John Osborne (1929-1994), unapologetic rebel and original Angry Young Man, changed  the face of modern British theatre forever with Look Back in Anger. An actor turned playwright, Osborne was married five times, his private life generating a tumult and drama to match that of his work. This startlightly candid, authorised but intimate and informal biography is the first to have access to Osborne's own notebooks and private letters, which record for posterity his often anguished nature. It includes personal interviews with scores of his friends and enemies, among them a bombshell of a confession from Osborne's alleged male lover, and the first public comments from his estranged daughter Nolan, who was thrown out of the family home at just sixteen. This is an essential, unorthodox, moving and extraordinarily frank portrait of the man, the playwright and his era.

John Osborne: A Patriot for Us

Heilpern, John

Biographies & Memoirs

Vintage Books USA

John Osborne, unapologetic rebel and original Angry Young Man, first won acclaim with the 1956 production of his play Look Back in Anger, which completely transformed postwar theater and established him as one of Britain’s greatest playwrights. This startling biography—the first informed by the secret notebooks in which he recorded his otherwise hidden anguish and immobilizing depression—reveals Osborne in all his heartrending complexity. Osborne was born in rented rooms in South London, in 1929, to a tubercular father and a barmaid mother. An ailing child, he learned to box and was later expelled from school for hitting his headmaster. At fifteen, he began as a lowly journalist for Gas World but soon fled to join a repertory theater company. The craft he learned—as an actor and dramatist—would change his life, creating the means of both self-expression and self-concealment. Through five marriages—to actresses Pamela Lane, Mary Ure and Jill Bennett, and critics Penelope Gilliatt and Helen Dawson—his private life generated its own tumult and drama, farce and pathos. An impossible father, he denounced his teenage daughter as smug and suburban, threw her out of the house and never spoke to her again. When he died, on Christmas Eve, 1994, his last written words were “I have sinned.” This impeccably researched biography includes personal interviews with Osborne’s estranged daughter, scores of friends and enemies, and a bombshell of a confession from his alleged male lover. Heilpern, a theater critic himself, presents a contradictory genius—a hopelessly romantic English melancholic, a defiant individualist neither of the right nor of the left, an ogre with charm, a radical who hated change, a patriot who defended national values of language, music and custom. This is an essential, unorthodox, moving and extraordinarily frank portrait of the artist, the man and his times.

John Osborne: The Many Lives of the Angry Young Man

Arts & Literature

KNOPF

John Osborne, the original Angry Young Man, shocked and transformed British theater in the 1950s with his play Look Back in Anger. This startling biography–the first to draw on the secret notebooks in which he recorded his anguish and depression–reveals the notorious rebel in all his heartrending complexity. Through a working-class childhood and five marriages, Osborne led a tumultuous life. An impossible father, he threw his teenage daughter out of the house and never spoke to her again. His last written words were "I have sinned." Theater critic John Heilpern’s detailed portrait, including interviews with Osborne's daughter, scores of friends and enemies, and his alleged male lover, shows us a contradictory genius–an ogre with charm, a radical who hated change, and above all, a defiant individualist.

History

Vintage

Conference of the Birds is John Heilpern's true story of an extraordinary journey. In December 1972, the director Peter Brook and an international troupe of actors (Helen Mirren and Yoshi Oida among them) left their Paris base to emerge again in the Sahara desert. It was the start of an 8,500-mile expedition through Africa without precedent in the history of theatre. Brook was in search of a new beginning that has since been revealed in all his work - from Conference of the Birds and Carmen to The Mahabharata and beyond. At the heart of John Heilpern's brilliant account of the African experiment is a story that became a search for the miraculous.

Conference of the Birds: The Story of Peter Brooks in Africa

Literature & Fiction

Dramas & Plays

Methuen Drama

How Good is David Mamet, Anyway?: Writings on Theater--and Why It Matters

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor &amp; Francis, an informa company.

Routledge

Humor & Entertainment

Searching for a new form of theatre, Peter Brook and a group of actors journeyed through remote Africa, performing for the villagers, who allowed them to observe secret ceremonies in return

Conference of the Birds

Macmillan Pub. Co.

JOHN OSBORNE. A Patriot for Us.

Chatto&Windus

Conference of the Birds is John Heilpern's true story of an extraordinary journey. In December 1972, the director Peter Brook and an international troupe of actors (Helen Mirren and Yoshi Oida among them) left their Paris base to emerge again in the Sahara desert. It was the start of an 8,500-mile expedition through Africa without precedent in the history of theater. Brook was in search of a new beginning that has since been revealed in all his work--from Conference of the Birds and Carmen to The Mahabharata and beyond. At the heart of John Heilpern's brilliant account of the African experiment is a story that became a search for the miraculous.

Conference of the Birds (Theatre Arts (Routledge Paperback))

Conference of the Birds is John Heilpern's true story of an extraordinary journey. In December 1972, the director Peter Brook and an international troupe of actors (Helen Mirren and Yoshi Oida among them) left their Paris base to emerge again in the Sahara desert. It was the start of an 8,500-mile expedition through Africa without precedent in the history of theater. Brook was in search of a new beginning that has since been revealed in all his work--from Conference of the Birds and Carmen to The Mahabharata and beyond. At the heart of John Heilpern's brilliant account of the African experiment is a story that became a search for the miraculous.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Heilpern, John. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Heilpern, John

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Heilpern, John. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

John Osborne: A Patriot for Us

John Osborne: The Many Lives of the Angry Young Man

John Osborne: The Many Lives of the Angry Young Man

Conference of the Birds: The Story of Peter Brooks in Africa

How Good is David Mamet, Anyway?: Writings on Theater--and Why It Matters

How Good is David Mamet, Anyway?: Writings on Theater--and Why It Matters

Conference of the Birds

JOHN OSBORNE. A Patriot for Us.

Conference of the Birds (Theatre Arts (Routledge Paperback))

Conference of the Birds