Michael Anthony Popular Books
Michael Anthony Biography & Facts
Anthony Michael Hall (born Michael Anthony Thomas Charles Hall; April 14, 1968) is an American actor. He is best known for starring in films with John Hughes, which include the teen films Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Weird Science. Hall diversified his roles to avoid becoming typecast as his geek persona, joining the cast of Saturday Night Live (1985–1986) and starring in films such as Out of Bounds (1986), Johnny Be Good (1988), Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Six Degrees of Separation (1993). After a series of minor roles in the 1990s, he starred as Microsoft's Bill Gates in the 1999 television film Pirates of Silicon Valley. He had the leading role in the USA Network series The Dead Zone from 2002 to 2007. In 2008, he appeared in a minor role in The Dark Knight. Since 2019, Hall has appeared in ABC's The Goldbergs. He starred in the slasher film Halloween Kills (2021). Early life Michael Anthony Thomas Charles Hall was born on April 14, 1968, in the West Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. He is the only child of blues-jazz singer Mercedes Hall's first marriage. She divorced Hall's father, Larry, an auto-body-shop owner, when their son was six months old. When Hall was three, he and his mother relocated to the West Coast, where she found work as a featured singer. After a year and a half, they returned to the East, eventually moving to New York City, where Hall grew up. Hall's ancestry is English, Irish and Italian. He has one half-sister, Mary Chestaro, from his mother's second marriage to Thomas Chestaro, a show business manager. His half-sister is pursuing a career as a singer under the name of Mary C. Hall uses the name Anthony, rather than Michael. He transposed his first and middle names when he entered show business because there was another actor named Michael Hall who was already a member of the Screen Actors Guild. Hall attended St. Hilda's & St. Hugh's School of New York before moving on to Manhattan's Professional Children's School. Hall began his acting career at age eight and continued throughout high school. "I did not go to college," he has said, "but I'm an avid reader in the ongoing process of educating myself." Through the 1980s, Hall's mother managed his career, eventually relinquishing that role to her second husband. Career 1970s–1980s At the age of seven, Hall started his career in commercials. He was the Honeycomb cereal kid and appeared in several commercials for toys and Bounty. His stage debut was in 1977, when he was cast as the young Steve Allen in Allen's semi-autobiographical play The Wake. He went on to appear in the Lincoln Center Festival's production of St. Joan of the Microphone, and in a play with Woody Allen. In 1980, he made his screen debut in the Emmy-winning TV movie The Gold Bug, in which he played the young Edgar Allan Poe. In 1981 he started as Huck Finn in Rascals and Robbers: The Secret Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn but it was not until the release of the 1982 Kenny Rogers film Six Pack that he gained real notice. The following year, Hall landed the role of Rusty Griswold, Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo's son, in National Lampoon's Vacation, catching the attention of the film's screenwriter John Hughes, who was about to make the jump to directing. "For [Hall] to upstage Chevy, I thought, was a remarkable accomplishment for a 13-year-old kid," said Hughes. The film was a significant box office hit in 1983, grossing over $61 million in the United States. After Vacation, Hall moved on to other projects and declined to reprise his role in the 1985 sequel. Hall's breakout role came in 1984, when he was cast as "The Geek", the scrawny, braces-wearing geek who pursued Molly Ringwald's character in John Hughes's directing debut Sixteen Candles. Hall tried to avoid the clichés of geekiness. "I didn't play him with 100 pens sticking out of his pocket," he said. "I just went in there and played it like a real kid. The geek is just a typical freshman." Hall landed a spot on the promotional materials along with co-star Ringwald. Reviews of the film were positive for Hall and his co-stars, and a review in People even claimed that Hall's performance "pilfer[ed] the film" from Ringwald. Despite achieving only moderate success at the box office, the film made overnight stars of Ringwald and Hall. In 1985, Hall starred in two additional teen-oriented films written and directed by Hughes. He was cast as Brian Johnson, "the brain," in The Breakfast Club, co-starring Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, and Molly Ringwald. Film critic Janet Maslin praised Hall, stating that the 16-year-old actor and Ringwald were "the movie's standout performers". Hall and fellow co-star Molly Ringwald dated for a short period after filming The Breakfast Club. Later that year, Hall portrayed Gary Wallace, another likable misfit, in Weird Science. Critic Sheila Benson from the Los Angeles Times said Hall was "the role model supreme" for the character, but she also acknowledged that "he [was] outgrowing the role" and "[didn't] need to hold the patent on the bratty bright kid". Weird Science was a moderate success at the box office but was generally well received by critics. Those roles established him as the 1980s' "nerd-of-choice," as well as a member of Hollywood's Brat Pack. Hall, who portrayed Hughes's alter egos in Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Weird Science, credited the director for putting him on the map and giving him those opportunities as a child. "I had the time of my life," he said. "I'd consider [working with Hughes again] any day of the week." Hall joined the cast of Saturday Night Live (SNL) during its 1985–86 season at the age of 17. He was, and remains, the youngest cast member in the show's history. His recurring characters on the show were Craig Sundberg, Idiot Savant, an intelligent, talented teenager with a vacant expression and stilted speech, and Fed Jones, half of the habitually high, hustling pitchmen known as The Jones Brothers. Art Garfunkel, Edd Byrnes, Robert F. Kennedy, and Daryl Hall were among Hall's celebrity impersonations. Hall had admired the show and its stars as a child, but he found the SNL environment to be far more competitive than he had imagined. "My year there, I didn't have any breakout characters and I didn't really do the things I dreamed I would do," he said, "but I still learned a lot and I value that. I'll always be proud of the fact that I was a part of its history." Hall was one of six cast members (the others being Joan Cusack, Robert Downey Jr., Randy Quaid, and Terry Sweeney) who were dismissed at the end of that season. To avoid being typecast, Hall turned down roles written for him by John Hughes in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (Cameron Frye) and Pretty in Pink (Phil "Duckie" Dale), both in 1986. Instead, he starred in the 1986 film Out of Bounds, Hall's first excursion into the thriller and action genre. The film grossed only $5 million domestically and .... Discover the Michael Anthony popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Michael Anthony books.
Best Seller Michael Anthony Books of 2024
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Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions
Ed ZwickA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER USA TODAY BESTSELLER This heartfelt and wry career memoir from the director of Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai, Legends o...
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Unnatural Death
Dorothy L. SayersThe third book in Dorothy L Sayers' classic Lord Peter Wimsey series, introduced by crime writer Minette Walters a mustread for fans of Agatha Christie's Poirot and Margery Alling...
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The Second Home
Christina Clancy"A novel of family and place and belonging." Rebecca Makkai, Pulitzer Prize finalist"Tender and suspenseful." Chloe Benjamin, New York Times bestselling authorSome places never lea...
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NIV, The Grace and Truth Study Bible
R. Albert Mohler Jr. & ZondervanKnow this Grace: He loved you by name before all creation. Love this Truth: He’ll know you by name for all eternity.The NIV Grace and Truth Study Bible paints a stunning canva...
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Halfway to Paradise
Tony Orlando & Patsi Bale CoxHe's known the world over for his heyday with Dawn, but that glittering 1970's whirl was just one chapter in Tony Orlando's rich life. Orlando began his showbiz career as a teen h...
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Flash Flood
Chris RyanBen's on a trip to London to meet his mum. But an accident at the Thames Barrier, combined with a tidal surge and a dramatic thunderstorm and suddenly his trip turns into some...
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The Hanging Tree
Bryan GruleyWHEN GRACIE McBRIDE, the wild girl who had left town eighteen years earlier, is found dead in an apparent suicide shortly after her homecoming, it sends shock waves through her nat...
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Power
Douglas E. SchoenA Simon & Schuster eBook. Simon & Schuster has a great book for every reader.
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The Recruit
Robert MuchamoreA young foster child gets inducted into an elite group of underage spies in this gripping first book in the young adult CHERUB series perfect for graduates of City Spies and Spy Sc...
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The Modern Library
Carmen Callil & Colm TóibínFor Colm Toíbín and Carmen Callil there is no difference between literary and commercial writing there is only the good novel: engrossing, inspirational, compelling. In their sele...
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Vanessa
Wensley ClarksonThe compelling and disturbing true story of Vanessa George and the evil abuse she doled out upon the children of more than 300 families.As a nursery worker, wife and mother, she wa...
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Forbidden History
J. Douglas KenyonChallenges the scientific theories on the establishment of civilization and technology Contains 42 essays by 17 key thinkers in the fields of alternative science and history, inclu...
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Starvation Lake
Bryan GruleyFinalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, Harlan Coben meets early Dennis Lehane in this “smashing debut thriller” (Chicago Tribune), set in a small northern Michigan town...
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Deadly Game
Michael Caine'Hugely entertaining... has all the charm of many of Caine's screen roles think The Ipcress File and The Italian Job... The action does not flag for a moment.... Told with Caine's...
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Buzz Saw
Jesse DoughertyThe remarkable story of the 2019 World Series champion Washington Nationals told by the Washington Post writer who followed the team most closely.By May 2019, the Washington Nation...
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The Unwanted Dead
Chris Lloyd'A gripping murder mystery and a vivid recreation of Paris under German Occupation.' ANDREW TAYLORWINNER OF THE HWA GOLD CROWN AWARD FOR BEST HISTORICAL FICTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE ...
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Mad Dogs
Robert MuchamoreGang warfare gets gruesome in this thrilling eighth book in the actionpacked young adult CHERUB series perfect for graduates of City Spies and Spy School.Rival gangs Mad Dogs and t...
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Clouds of Witness
Dorothy L. SayersThe second book in Dorothy L Sayers Lord Peter Wimsey series introduced by crime novelist Ruth Dudley Edwards a mustread for fans of Agatha Christie's Poirot and Margery Allingham...
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Kill the Father
Sandrone DazieriIn this “absolutely electrifying” (Jeffrey Deaver) thriller and huge international hit, two peopleeach shattered by their pastteam up to solve a series of killings and abductions t...
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Tasty
John McQuaid“A fascinating blend of culinary history and the science of taste” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), from the first bite taken by our ancestors to ongoing scientific advances in...
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Ecclesiastical History of the English People
BEDE, Leo Sherley-Price & D. H. FarmerWritten in AD 731, Bede's work opens with a background sketch of Roman Britain's geography and history. It goes on to tell of the kings and bishops, monks and nuns who helped to de...
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How To Read The Financial Pages
Michael BrettStripping away the mystique from the world of investment and finance, How to Read the Financial Pages is a layman's guide to reading and understanding the financial press and the m...
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The Mental Keys To Improve Your Golf
Michael AnthonyWhat separates "The Mental Keys To Improve Your Golf" unique mental golf training program from the rest of the pack is that it explains in simple steps why and how to develop a gre...
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This Book Has Balls
Michael RapaportThe sports world according to Michael Rapaportactor, Top 50 podcaster, awardwinning film maker, and sports fanaticfrom the greatest and downright worst athletes, players, teams, an...
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Lear
Harold BloomFrom one of the greatest Shakespeare scholars of our time, a beloved professor who has taught the Bard for over half a centuryan intimate, wise, deeply compelling portrait of Lear,...
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Five Decembers
James KestrelWinner of the 2022 Edgar Award for Best Novel “War, imprisonment, torture, romance…The novel has an almost operatic symmetry, and Kestrel turns a beautiful phrase.”New York T...
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Behind the Mask
Tyson FuryAS SEEN ON NETFLIX'S AT HOME WITH THE FURYSTHE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AND AWARDWINNING AUTHOR TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR DOUBLE WINNER: BEST AUTOBIOGRAPHY & BEST OVERA...
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The Skeleton Box
Bryan GruleyDoes Gus Carpenter really want to know what’s inside the skeleton box? In Anthony– and Barry Award–winning author Bryan Gruley’s gripping new novel, Gus must decide if the truth is...
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Blood in the Garden
Chris HerringINSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A SELECTION ON BARACK OBAMA’S SUMMER READING LISTThe definitive history of the 1990s New York Knicks, illustrating how Pat Riley, Patrick Ewing, J...
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Remembering Kobe Bryant
Sean Deveney & Jerry WestLet Stephen Curry, Charles Barkley, Grant Hill, Reggie Miller, and more, tell you what it was like to take the floor against one of the Greatest of All Time. With a Foreword by Jer...
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Headlong
Michael FraynAn unlikely con man wagers wife, wealth, and sanity in pursuit of an elusive Old Master.Invited to dinner by the boorish local landowner, Martin Clay, an easily distracted philosop...
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Super Tuscan
Gabriele Corcos & Debi MazarFrom the celebrity/chef husbandwife team and authors of the bestselling Extra Virgin comes a brandnew cookbook with over 100 delicious recipes that incorporate Tuscan flair with cl...
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Pandemia
Alex BerensonThe most important fact about the coronavirus pandemic that turned the world upside down in 2020 is that our response to it has been an epic overreaction driven by a disastrous con...
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Justice in the Age of Judgment
Anne Bremner & Doug BremnerFrom Amanda Knox to O.J., Casey Anthony to Kyle Rittenhouse, our justice system faces scrutiny and pressure from the media and public like never before. Can the bedrock of “i...
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Every Note Played
Lisa Genova“Unsparing in her depiction of the disease’s harrowing effects, neuroscientist Genova also celebrates humanity.” People “Sometimes it’s easier to tell truth in fiction…And she tell...
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The Map of Salt and Stars
Zeyn JoukhadarThis powerful and lyrical debut novel is to Syria what The Kite Runner was to Afghanistan; the story of two girls living eight hundred years aparta modernday Syrian refugee seeking...
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Island Reich
Jack GrimwoodAN UNLIKELY SPY. A FORMER KING. THE FATE OF A NATION IN THEIR HANDS.The gripping WWII thriller from the awardwinning author of Nightfall Berlin, perfect for fans of Simon Scarrow'I...
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The Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry
Gerald Moore'Poetry, always foremost of the arts in traditional Africa, has continued to compete for primacy against the newer forms of prose fiction and theatre drama.' This wonderfully compr...
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The Verdun Affair
Nick DybekAcross a continent still reeling from World War I, a “ravishingly beautiful” (Paula McClain) story about a love affair between two Americans and the lie that changes everything.Fra...
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Blue on Blue
Charles CampisiIn one of the most illuminating portraits of police work ever, Chief Charles Campisi describes the inner workings of the world’s largest police force and his unprecedented career p...