Explore the Latest Full Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir, Arts & Entertainment

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628163 to listen full audiobooks. Title: My Life in Three Acts Author: Helen Hayes Narrator: James Macarthur Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 7 hours 50 minutes Release date: June 23, 2010 Genres: Arts & Entertainment Publisher's Summary: Helen Hayes, acclaimed “First Lady of the American Theatre,” has been on stage, screen, and television for more than fifty years. In that time she moved among the world’s most famous and talented, including Joan Crawford, William Randolph Hearst, Charlie Chaplin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Richard Burton, Lillian Gish, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Gloria Swanson. She treats us to delightful anecdotes about Ethel Barrymore, John Ford, and Al Capone. She also reflects more seriously on the painful parts of her life: the alcoholism of those close to her; the guilt of having not spent more time with her young children; the remorse about the fact that her success overshadowed her playwright-screenwriter husband, Charles MacArthur; the difficulty of being alone after the deaths of her daughter and husband. An engrossing account of the pleasures and discomforts that go with being a celebrity, and through them all, a rich and productive life.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628210 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Laurence Olivier: A Biography Author: Donald Spoto Narrator: Frederick Davidson Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 17 hours 11 minutes Release date: June 18, 2010 Genres: Arts & Entertainment Publisher's Summary: Laurence Olivier was the most famous actor of his century and one of the greatest of all time. His looks made him a matinee idol; his talent made him world-renowned as an actor, director, and producer. From his stage roles as Hamlet and Archie Rice to his screen roles as Heathcliff and Henry V, his range was unparalleled. But beneath the glamorous image, Olivier was often lonely, confused, and plagued by self-doubts. In this revealing account, Spoto tells for the first time the truth about Olivier’s three marriages: to the diffident lesbian actress Jill Esmond, to the haunted and doomed Vivien Leigh, and to the young Joan Plowright. Olivier also reveals his relationships with Noël Coward and Danny Kaye, who loved him. Amid these personal dramas, Laurence Olivier’s life encompasses the history of the theater in our time. Based on formidable international research, this is a rich, definitive biography.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628201 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The House of Barrymore Author: Margot Peters Narrator: Wanda Mccaddon Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 24 hours 31 minutes Release date: October 27, 2009 Genres: Arts & Entertainment Publisher's Summary: This epic family biography begins in the 1860s with Louisa Drew, the greatest comedienne of her time, mother of the brilliant Georgiana Drew Barrymore and mother-in-law of the vaudeville star and matinee idol Maurice Barrymore. But it is the children of Georgie and Maurice who are the heart of the book: Ethel, Lionel, and John, the most extraordinary members of an extraordinary family. We see Ethel’s sensational social and stage debuts in London and on Broadway; her struggle with alcohol, debt, and damaged reputation; and her spectacular comeback in The Corn is Green. We see John’s vault to fame in Shakespearean stage roles and his triumphant move to the screen before succumbing to the “Barrymore curse” of addiction to alcohol. And we see the steadier Lionel pursuing his talents in painting and composing before finally capitulating to the family tradition. We see both the price and the privileges of their extraordinary fame; and finally, with the death of Ethel, the decline of America’s first family of acting.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628156 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Hollywood Studios: House Style in the Golden Age of the Movies Author: Ethan Mordden Narrator: Barrett Whitener Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 12 hours 27 minutes Release date: September 29, 2009 Genres: Arts & Entertainment Publisher's Summary: Hollywood in the years between 1929 and 1948 was a town of moviemaking empires. The great studios were estates of talent: sprawling, dense, diverse. It was the Golden Age of the Movies, and each studio made its distinctive contribution. But how did the studios, “growing up” in the same time and place, develop so differently? What combinations of talents and temperaments gave them their signature styles? These are the questions Ethan Mordden answers, with breezy erudition and irrepressible enthusiasm, in this fascinating and wonderfully readable book. Mordden illuminates how the style of each studio was primarily dictated by the personality, philosophy, and attitudes of its presiding mogul—and how all these factors affected the work and careers of individual actors, directors, writers, and technicians, and the success of the studio in general.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/624346 to listen full audiobooks. Title: The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany Author: Martin Goldsmith Narrator: Martin Goldsmith Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 11 hours 35 minutes Release date: August 24, 2009 Genres: Arts & Entertainment Publisher's Summary: In the spring of 1933, more than 8,000 Jewish musicians, actors, and other artists were expelled from their positions with German orchestras, opera companies, and theater groups. Later that year, the Jüdische Kulturbund, or Jewish Culture Association, was created to allow Jewish artists to perform for Jewish audiences. Here is the riveting and emotional story of Gunther Goldschmidt and Rosemarie Gumpert, two courageous Jewish musicians who struggled to perform under unimaginable circumstances and found themselves falling in love in a country bent on destroying them. A poignant testament to the enduring vitality of music and love even in the harshest times, The Inextinguishable Symphony gives us a compelling look at an important piece of Holocaust history that has heretofore gone largely untold.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628173 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Michelangelo: A Biography Author: George Bull Narrator: Nadia May Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 18 hours 45 minutes Release date: January 1, 2007 Genres: Arts & Entertainment Publisher's Summary: Michelangelo was recognized during his lifetime as the greatest living artist, creator of a number of masterpieces in sculpture, fresco painting, and architecture. He impressed his contemporaries as a forceful personality, a divine genius endowed with intense emotional power. Often portrayed as a solitary and austere figure, he in fact enjoyed a remarkable range of friendships, and those he loved and hated, served or resisted are presented here, from his family and fellow artists to the popes, nobles, and rulers of Europe. George Bull places Michelangelo firmly in the context of his time. He worked during three-quarters of a century of tremendous change in European society, and as an artist was supremely responsive to the hopes, fears, and values of his culture, which he both exemplified and defied. Bull traces the life and spiritual quest of Michelangelo, man and artist, and brings to the narrative an exceptional feel for the Italian Renaissance.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/625770 to listen full audiobooks. Title: My Dinner of Herbs Author: Efrem Zimbalist Narrator: Efrem Zimbalist Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 5 hours 36 minutes Release date: January 1, 2006 Genres: Arts & Entertainment Publisher's Summary: “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.”—Proverbs 15:17 It’s a long way from a large, luxurious, and rambling estate in the Connecticut countryside to Hollywood’s 77 Sunset Strip, but Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., made that journey, traveling many different roads during the life he so engagingly recreates in this memoir. His parents, the violinist Efrem Zimbalist and the operatic soprano Alma Gluck, acclaimed for their artistry throughout the world, provided their son with a childhood of comfort and security and, of course, music. Tracing his life from childhood to the present day, he shares memories of family, his student days at Yale, his military service and travel, and his careers in movies, theater, and television, as well as his share in a Pulitzer Prize. Included in this audio are musical excerpts from his violin virtuoso father and opera diva mother.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628261 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Wonderful Memories of It’s a Wonderful Life Author: Jimmy Hawkins Narrator: Jimmy Hawkins Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 1 hour 32 minutes Release date: June 25, 2005 Genres: Arts & Entertainment Publisher's Summary: When the movie It’s a Wonderful Life opened in December 1946, it captured five Academy Award nominations. It also captured the hearts of millions of Americans. Over the past fifty years, It’s a Wonderful Life has become as much a holiday tradition as Thanksgiving dinner and the Christmas tree. For many people, Christmas just isn’t complete until they see Jimmy Stewart running down Main Street yelling, “Merry Christmas!” It’s a Wonderful Life has become the American version of A Christmas Carol, with its own timeless message of innocence, personal struggle, and hope. Now listeners can hear about the making of this film firsthand from the memories of actor Jimmy Hawkins, who played four-year-old Tommy Bailey in the film, as well as archived interviews with Jimmy Stewart, director Frank Capra, and many others who were part of the filming of this treasured holiday classic.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628189 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Steve Martin: The Magic Years Author: Morris Wayne Walker Narrator: Barrett Whitener Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 8 hours 41 minutes Release date: June 24, 2005 Ratings: Ratings of Narrator: 2 of Total 1 Genres: Arts & Entertainment Publisher's Summary: This is the story of the wild and crazy years that the author spent growing up with Steve Martin and their apprenticeship in comedy. No one could better chronicle Steve’s life than his best and oldest friend, Morris Walker. Steve and Morris were class clowns together, charming the girls and the teachers with their wit and later setting out on the road together as comedians. This personal account will introduce you to the Steve Martin you’ve never seen before: the eleven-year-old already performing near-perfect sleight-of-hand magic tricks, the thirteen-year-old selling guidebooks at Disneyland, the twenty-year-old stretching his comedic wings as a vaudeville-style entertainer, and the twenty-one-year-old Emmy Award–winning Hollywood whiz kid.