KATE O'MARA

Kate O'Mara – Vamp Until Ready: A Life Laid Bare (2003) Signed Autobiography

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Synopsis

Only 1 in stock as of April 2017 and as pictured. Signed on the inside page by Kate O'Mara.

I gotta say it's one heck of a good read with some great pictures. Unlike so many autobiographies by actors and actresses there is none of the pompous descriptions of 'causes' and 'saving the world' nonsense. Nor for that matter yet another anecdote involving a fleeting in-the-same-room encounter with Larry Olivier or Ralphie Richardson. Rather she is matter of fact in what is going on in her life at such and such a time and it's more refreshing for that. If you have just a fleeting interest in her work then this is a must read book.

INNER PAGE

'Vamp until ready' was an old music hall term, which was an instruction to the pianist or orchestra in the pit to keep playing until the next act was ready to come on stage. It took the form of a series of descending chords with a bouncy optimistic accompaniment. It was repeated ad lib to keep the audience happy and in anticipation of more and better to follow! – Kate O'Mara

INNER FLAP

Who is Kate O'Mara? First and foremost, she has theatrical blood running through her veins, having been born into the fifth generation of a family of actors, actresses and theatre managers, who also built theatres and ran their own theatre companies around Britain. “Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington!” advised Noel Coward in his famous song. But it was always a foregone conclusion Kate O'Mara would go into the family business. At the age of three she was learning the piano, attending singing and dancing lessons and had seen her first play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. By four she had made her first public appearance.

A peripatetic childhood and eleven schools later, Kate entered the business for real and for over forty years she's done everything from Shakespeare's Cleopatra in Anthony and Cleopatra and Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew to Cassie, sister of Alexis (Joan Collins) in the celebrated Hollywood soap, Dynasty. Other famous roles include The Rani, a power-crazed time lord in Doctor Who (BBC), Hammer House movies, Westerns, musicals, Jane Maxwell, the girl everyone loved to hate, in The Brothers (BBC), Katherine Lucker, the purser, in Triangle (BBC), Mata Hari, Dutch spy and courtesan on The Morecambe and Wise Show, Laura Wilde opposite Stephen Yardley (Ken Masters) in Howard's Way (BBC) and, more recently, Jackie, Joanna Lumley's sister, in Absolutely Fabulous (BBC) and Virginia in Bad Girls (Channel 4). She has also set up her own theatre company, The British Actors' Theatre Company. Kate O'Mara's acting career has been completely diverse and she is known to millions for her appearances on TV, film and on the stage.

Offstage, her personal life has been equally dramatic, featuring rape, desertion, abortion, divorce and a string of relationships. Feisty, funny and sometimes sad but always entertaining, Vamp Until Ready is the no-holds-barred and eagerly awaited autobiography of Kate O'Mara, one of Britain's most popular icons and a woman who really lives life to the full.

★★★★★ 5 STARS OUT OF FIVE

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