They seem to be afraid that I’m going to piss in the potted palm and slap them on the ass.”—Marlon Brando “I should have been dead ten times over. I believe in miracles. It’s an absolute miracle that I’m still around.”—Dennis Hopper “You only lie to two people in your life: your girlfriend and the police.”—Jack Nicholson “The best time to get married is noon. That way, if things don’t work out, you haven’t blown the whole day.”—Warren Beatty They’re 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 legendhood—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, misbehavior of an Olympic standard, all-out excess, and genuine madness. It’s a wonder Hollywood survived.

In his follow-up to the acclaimed "Hellraisers," Sellers traces the intertwining lives and careers of four outrageous Hollywood movie mavericks: Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper, Warren Beatty, and Jack Nicholson.

Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole, and Oliver Reed: On screen they were stars, off screen they were legends. This is the story of drunken binges of near biblical proportions, parties and orgies, broken marriages, riots, and wanton sexual conquests--indeed, acts so outrageous that if ordinary mortals had perpetrated them they would have ended up in jail. They got away with the kind of behavior that today's film stars could scarcely dream of, because of their mercurial acting talent and because the press and public loved them. They were truly the last of a breed. This is a celebratory catalogue of their miscreant deeds, a greatest-hits package of their most breathtakingly outrageous behavior, told with humor and affection. You can't help but enjoy it--after all, they certainly did.--From publisher description.

The Boozy Biography of the Four Greatest Actors to Ever Walk--Or Stagger--Into a Pub. Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole, and Oliver Reed: On screen they were stars. Off screen they were legends! Hellraisers is the story of drunken binges of near biblical proportions, parties and orgies, broken marriages, riots, and wanton sexual conquests. Indeed, acts so outrageous that if you or I had perpetrated them we could have ended up in jail. Their mercurial acting talent and love from the press and the public allowed them to get away with the kind of behaviour that today's film stars could scarcely dream of. They were truly the last of a breed, the last of the movie hellraisers. This book traces the intertwining lives and careers of Burton, Harris, O'Toole, and Reed, plus an assortment of other movie boozers who crossed their path. It's a celebratory catalogue of their miscreant deeds, a greatest-hits package, as it were, of their most breathtakingly outrageous behavior, told with humor and affection. You can't help but enjoy it—after all, they bloody well did. "God put me on this earth to raise sheer hell."--Richard Burton "I don't have a drink problem. But if that was the case and doctors told me I had to stop I'd like to think that I would be brave enough to drink myself into the grave."--Oliver Reed "I was a sinner. I slugged some people. I hurt many people. And it's true, I never looked back to see the casualties."--Richard Harris "Booze is the most outrageous of drugs, which is why I chose it."--Peter O'Toole

Oliver Reed may not have been Britain's 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 Reed's 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 O'Toole, 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 World's 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. Don't 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.

Hollywood’s famous child star agent Iris Burton launched the careers of the world’s current movie stars and celebrities including Drew Barrymore, Tori Spelling, River and Joaquin Phoenix, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, Johnny Depp, and Kirstin Dunst. But what was Iris Burton like to work for? Here now, her former employee Chris Snyder writes the true story of Hollywood’s most feared insider for the first time. Expect revelations, gossip, and the true seamy underside of Hollywood throughout the decades.

Praise for Five Easy Decades: How Jack Nicholson Became the Biggest Movie Star in Modern Times "Dennis McDougal is a rare Hollywood reporter: honest, fearless, nobody's fool. This is unvarnished Jack for Jack-lovers and Jack-skeptics but, also, for anyone interested in the state of American culture and celebrity. I always read Mr. McDougal for pointers but worry that he will end up in a tin drum off the coast of New Jersey." — Patrick McGilligan, author of Jack's Life and Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light Praise for Privileged Son: Otis Chandler and the Rise and Fall of the L.A. Times Dynasty "A great freeway pileup—part biography, part dysfunctional family chronicle, and part institutional and urban history, with generous dollops of scandal and gossip." — Hendrick Hertzberg, The New Yorker "McDougal has managed to scale the high walls that have long protected the Chandler clan and returned with wicked tales told by angry ex-wives and jealous siblings." —The Washington Post Praise for The Last Mogul: Lew Wasserman, MCA and the Hidden History of Hollywood "Real glamour needs a dark side. That is part of the fascination of Dennis McDougal's wonderful book." —The Economist "Thoroughly reported and engrossing . . . the most noteworthy trait of MCA was how it hid its power." —The New York Times Book Review "Over the years, I've read hundreds of books on Hollywood and the movie business, and this one is right at the top." — Michael Blowen, The Boston Globe

Featuring actors like Richard Harris, Sean Connery, Alan Bates, Tom Courtney, Albert Finney, Robert Stephens, Terence Stamp, Peter O’Toole, Robert Shaw and Michael Caine, this book explores the rise and camaraderie of that entire generation of hard-living, boozing actors who ripped apart the staid British theatre and film industry in a trail-blazing ten year period from the mid-50s to the mid-60s.

Using the life and career of her father, writer Margaret Talbot tells the story of the rise of popular culture through a personal lens. The arc of Lyle Talbot's career is in fact the story of American entertainment. Born in 1902, Lyle left small-town Nebraska in 1918 to join a traveling carnival. From there he became a magician's assistant, an actor in a traveling theater troupe, a romantic lead in early talkies, then an actor in major Warner Bros. pictures, then an actor in cult B movies, and finally a part of the advent of television, with regular roles on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and Leave It to Beaver. In her impeccably researched narrative--a combination of Hollywood history, social history, and family memoir--Margaret Talbot conjures warmth and nostalgia for those earlier eras of '10s and '20s small-town America, '30s and '40s Hollywood.--From publisher description.

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 Chaplin's 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 didn't have to live next door to any of them.