True Celebrity Biography

On August 6, 1978, firefighters discovered the charred remains of a body inside a wooden crate, set ablaze in an empty lot in the Bronx, New York. The male decedent had been worked over, stabbed, and shot multiple times. The victim was identified as John “Jack” Tupper, a restaurateur, age 34. His killer turned out to be 48-year-old Howard “Buddy” Jacobson, who at one time was the country's leading Thoroughbred horse trainer. The shocking act of violence was the result of a classic love triangle turned deadly. 

On June 29, 1978, Bob Crane, known to Hogan's Heroes fans as Colonel Hogan, was discovered brutally murdered in his Scottsdale, Arizona, apartment. His eldest son, Robert Crane, was called to the crime scene. In this poignant memoir, Robert Crane discusses that terrible day and how he has lived with the unsolved murder of his father.

For more than 40 years Mac Hudson and Irv Harrigan launched the workday for millions of Houstonians as the hosts of one of America's longest-running, most successful comedy morning shows at the legendary and award-winning KILT Radio. The Hudson & Harrigan Show aired continuously from 1967 until 2010, in which time it became a bona fide Houston institution.

In October 1979, Sir Alec Guinness met a 12-year-old Daniel Henning and asked him to make a startling promise. Twenty years later, Guinness, who is known all around the world as the sage Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi from the original Star Wars, recounted this exchange in his final memoir.

More Hollywood Murders and Scandals: Tinsel Town After Dark, More Famous Celebrity Murders, Scandals, and Crimes is volume two in the Murders, Scandals, and Mayhem series. It adds to the collection of the most famous and infamous Hollywood scandals and celebrity murders from the early beginnings of Hollywood right up to today.

L'8 dicembre 1980 il cantante più famoso della storia della musica e un suo fan si incontrano. Uno morirà. L'altro finirà in carcere per il resto dei suoi giorni. È un thriller. Ma è anche una storia vera. Neanche nei suoi sogni più esaltanti, John Lennon aveva immaginato che i Beatles lo avrebbero trasformato in una superstar internazionale, in grado di scalare le vette delle classifiche, conquistare il pubblico americano, rivoluzionare la musica pop e influenzare intere generazioni di fan in tutto il mondo.

A musician, documentarian, scholar, and one of the founding members of the influential folk revival group New Lost City Ramblers, Mike Seeger (1933-2009) spent more than fifty years collecting, performing, and commemorating the culture and folk music of white and black southerners, which he called "music from the true vine." In this fascinating biography, Bill Malone explores the life and musical contributions of folk artist Seeger, son of musicologists Charles and Ruth Crawford Seeger and brother of folksingers Pete and Peggy Seeger.

Lola Montez was one of the most celebrated and notorious women of the nineteenth century. A raven-haired Andalusian who performed her scandalous “Spider Dance” in the greatest performance halls across Europe, she dazzled and beguiled all who met her with her astonishing beauty, sexuality, and shocking disregard for propriety. But Lola was an impostor, a self-invention. Born Eliza Gilbert, the beautiful Irish wild child escaped a stifling marriage and reimagined herself as Lola the Sevillian flamenco dancer and noblewoman.

This is the incredible story of the man who wrote the song “Unchain My Heart,” Bobby Sharp. This book will take you through a time period that was paramount to the history of American music, and through locales like Tin Pan Alley, Destiny Recording Studios, and Harlem. You’ll hear names like Joe Cocker, Dick Clark, Sarah Vaughan, Ruth Brown, and Mr. Sammy Davis, Jr. You will read about the music industry putting out some of its finest records at a time when its business practices were at their worst.

Despite lacking pitch, rhythm, or tone, Florence Foster Jenkins became one of America's best-known sopranos, celebrated for her unique recordings and her sell-out concert at Carnegie Hall. Born in 1868 to wealthy Pennsylvanian parents, Florence was a talented young pianist, but her life was thrown into turmoil when she eloped with Frank Jenkins, a man twice her age. The marriage proved a disaster, and, in order to survive, Florence was forced to abandon her dreams of a musical career and teach the piano.

This hilarious, whip-smart collection of essays from a top writer and producer of Six Feet Under crisscrosses from the highly personal (conflating her own loss of virginity and the Kobe Bryant accusations), to the political (what she has in common with Monica and Chandra), to the outrageously Los Angelean (why women wear huge diamonds and what they must do to get them). Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants is a genre-defying combination of personal essay and memoir, or a hilarious, unruly and unapologetic evaluation of society, religion, sex, love, and - best of all - Jill Soloway.

Love for Rent is a story of an exotic dancer and an Ivy League professor. He was her customer. He left his family for her. Or was he merely a sex addict? The romance spans over a decade. Neither can let go, though, the relationship is quite brutal at times. She is learned in Vedic astrology and the stars are not on their side. From the hallowed halls of academia to the darkest corners of strip clubs, Love for Rent takes you on a journey.

Born in a little cabin in Tennessee, Dolly Parton always dreamed big, and she was right to! She wrote her first song at age five and became a country music star by the time she was in her early twenties. Of course, her success didn't stop there. Dolly Parton is also an actress, author, businesswoman, and philanthropist whose "Imagination Library" reading initiative reaches children throughout the US, Canada, and the UK. There is simply no one like Dolly Parton!

Williamson takes us through his life, from growing up on the land in the Mallee and Moree in a family of five boys, to being the voice of Australia. John got a lucky break that kickstarted his music career with ‘Old Man Emu’, which he wrote and performed on New Faces in 1970. After huge initial success, his music career floundered for a decade until he reinvented himself.

Shehnaz was a beautiful, erudite woman from the royal family of Bhopal who was almost cast to play Anarkali in K. Asif's Mughal-e-Azam. Her daughter Sophia Naz tells her story as she heard it from her.

As a semi-famous internet creator, Josh Sundquist knows what it's like to chase fame, but he also knows that more fame usually means more stress. So he set out on a pseudo-scientific investigation to find out if there is any way for fame and happiness to overlap. He attempts to define the word fame—hint: It's harder than you'd think. He turns back time to identify the first facially recognizable celebrity, Brutus. He digs into the numbers to debunk urban legends associated with stardom. He talks to other semi-famous people and asks them: Is this fame thing making you happy?