I, Rhoda

The definitive memoir by legendary actress and performer Debbie Reynolds—an entertaining and moving story of enduring friendships and unbreakable family bonds, of hitting bottom and rising to the top again—that offers a unique and deeply personal perspective on Hollywood and its elite, from the glory days of MGM to the present

Unsinkable

Inthe closing pages of her 1988 autobiography Debbie: My Life, Debbie Reynolds wrote about finding her "brave, loyal, and loving" new husband. After two broken marriages, this third, she believed, was her lucky charm. But within a few years, Debbie discovered that he had betrayed her emotionally and financially, nearly destroying her life.

Today, she writes, "When I read the optimistic ending of my last memoir now, I can't believe how naive I was when I wrote it. In Unsinkable, I look back at the many years since then, and share my memories of a film career that took me from the Miss Burbank Contest of 1948 to the work I did in 2012. . . . To paraphrase Bette Davis: Fasten your seatbelts, I've had a bumpy ride."

Unsinkable shines a spotlight on the resilient woman whose talent and passion for her work have endured for more than six decades. In her engaging, down-to-earth voice, Debbie shares private details about her man and money troubles, including building and losing her Las Vegas dream hotel and her treasured Hollywood memorabilia collection. Yet no matter how difficult the problems, the show always goes on.

Debbie also invites us into the close circle of her family, speaking with deep affection and honesty about her relationships with her children, Carrie and Todd Fisher. She looks back at her life as an actress during Hollywood's Golden Age—"the most magical time you could imagine"—including her lifelong friendship with (and years-long estrangement from) the legendary Elizabeth Taylor. Here, too, are stories that never reached the tabloids about numerous celebrities, such as Ava Gardner, Clark Gable, Frank Sinatra, Mick Jagger, Gene Kelly, and many more. She takes us on a guided tour through her movies with delightful, often hilarious behind-the-scenes anecdotes about every film in which she was involved, from 1948 to the present.

Frank and forthright, and featuring dozens of previously unseen photos from Debbie's personal collection, Unsinkable is a poignant reminder that there is light in the darkest times. It is a revealing portrait of a woman whose determination is an inspiration.

You are about to meet an extraordinary young woman, Carrie Hamilton. The daughter of one of television’s most recognizable and beloved stars, Carol Burnett, Carrie won the hearts of everyone she met with her kindness, quirky sense of humor, and wonderfully unconventional approach to life. Living in the spotlight of celebrity, but in an era when personal troubles were kept private, Carrie and Carol made a brave display of honesty and love by going public with teenager Carrie’s drug addiction and recovery. Carrie lived her adult life of sobriety to the fullest, enjoying happy and determined independence and achieving a successful artistic career as an actress, writer, musician, and director. Carrie’s passion for life and her humorist’s view of the world never wavered as she aggressively battled cancer. Carrie died at the age of 38.

Parker Stevenson.

Ted Danson.

Maksim Chmerkovskiy.

Kelsey Grammer.

Patrick Swayze.

Woody Allen.

Woody Harrelson.

And many others. . . . In three decades in Hollywood, Kirstie Alley has lived with, worked with, loved, or lost all of these men, and in this revealing memoir, she peels back the layers (and sometimes the sheets) on her relationships with all of them.

From the early days of her childhood in Wichita, Kansas, surrounded by her loving father, her inquisitive and doting grandfather, and a younger brother she fiercely protected when she wasn’t selling tickets to see him naked, Kirstie Alley’s life has been shaped and molded by men. “Men, men, glorious men!” gave her her first big break in Hollywood and her awardwinning role on Cheers, and through two marriages, a debilitating cocaine addiction, the death of her mother, roles in some of the biggest comedies of the last twenty years, and a surprising stint on Dancing with the Stars, men proved to be the inspiration for multitudes of the decisions and dramas in Kirstie Alley’s life.

In this collection of linked essays that’s both hilarious and poignant in turns, Kirstie chronicles all the good, the bad, and the ugly men who have influenced and guided her. She demonstrates how men can be the air that women breathe or the source of all of their frustrations. But for better or worse, Kirstie shows that a life well lived is a life lived in the company of men, especially if they

For four years, from the election of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in November 1960 until after the election of Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Clint Hill was the Secret Service agent assigned to guard the glamorous and intensely private Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. During those four years, he went from being a reluctant guardian to a fiercely loyal watchdog and, in many ways, her closest friend.

Now, looking back fifty years, Clint Hill tells his story for the first time, offering a tender, enthralling, and tragic portrayal of how a Secret Service agent who started life in a North Dakota orphanage became the most trusted man in the life of the First Lady who captivated first the nation and then the world.

When he was initially assigned to the new First Lady, Agent Hill envisioned tea parties and gray-haired matrons. But as soon as he met her, he was swept up in the whirlwind of her beauty, her grace, her intelligence, her coy humor, her magnificent composure, and her extraordinary spirit.

From the start, the job was like no other, and Clint was by her side through the early days of JFK's presidency; the birth of sons John and Patrick and Patrick's sudden death; Kennedy-family holidays in Hyannis Port and Palm Beach; Jackie's trips to Europe, Asia, and South America; Jackie's intriguing meetings with men like Aristotle Onassis, Gianni Agnelli, and André Malraux; the dark days of the year that followed the assassination to the farewell party she threw for Clint when he left her protective detail after four years. All she wanted was the one thing he could not give her: a private life for her and her children.

In her delightful and moving memoir, Sissy Spacek writes about her idyllic, barefoot childhood in a small East Texas town, with the clarity and wisdom that comes from never losing sight of her roots. Descended from industrious Czech immigrants and threadbare southern gentility, she grew up a tomboy, tagging along with two older brothers and absorbing grace and grit from her remarkable parents, who taught her that she could do anything. She also learned fearlessness in the wake of a family tragedy, the grief propelling her "like rocket fuel" to follow her dreams of becoming a performer.

With a keen sense of humor and a big-hearted voice, she describes how she arrived in New York City one star-struck summer as a seventeen-year-old carrying a suitcase and two guitars; and how she built a career that has spanned four decades with films such as Carrie, Coal Miner’s Daughter, 3 Women, and The Help. She details working with some of the great directors of our time, including Terrence Malick, Robert Altman, David Lynch, and Brian De Palma—who thought of her as a no-talent set decorator until he cast her as the lead in Carrie. She also reveals why, at the height of her fame, she and her family moved away from Los Angeles to a farm in rural Virginia.

Whether she’s describing the terrors and joys of raising two talented, independent daughters, taking readers behind the scenes on Oscar night, or meditating on the thrill of watching a pair of otters frolicking in her pond, Sissy Spacek’s memoir is poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, plainspoken and utterly honest. My Extraordinary Ordinary Life is about what matters most: the exquisite worth of ordinary things, the simple pleasures of home and family, and the honest job of being right with the world. "If I get hit by a truck tomorrow," she writes, "I want to know I’ve returned my neighbor’s cake pan."

Praise for My Extraordinary Ordinary Life:

"My Extraordinary Ordinary Life is the book version of Sissy: warm, heartfelt, and very real. Perhaps most remarkable is that Sissy’s life—from the ordinary experiences of growing up in and raising a close-knit family to the extraordinary thrills of starring in some of the most iconic roles in Hollywood—unfolds as gracefully on the page as it does on the big screen and, as all of her readers will soon learn, in everyday life."
—Kathryn Stockett, New York Times bestselling author of The Help

"My Extraordinary Ordinary Life describes a remarkable woman’s journey from a baton-twirling East Texas gal to an Academy-Award winning star. Sissy Spacek tells her story with warmth and grace, never straying far from the small-town roots that shaped her."
—Jeannette Walls, bestselling author of The Glass Castle and Half Broke Horses

"[A] warm narrative Like a folk song, Spacek’s storytelling is tender and unhurried."
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Sissy Spacek writes with the same bright animation and verve as she has lived her, indeed, extraordinary life."
—Sally Mann, artist and writer