True Celebrity Biography

True West: Sam Shepard’s Life, Work, and Times is the story of an American icon, a lasting portrait of Sam Shepard as he really was, revealed by those who knew him best. This sweeping biography charts Shepard’s long and complicated journey from a small town in Southern California to become an internationally known playwright and movie star. The only son of an alcoholic father, Shepard crafted a public persona as an authentic American archetype: the loner, the cowboy, the drifter, the stranger in a strange land.

Chris Gethard has often found himself in awkward situations most people, including you, probably would have safely avoided. The good news is now, thanks to this book, you can enjoy the painfully funny consequences of his unfortunate decisions at a safe distance. A Bad Idea I'm About to Do invites listeners to join Chris as he navigates an adolescence and adulthood mired in hilariously ill-fated nerdom, and to take comfort in the fact that - as his experiences often prove - things could always be much, much worse.

On 29 September 1981, Peter Turner received a phone call that would change his life. His former lover, Hollywood actress Gloria Grahame, had collapsed in a Lancaster hotel and was refusing medical attention. He had no choice but to take her into his chaotic and often eccentric family's home in Liverpool. Liverpool born and bred, Turner had first set eyes on Grahame when he was a young actor living in London.Turner and Grahame became firm friends and remained so even after their love affair had ended.

When an impressionable young man is powerfully drawn to the blues, and an innocuous instrument enters his life, the die is cast. A happy-go-lucky life will never be the same again. What follows is a crazy series of adventures, spanning continents, musical styles and a wonderful cast of people from many walks of life. Alongside incredible stories and laugh-out-loud situations, you will find a thoughtful take on the power of music in different cultures.

Poet, movie star, revolutionary - Tupac Amaru Shakur was the most popular rapper in the world. No one symbolized the violence at the heart of gangsta rap more than Tupac, and he ultimately fell victim to that violence, gunned down in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas at the age of 25. This raw, no-holds-barred account discloses new information about the unsolved murder of Tupac: the failed investigation, the rap wars, the killing of Biggie Smalls, the Bloods-Crips connection, and the many possible motives leading to the murder that rocked the music world.

This book describes why and how Marilyn Manson became an abusive monster. It explores Manson’s life and inner world through his art. The core is about the transformation of Manson’s art in the "High End of Low“ era when Manson started to believe that abusing women, cutting them, and painting with their blood is an enlightened form of HIGH ART. That led to abusing more than 40 women and creation of a RAPE CAVE. Their stories are included in this book and connected to Marilyn Manson’s social network posts and songs.

In the late 1980s Jon Ronson was the keyboard player in the Frank Sidebottom Oh Blimey Big Band. Frank wore a big fake head. Nobody outside his inner circle knew his true identity. This became the subject of feverish speculation during his zenith years. Together, they rode relatively high. Then it all went wrong. Twenty-five years later and Jon has co-written a movie, Frank, inspired by his time in this great and bizarre band. Frank is set for release in 2014, starring Michael Fassbender, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Domhnall Gleeson and directed by Lenny Abrahamson.

On television, as the star of the popular Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Kevin Sorbo portrayed an invincible demi god. He relished living the part—putting in 14-hour days on set, doing his own stunts, and relentlessly working out at the gym. Until one day it all came to an abrupt end. Now, for the first time, Sorbo shares what viewers didn’t know: he suffered three strokes from an aneurysm in his shoulder and was left partially blind and entirely incapacitated at just 38 years old.

At the age of 20, rapper Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy - aka XXXTENTACION - was gunned down during an attempted robbery on the streets of Deerfield Beach, FL, mere months after signing a $10 million record deal with Empire Music. A rising star in the world of SoundCloud rap, XXXTENTACION achieved stellar levels of success without the benefit of a major label or radio airtime, and flourished via his passionate and unfettered connection to his fans.

In December of 1936, King Edward VIII of Great Britain shocked the world by giving up his kingdom in order to marry a twice-divorced American commoner named Wallis Simpson. The King and Mrs. Simpson recounts in a novella-sized work the extraordinary love story between the popular king and the enigmatic woman that began at a party in England and culminated with the downfall of his reign nearly six years later.

A heartwarming true-life fable from the Radio City Christmas Spectacular Santa - including his personal journey of discovering the magic of Christmas. Every year, over a million people attend the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, where they have the pleasure of seeing Charles Edward Hall don a traditional red suit and become the world's most famous Santa Claus - a role he has played for twenty-seven straight years. But Hall wasn’t always such a jolly old soul. Believe it or not, this Santa was once a Scrooge.

Here I am: tall and broad, shaved head, had my nose broken three times fighting. Black suit, white shirt, the big-city homicide detective. I've led investigations into serial killings, child abductions, organized crime hits and domestic murders. But beneath the suit, I've got an Om symbol in the shape of a Buddha tattooed on my right bicep. It balances the tattoo on my left ribs: Better to die on your feet than live on your knees. That's how I choose to live my life. As a cop, I got paid to catch killers. They tell you not to let a case get personal, but I think it has to.

Twelve-year-old Marion Parker was kidnapped from her Los Angeles school by an unknown assailant on December 15, 1927. Her body was found days later, delivered to her father by the killer, who fled with the ransom money. When William Hickman was hunted down and charged with the killing, he admitted to all of it, in terrifying detail, but that was only the start. His insanity plea was the first of its kind in the history of California, and the nature of the crime led to a media frenzy unlike any the country had seen up to that point.

Now cohost of Fox's The Real and SiriusXM's Café Mocha, Loni Love hasn't taken the typical path to becoming America's favorite straight-talking girlfriend and comedian. She was not the child of Hollywood legends and she never wore a size 00. Rather, she grew up in housing projects in Detroit, more worried about affording her next meal than going on a diet.

Attention all potty-mouthed, cheap-wine-drinking mothers: Prepare to meet your match. Any bad thought you’ve had about your kids, Nicole Knepper has had worse. Much worse. It’s not that she doesn’t love her kids. It’s that she understands what a mind-f*?% it can be to try to civilize those wild little beasts.

Investigative journalist Lee Smith's The Plot Against the President tells the story of how Congressman Devin Nunes uncovered the operation to bring down the commander-in-chief. While popular opinion holds that Russia subverted democratic processes during the 2016 elections, the real damage was done not by Moscow or any other foreign actor. Rather, this was a slow-moving coup engineered by a coterie of the American elite, the "deep state," targeting not only the president, but also the rest of the country.

Lover Come Back is a true - but often unbelievable - tale of loss, sacrifice, second chances, and ultimately, love. It takes the listener from the courtroom to the lush beaches of Naples, Florida, where Scott and his family currently reside. The journey is gut-wrenching, comedic, hard to believe, and heartwarming. In the end, it is a love story that will leave you believing in second chances and first loves.

Due to horrible physical deformities, he spent much of his life as a fairground freak. He was hounded, persecuted, and starving, until his fortune changed and he was rescued, housed, and fed by the distinguished surgeon, Frederick Treves. The subject of several books, a Broadway hit, and a film, Joseph Merrick has become part of popular mythology. Here, in this fully revised edition containing much fresh information, are the true and un-romanticized facts of his life.

With explosive new revelations concerning the "National Security Matter" that led to the cover-up of her murder, The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe is a fascinating and riveting account of one of the most shocking crimes of the century. Donald H. Wolfe meticulously chronicles her final days, names the killer, documents the mode of death, and identifies those who orchestrated the cover-up.

Celebrities. They’re in the limelight. They’re hard to miss when they get killed or go missing! This book is not for the faint of heart, for it dives deep into some of the most mysterious and chilling deaths and murders of the rich and famous! We delve back into the deep past with the telling of the mysterious and tragic deaths of a few 19th Century celebrities—poet Lord Byron, novelist Edgar Allan Poe, and boxer Kid McCoy.