Private Faces and Public Places

Sian Phillips has a long and celebrated career on both stage and screen. For the first time, her two bestselling volumes of memoir Private Faces and Public Places will be available as a single volume with a brand new foreword by the author.

With wonderful stories and unflinching candour, Private Faces and Public Places covers her life from its beginnings in the remote Welsh countryside, where life hadn't changed for centuries, to finding herself at the epicentre of the acting world at its most glamorous alongside husband Peter O'Toole, whose career was about to take off with the spellbinding Lawrence of Arabia. Sian describes the mad and wonderfully impulsive times with O'Toole alongside the tempestuous, insecure, and often lonely periods in their marriage. Incredibly, it endures over 20 years.

When it ends, surprising even herself, she plunges straight into another marriage, with the much younger actor Robin Sachs. Emerging alone from her second marriage, triumphant and unrepentant, the story Sian tells ranks alongside the very best in show business.

About the Author

Si n Phillips began acting in BBC Radio when only 11. Since then she has appeared in numerous plays, films and TV dramas, including I CLAUDIUS, GOODBYE MR CHIPS, SHOULDER TO SHOULDER, THE SCOLD'S BRIDLE, and MARLENE which is shortly to open on Broadway. She has received several acting awards both here and in America. She was married to Peter O'Toole for 20 years and has two daughters.