IT'S GOOD TO BE THE KING: THE SERIOUSLY FUNNY LIFE OF MEL BROOKS (John Wiley & Sons, 2007)

For many years in many forums this highly-extroverted, diminutive wit has been offering biting observations about life’s inequities and man’s foolhardiness. Best known for such comedic screen hits as The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein, Brooks has a rich show business background. It includes performing at Catskill resorts, writing for such classic TV series as Your Show of Shows, Caesar's Hour, and Get Smart, and scripting for Broadway (including New Faces of 1952, Shinbone Alley, and the recent stage musical adaptation of The Producers). Over the decades, Mel's collaborators in mirth have included his Academy Award-winning wife, Anne Bancroft, Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner, Woody Allen, Gene Wilder, and Madeline Kahn. This biography chronicles the full life of this perennial mirthmaker--a man bent on educating while entertaining his audiences.

Today, not just the film industry, but the public at large (thanks to an abundance of information available on the Internet) track the success/failure of new releases as they face the moment of truth at the box-office. This volume focuses on vivid case studies of several intriguing Hollywood screen misfires over the last four decades (including 1963's Cleopatra, 1984's The Cotton Club, and 2000's Battlefield Earth). Each self-contained narrative traces the colorful history of the badly misguided project through to its final release. Interwoven into the telling accounts are portrayals of the powerful major players (both in front of and behind the camera) who battle intricate studio politics, on-set ego disputes, and the vagaries of Mother Nature while on location in order to achieve the final screen product. The concentration of this book is on the incredible stories of how these movies were made and the processes by which they ever came to be.

Part of an ongoing reference series, this entry details 100 job paths within the television/cable industry, including careers in front of the camera to behind the scenes to working with high technology or working live in remove locations. For each mini- chapter information is provided for, among other aspects, educational requirements, employment prospects, salary ranges, career ladders, and tips for breaking into the particular field. Among the several appendices included are a Glossary of Terms, Useful Websites, and Major Trade Periodicals, Newsletters, and Other Publications.

THE HOLLYWOOD BOOK OF EXTRAVAGANCE: The Totally Infamous,
Mostly Disastrous, and Always Compelling Excesses of America’s
Film and TV Idols (John Wiley & Sons, 2007)

This book provides colorful examples of extravagant living in Hollywood over the past century. The volume is divided into seven parts—covering the "deadly sins" in Tinseltown: (1) So Much, So Young, (2) So Much Ego, (3) So Much Neuroses, (4) So Much Partying, (5) So Much Power, (6) So Much Rich Living, (7) So Much Romancing. The 84 mini chapters detail intriguing accounts of how a given Hollywood personality succumbed to one or more excesses, described within the context of the celebrity's career and private life. Among the many notables included are Danny Bonaduce, Marlon Brando, Joan Crawford, Tony Curtis, Bette Davis, Sandra Dee, Michael Eisner, Greta Garbo, Judy Garland, Rex Harrison, David Hasselhoff, Whitney Houston, Betty Hutton, Al Jolson, Jennifer Jones, Oscar Levant, Lindsay Lohan, Jerry Lewis, Liza Minnelli, Demi Moore, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tori Spelling, Gale Storm, and Mae West.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES IN THE INTERNET, VIDEO GAMES, AND MULTIMEDIA (with Allan Taylor) (Facts on File, 2007)