"Singer. Dancer. Burlesque club stripper. Gangster moll. Communist revolutionary. Screen legend Karen Jamey has worn a lot of hats in her time and loved more men than the staff of a Reno cathouse. From her auspicious beginnings on the Baltimore stage to her status as the reigning queen of the B-movie scene, I, An Actress takes a sordid journey through the darkly funny underbelly of fame." "With characteristic wit, candor, and cluelessness, Ms. Jamey reflects on the events that have shaped her into the beloved American figure she is today - her mother's sad descent into hoboism, the untimely death and subsequent resurrection of her grandfather, the films that built her up, and the men that tore her down. Relentlessly dolling out morbid humor and mercilessly skewering Hollywood cliches, I, An Actress is a romp through the twists and turns of fame."--BOOK JACKET.

The famous, well-known Hungarian bestseller finally in English language! The Actress is one of Hungary's best-known artists, winner of several state awards. The girl is a college student, determined, young and beautiful - she's a ticket taker at the theatre in the evenings. Their fate unfolds within the walls of a downtown theatre, from an initial friendship to love, and then to an eight-year relationship full of extremes and excitement, set against a backdrop of theatre, a web of interests and the scrutiny of society - a true rarity in the divided art world. Can such an all-consuming love exist, and if so, how does it work? What kind of person is The Actress, what does she write in her secret diary, and how can the "actor's self" be defined? What is the closed, inner world of a real, contemporary, Hungarian theatre like? Who pulls the strings, how are the big decisions made? What is the showcase and what is the product itself? What is the role of the spectator in all this? What goes on behind the curtain? - And how can all this be reconciled with reality? I have been the protagonist in this story for eight years in order to write it credibly. A true story by the young girl - a real drama on stage and in life, with a cathartic finale.

'Every day, thousands of women enter acting classes where most of them will receive some variation on the Stanislavsky-based training that has now been taught in the U.S. for nearly ninety years. Yet relatively little feminist consideration has been given to the experience of the student actress: What happens to women in Method actor training?' An Actress Prepares is the first book to interrogate Method acting from a specifically feminist perspective. Rose Malague addresses "the Method" not only with much-needed critical distance, but also the crucial insider's view of a trained actor. Case studies examine the preeminent American teachers who popularized and transformed elements of Stanislavsky’s System within the U.S.—Strasberg, Adler, Meisner, and Hagen— by analyzing and comparing their related but distinctly different approaches. This book confronts the sexism that still exists in actor training and exposes the gender biases embedded within the Method itself. Its in-depth examination of these Stanislavskian techniques seeks to reclaim Method acting from its patriarchal practices and to empower women who act. 'I've been waiting for someone to write this book for years: a thorough-going analysis and reconsideration of American approaches to Stanislavsky from a feminist perspective ... lively, intelligent, and engaging.' – Phillip Zarrilli, University of Exeter 'Theatre people of any gender will be transformed by Rose Malague’s eye-opening study An Actress Prepares... This book will be useful to all scholars and practitioners determined to make gender equity central to how they hone their craft and their thinking.' – Jill Dolan, Princeton University

In To Be an Actress, Nava Shean tells about her life on the stage: from children's theater in Prague to traveling theater in the Czech countryside, to performances of prisoners in Terezin concentration camp, to Israel's national theater, Munich State theater, and her one-woman shows. The common theme that runs through the memoir is Ms. Shean's passion for the theater and her dedication to acting despite excruciating circumstances. The memoir provides first-hand account of life in Terezin concentration camp and the incredible artistic activity under the shadow of the transports to the death camps. It also portrays the author's reconnection with her Jewish heritage against the background of her family's assimilation. Upon her arrival in Israel in 1948, Ms. Shean took part in the development of the Israeli theater, an alliance that continued into the 1980s and culminated in her one-woman show Requiem in Terezin.