Celebrity Culture

Despite the nearly universal fame of the Beatles, many people only know the fairytale version of the iconic group’s rise to fame. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of Liverpool, Francis Kenny reveals the real John Lennon who preceded the legend, showing how his childhood shaped his personality, creative process, and path to success, and how it also destroyed his mental health, leading to the downfall of one of the most confident and brilliant musicians of the past century.

In Learning to Sing, Clay details what his astonishing success has meant to him. He writes from the heart about his life before and since his instant stardom on American Idol, how he has changed, and how he struggles to adapt to life in the public eye.

When the Nicholas Brothers danced, uptown at the Cotton Club, downtown at the Roxy, in segregated movie theatres in the South, and dance halls across the country, audiences cheered, clapped, stomped their feet, and shouted out uncontrollably. In Brotherhood in Rhythm, Constance Valis Hill interweaves an intimate portrait of these great performers with a rich, detailed history of jazz music and dance, both bringing their act to life and explaining their significance through a colorful analysis of their eloquent footwork, their full-bodied expressiveness, and their changing style.

Glen Colson lived through the golden age of Rock & Roll during the sixties, seventies and eighties, working as PR for many of the best loved acts in rock history. Among them Lindisfarne, Genesis, Pink Floyd, The Nice, Elvis Costello, Dr Feelgood, Ian Dury, Nick Lowe, Graham Parker, and Van der Graaf Generator. As the press officer at two of the UK's most iconic record labels, Stiff and Charisma, Glen worked alongside managers who made the music industry tick. Famously dry of wit, Glen's take on the inside workings of the music business is both informative and never short of laughs.

Shatner takes a comprehensive look at this singular performer, using archival sources and information culled from interviews with friends and colleagues to transport listeners through William Shatner's remarkably bumpy career: his spectacular failures and triumphs; tragedies, including the shocking death of his third wife, Nerine; and, ultimately, the resilience Shatner has shown, time and again, in the face of overwhelming odds. Author Michael Seth Starr unravels the mystery of William Shatner, stripping away the many myths associated with his personal life.

There has never been a show business book quite like The Show Won't Go On, the first comprehensive study of a bizarre phenomenon: performers who died onstage. From the comedy magician who dropped dead on live television to the amateur thespian who expired during a play called The Art of Murder, the book is a celebration of lives both famous and obscure, as well as a dramatic and accurate recounting of events leading to the moments they died "doing what they loved."

Warren Beatty guarded his privacy even before he became a movie star, when he burst onto the screen in 1961 as the earnestly handsome all-American boy in Splendor in the Grass. When he started acting, Beatty kept secret the fact that actress Shirley MacLaine, already a star, was his older sister. Over time, he has cultivated a mystique, giving few interviews and instructing others not to talk about him. Until now.

Es war Anfang der Sechziger, als plötzlich vier junge Männer aus dem Nichts erschienen und die Welt radikal veränderten. Sie begeisterten die Jugend nicht nur mit einer völlig neuen Musik, nein, sie stellten mit ihrer frischen Unbekümmertheit auch erstmals die Arroganz der Obrigkeit total infrage. Daraufhin begannen existenzielle und schmerzhafteste Kämpfe zwischen der Jugend und der Erwachsenenwelt. Rainer Lange, Jahrgang 1949, zählte zu den dennoch Glücklichen, die diese Epoche hautnah miterleben durften.

Family lore had it that Bonnie Siegler’s grandfather crossed paths in Midtown Manhattan late one night in 1954 with Marilyn Monroe, her white dress flying up around her as she filmed a scene for The Seven Year Itch. Jules Schulback had his home movie camera with him, capturing what would become the only surviving footage of that legendary night. Bonnie wasn’t sure she quite believed her grandfather’s story…until, cleaning out his apartment, she found the film reel.

As he finds himself within spitting distance of middle age, journalist Eric Spitznagel feels acutely the loss of...something. Freedom? Maybe. Coolness? Could be. The records he sold in a financial pinch? Definitely. To find out for sure, he sets out on a quest to find the original vinyl artifacts from his past. Not just copies. The exact same records.

"We're the buttf--kers of rock-and-roll, We want to sock it to your hole!" With these words written in a notebook, Jon Ginoli sets off on a journey of self-discovery and musical passion to become the founding member of Pansy Division, the first out and proud queercore punk rock band to hit the semi-big time. Set against the changing decades of music, we follow the band from their inception in San Francisco, to their search for a music label and a permanent drummer to their current status as indie rock icons.

What is a starf*cker? However you define it, Matthew Rettenmund, author of the acclaimed novel Boy Culture and the popular blog BoyCulture.com, readily admits to being one. The ultimate pop-culture enthusiast, he has been obsessed with celebrities ever since he was born. This hilarious, sexy memoir (arranged by memes) documents Rettenmund's affection - in the case of Madonna, it's pure mania - for movie, television, and music personalities.

This is the first study to explore fully the myth of America as reflected in the nation's popular music. Beginning with the songs of the Pilgrims and continuing through more than two centuries of history and music, Born in the U.S.A. shows the emerging American myth and gives a close reading of the compositions of songwriters as diverse as William Billings, Henry Clay Work, Irving Berlin, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen.

Accidental Playboy is the hilarious, erotic, and provocative memoir of a sensitive post-modern man who stumbles into the dream job of a lifetime. When Playboy magazine tapped Leif Ueland to report on its nationwide search for the Playmate of the Millennium, he was the ultimate confused American male. A self-professed nice guy, he was the last man to be on Playboy's roving audition bus, never mind its official reporter. And yet, something deep within his psyche leapt at the opportunity.

In a memoir by turns moving, tragic, and hilarious, Jerry Lewis recounts with crystal clarity every step of a 50-year friendship, from the springtime, 1945 afternoon when the two vibrant young performers destined to conquer the world together met on Broadway and Fifty-fourth Street, to their tragic final encounter in the 1990s, when Lewis and his wife ran into Dean Martin, a broken and haunted old man.

“Paul is dead.” It was the late 1960's, the Beatles hadn’t toured since 1966, and some truly bizarre indications began appearing, pointing to the unthinkable: Paul McCartney had been killed in a car accident and replaced by a look-alike. The Walrus Was Paul unearths every single clue from one of rock ’n’ roll’s most enduring puzzles and takes you on a magical mystery tour of baffling, yet fascinating, hints for solving this mystery.

From growing up in Detroit, where he marched as a 10-year-old with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to attending the inauguration of President Barack Obama, where he narrowly avoided the Purple Tunnel of Doom but still saw nothing, David Alan Grier examines how he - and America - have changed for the better and the funnier.

In this never-before-published memoir from the files of The Walt Disney Archives, Disney Legend Jimmy Johnson (1917-1976) takes you from his beginnings as a studio gofer during the days of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to the opening of Walt Disney World Resort. Johnson relates dozens of personal anecdotes with famous celebrities, beloved artists, and, of course, Walt and Roy Disney.

Superman was a hero. Clark Kent was a geek. Spiderman saved lives. Peter Parker sold photographs to his local paper. Chris Moyles entertains eight million people each week on BBC Radio 1. Then he goes home and plays with an Xbox on his sofa, wearing only his underpants. Welcome to the real world of Chris Moyles.

Throughout the 1990s, Prince feuded with his record label, Warner Bros., over his rights as an independent recording artist - and made some of the most brilliant music of his career. During that time, Jim Walsh covered Prince for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and wrote about him passionately, thoughtfully, exhaustively. Here, in real-time, is that coverage: a look back at Prince in the '90s. Walsh's newly unearthed interviews, essays, columns, and reviews make Gold Experience an essential slice of history.