cover image Make-Believe: The Magic of International Theatre

Make-Believe: The Magic of International Theatre

Richard Collier. Dodd Mead, $0 (258pp) ISBN 978-0-396-08645-1

Collier's book is a delight, elegantly written and lively with stories about the thespian world. In the beginning, the author tells how Queen Victoria bestowed respectability on performers when she knighted actor Henry Irving in 1895. No longer despised as riffraff, actors and actresses thereafter even became members of high society. Collier (The Rainbow People explains how New York City's ""Little Church Around the Corner'' permanently endeared itself to the profession and details the struggles and early mistakes of stage and film legends: Helen Hayes, Lunt and Fontanne, Gielgud, Olivier, Vivien Leigh and others, including less famous but equally beguiling entertainers. This will be a pleasure for all sorts of readers, not just acting buffs. Photos not seen by PW. (September)