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Book of the Week

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Serialised book readings, featuring works from various genres

Serialised book readings, featuring works of non-fiction, biography, autobiography, travel, diaries, essays, humour and history

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Book of the Week: Rupert Everett - Vanished Years

Book of the Week: Rupert Everett - Vanished Years: Episode 4

Factual: Life Stories

Vanished Years

Episode 4

Rupert Everett - Vanished Years

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, Rupert Everett - Vanished Years, Episode 4

For Rupert Everett, the path to success is paved with elephant traps.

Even with a crack production team behind Rupert Everett's American sitcom Mr Ambassador, the path to success is paved with elephant traps.

As a writer, the actor Rupert Everett has been compared to David Niven, Noel Coward and Lord Byron: wickedly observant, very British and extremely funny. And his new memoir Vanished Years gives full rein to those powers as Everett writes about the travails of a precarious career - fighting for good roles, effortlessly glamorous at parties. 

Everett found fame in Britain with Another Country and Dance with a Stranger, and acclaim in Hollywood with My Best Friend's Wedding. But we meet him in the twilight world of a film finished but not released - and he's not confident it will restore his fortunes. However, at one of the many glamorous parties he attends, Everett has a flash of inspiration: to write Mr Ambassador - an American TV sitcom starring, of course, Rupert Everett in the title role. 

And so begins an adventure in Hollywood, diving into the cut throat world of the networks and the pilot episode, where dreams and fortunes can be made or broken. 

In episode four of his memoir, Rupert finds Mr Ambassador's path to success is paved with elephant traps.

Producer: David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment Limited production for BBC Radio 4.

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Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Rupert Everett's wickedly observant memoir charts the travails of a precarious career

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