Download or read book Memoirs of a Gossip Columnist written by David Hartnell and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2011-05-02 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Hartnell grew up in a secure but unremarkable suburban life. His interest in things colourful and theatrical led him to championship rollerskating and cabaret. On his big OE, he landed a job in Australia and then in the heart of the London cosmetics industry, and eventually attended to the makeup needs of A-listers. He went on to New York and Los Angeles where his career took a new course. Returning home in the mid-seventies led to screen appearances as a purveyor of celebrity gossip, and he continued to travel frequently backwards and forwards to Hollywood. David rapidly became established as New Zealand's number 1 celebrity gossip columnist on television, radio and print. His visits to Hollywood established his credentials until he became an encyclopaedia of trivia and scandal about the rich and famous – and the public lapped up every word. Today no one in New Zealand is recognised as knowing more about Hollywood. Not only has he spent a lifetime reporting on Hollywood gossip, but he now counts a handful of international celebrities among his lifelong friends. But behind the glitter and the showbiz glamour, David's story also reveals the private strains he has experienced behind the ever-confident public face. He writes about damaging family secrets, being bullied because he was gay, two name changes and being sued for defamation by a prominent New Zealand singer. Bursting with remarkable photos and stories of his encounters, including a surprise lunch with Alfred Hitchcock and Bette Davis, his close friendship with the legendary Phyllis Diller, little-known secrets about the Royal Family's crown jewels and many, many more, this book is for anyone who loves behind-the-scenes gossip and enjoys a rollicking good read. This is David's story, and this time, his lips aren't sealed.

Download or read book Dishing written by Liz Smith and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2005 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nothing goes better with a good meal than a little juicy gossip--and no one puts them together better than this beloved gossip columnist. In this delicious memoir, Smith shares celebrity dish--and dishes, from peanut butter and jelly to pig's feet to haute cuisine.

Download or read book The Whole Truth and Nothing But written by Hedda Hopper and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2022-01-17 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a memoir by the famous American star of the silent movies turned gossip columnist, Hedda Hopper. She was a very powerful and influential woman in her time and had the ability to destroy or make well-known stars.

Download or read book Winchell written by Neal Gabler and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1995-09-26 with total page 710 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hailed as the most important and entertaining biography in recent memory, Gabler's account of the life of fast-talking gossip columnist and radio broadcaster Walter Winchell "fuses meticulous research with a deft grasp of the cultural nuances of an era when virtually everyone who mattered paid homage to Winchell" (Time). of photos.

Download or read book From Under My Hat written by Hedda Hopper and published by Graymalkin Media. This book was released on 2017-04-20 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hedda Hopper came into this world screaming, and she liked to say that she never stopped. Decades after, she could still out-shout any producer in Hollywood, and she wasn’t afraid to do whatever it took to get her way. One of the most glamorous stars of the silent era, Hopper became one of the most notorious gossip columnists in the country, whose acid wit and razor-sharp pen fearlessly attacked the biggest names in Hollywood. In From Under My Hat, she tells her story as only she can. From her birth in the suburbs of Pennsylvania, to her early days as a Broadway understudy to her rise and fall as a Hollywood starlet, Hopper tells the story of the golden age of the movie business with candor and grace. At the height of her popularity, 20,000,000 read Hopper’s column. Reading her searing autobiography, it’s easy to see why. Hedda Hopper is portrayed by Judy Davis in the Ryan Murphy TV series Feud about Joan Crawford and Bette Davis.

Download or read book The First Lady of Hollywood written by Samantha Barbas and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2005-10-24 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of Louella Parsons, America's premiere movie gossip columnist from 1915 to 1960, chronicles her reign over Hollywood during the studio era, her lifelong alliance with William Randolph Hearst, and her complex and turbulent relationships.

Download or read book Hedda Hopper s Hollywood written by Jennifer Frost and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2011-01-10 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before Liz Smith and Perez Hilton became household names in the world of celebrity gossip, before Rush Limbaugh became the voice of conservatism, there was Hedda Hopper. In 1938, this 52-year-old struggling actress rose to fame and influence writing an incendiary gossip column, “Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood,” that appeared in the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers throughout Hollywood’s golden age. Often eviscerating moviemakers and stars, her column earned her a nasty reputation in the film industry while winning a legion of some 32 million fans, whose avid support established her as the voice of small-town America. Yet Hopper sought not only to build her career as a gossip columnist but also to push her agenda of staunch moral and political conservatism, using her column to argue against U.S. entry into World War II, uphold traditional views of sex and marriage, defend racist roles for African Americans, and enthusiastically support the Hollywood blacklist. While usually dismissed as an eccentric crank, Jennifer Frost argues that Hopper has had a profound and lasting influence on popular and political culture and should be viewed as a pivotal popularizer of conservatism. The first book to explore Hopper’s gossip career and the public’s response to both her column and her politics, Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood illustrates how the conservative gossip maven contributed mightily to the public understanding of film, while providing a platform for women to voice political views within a traditionally masculine public realm. Jennifer Frost builds the case that, as practiced by Hopper and her readers, Hollywood gossip shaped key developments in American movies and movie culture, newspaper journalism and conservative politics, along with the culture of gossip itself, all of which continue to play out today. Read a review of the book from the Chronicle of Higher Education blog, Tenured Radical.

Download or read book Natural Blonde written by Liz Smith and published by Hyperion. This book was released on 2000-09-19 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Americas top gossip columnist spills the beans as she traces five decades of battling press agents and editors and landing celebrity scoops." (Variety) From Tallulah Bankhead to Joan Crawford to the Kennedys and Madonna, the ultimate insider, Liz Smith has hobnobbed, air-kissed, and lunched with just about everybody who's been anybody over the last half century and then rushed to tell the world all about it. Now, in this candid, down-to-earth autobiography, she tells all about herself, and does it with the kind of style and warmth that has made her one of the most widely read columnists in history. But she wasn't always famous, and in Natural Blonde she reveals how a young woman from rural Texas came to New York hell-bent on making something of her life. From her salad days as a small-time reporter, typist, and proofreader to her triumphs at the Daily News, Newsday, New York Post and her 1995 Emmy for reporting, Liz tells what it's really like to be seen and heard by millions of people every day. One of the most quoted people of our time, she offers a rare, private peek into the real person behind the witty quips and media coverage. Certainly one of the most eagerly anticipated autobiographies in years, Natural Blonde will give Liz Smith readers the item they've been waiting for the ultimate inside scoop from the "Grande Dame of Dish."

Download or read book The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-01-02 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A triumphant tale of a young woman and her difficult childhood, The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience, redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and wonderfully vibrant. Jeannette Walls was the second of four children raised by anti-institutional parents in a household of extremes.

Download or read book I m Not One To Gossip But written by John McEntee and published by Biteback Publishing. This book was released on 2016-07-14 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From an embarrassing encounter with Jim Callaghan (and his impressive member) in the gentlemen's toilet of the Savoy Hotel to the time he was almost throttled by Angela's Ashes author Frank McCourt, John McEntee's career has been nothing if not colourful. After reporting on the IRA terror campaign while a correspondent for the Irish Press, John soon found his home on London's gossip circuit. With one ear always on the alert for scandalous remarks and titillating tit-bits of conversation, John was launched into a world of endless cocktail parties, book launches and openings, first as the author of the Mail's spiky Wicked Whispers gossip column and then as what turned out to be the last ever William Hickey columnist on the Daily Express. Glamour and celebrity encounters aside, whoever said the job of a gossip columnist was easy has obviously never had to pick up the bill at El Vino after a drunken Kingsley Amis has spent the afternoon working his way through the whisky menu. Gloriously entertaining and wonderfully indiscreet, John McEntee's enchanting autobiography is a veritable goldmine of anecdotal gems from one of the true denizens of Fleet Street.

Download or read book Nothing to Declare written by Taki and published by Atlantic Monthly Press. This book was released on 1994-01-26 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World-class athlete, playboy, war correspondent, and heir to a Greek shipping fortune, Taki has over the last three decades moved among the rich, the powerful, the titled and the celebrated in London, New York, Gstaad, the Rivierawherever fun or stimulation was to be had. But in 1984, while passing through Heathrow Airport, Taki was arrested for possession of cocaine and summarily sent to jail. Nothing to Declare is the hilarious and surprisingly wise account of the three months Taki spent in prison, a story filled with perilous day-to-day events as well as reflections on the glamorous life he has led."

Download or read book Always Crashing in the Same Car On Art Crisis and Los Angeles California written by Matthew Specktor and published by Tin House Books. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Best Book of the Year at The Atlantic Los Angeles Times Bestseller "[An] absorbing and revealing book. . . . nestling in the fruitful terrain between memoir and criticism." —Geoff Dyer, author of Out of Sheer Rage Blending memoir and cultural criticism, Matthew Specktor explores family legacy, the lives of artists, and a city that embodies both dreams and disillusionment. In 2006, Matthew Specktor moved into a crumbling Los Angeles apartment opposite the one in which F. Scott Fitzgerald spent the last moments of his life. Fitz had been Specktor’s first literary idol, someone whose own passage through Hollywood had, allegedly, broken him. Freshly divorced, professionally flailing, and reeling from his mother’s cancer diagnosis, Specktor was feeling unmoored. But rather than giving in or “cracking up,” he embarked on an obsessive journey to make sense of the mythologies of “success” and “failure” that haunt the artist’s life and the American imagination. Part memoir, part cultural history, part portrait of place, Always Crashing in the Same Car explores Hollywood through a certain kind of collapse. It’s a vibrant and intimate inspection of failure told through the lives of iconic, if under-sung, artists—Carole Eastman, Eleanor Perry, Warren Zevon, Tuesday Weld, and Hal Ashby, among others—and the author’s own family history. Through this constellation of Hollywood figures, he unearths a fascinating alternate history of the city that raised him and explores the ways in which curtailed ambition, insufficiency, and loss shape all our lives. At once deeply personal and broadly erudite, it is a story of an art form (the movies), a city (Los Angeles), and one person’s attempt to create meaning out of both. Above all, Specktor creates a moving search for optimism alongside the inevitability of failure and reveals the still-resonant power of art to help us navigate the beautiful ruins that await us all.

Download or read book 74 and Sunny written by A. J. Benza and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-07-21 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A surprisingly tender coming-of-age story of a close-knit yet tough Sicilian-American family that accepts and welcomes a young boy struggling to understand himself—by the former Daily News (New York) gossip columnist and E! television host. A.J. Benza’s distinctive blend of wit, dry humor, and genuine tenderness shines through this candid, compelling memoir about the summer of 1974 when his shy, effeminate cousin comes to live with A.J.’s family, which is dominated by his short-tempered, outspoken, hyper-masculine father. At its core, A.J.’s story is about learning that being exactly who you were meant to be is the only thing that matters. Through anecdotes of fishing with his father, playing tackle football, and conquering neighborhood bullies, he tells a story of triumph and acceptance, of a loving but rough around the edges family that puts aside its prejudices to welcome with open arms a young boy struggling to understand his sexuality and ultimately accept himself. In a sometimes raw and always endearing voice, ’74 and Sunny is a revelatory account of a life-defining summer on Long Island, when tolerance wins over ignorance, family neutralizes fear, and love triumphs over all. For anyone who’s navigated the choppy seas of adolescence, this story about redefining what it means to be a man, and learning to accept those whom we might fail to understand will surely resonate.

Download or read book Gatecrasher written by Ben Widdicombe and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A smart, gossipy, and very funny examination of celebrity culture from New York’s premiere social columnist. Ben Widdicombe is the only writer to have worked for Page Six, TMZ, and The New York Times—an unusual Triple Crown that allowed him personal access to the full gamut of Hollywood and high society’s rich and famous, from billionaires like Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump, and the Koch brothers, to pop culture icons Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton. Now, in Gatecrasher, New York’s premiere gossip-turned-society writer spills the sensational stories that never made it to print. Widdicombe has appeared at nearly every gossip-worthy venue—from the Oscars and the Hamptons, to the Met Gala and Mar-a-Lago—and has rubbed elbows with a dizzying array of celebrities (and wannabes), and he whisks us past the clipboard and velvet rope to teach us the golden rules of gatecrashing, dishing on dozens of boldface names along the way. Widdicombe shares secrets for how to crash the parties, climb the ladder, avoid the paparazzi, or make small talk with Henry Kissinger and Anna Wintour. Endlessly fun and extremely telling, Gatecrasher makes the unnerving argument that Paris Hilton conquering pop culture two decades ago lead to Donald Trump winning the White House. “As the gossip pages go, so goes the country,” he says.

Download or read book Fame Ain t it a Bitch written by A.J. Benza and published by Miramax Books. This book was released on 2001-05-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether talking on the phone to LaToya Jackson about Michael, being upbraided by Cindy Crawford at a party, or sharing a joint with jack Nicholson, A.J.s unorthodox methods compelled celebs to call him with tips, and brought heat from his editors. Fame: Aint it a Bitch tells the stories behind the stories about the actors, rock stars, models, moguls, and society bad girls that comprimise Manhattans infamous night life. In nightclubs and in newsrooms, readers are shown the trading, deals, threats and cajoling that are involved in creating a hot gossip column. With the edge and energy that completely captures both the glitter and the gutter of show business, A.J. Benza has the real inside scoop yet again.

Download or read book Dish written by Jeannette Walls and published by William Morrow. This book was released on 2000-03-07 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Love it or hate it, create it or repeat it, America is obsessed with gossip. Here is a fascinating look at five decades of dish: a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the personalities that control what we read and see; the unholy and unchanging trinity of celebrity, publicist and reporter that has stoked the American appetite for gossip from the salad days of silver-screen magazines to the instantaneous communication of the scoop-filled Internet. Insider Jeannette Walls delivers a tantalizing tell-all that features not only gossip itself, but its history, its movers and shakers (including quite a few tony Ivy Leaguers), high and low points, and the watershed events and personalities--like Elvis, Diana, Michael Jackson and O. J.--that altered it forever. Here is the famous formula for People, the astonishing magazine that began amid sneers and snipes but went on to become one of the publishing industry's greatest success stories. Here too is the incredible truth behind explosive material that didn't see the light of day. From the humble beginnings of the National Enquirer, aided by the avuncular beneficence of crime kingpin Joe Costello, to the lurid Hollywood trial of Confidential magazine, where the "libeled" stars were proved more guilty than not of the salacious episodes the publication revealed, Jeannette Walls expertly traces the formation and development of the hush-hush industry. She shows us that tabloid TV shows are nothing new: they were preceded in the Fifties by the wildly successful Night Beat, hosted by none other than Mike Wallace, who turned the show into a forum for sex and scandal with his relentless prying and probing into the lives of celebrated figures. Love it or hate it, create it or repeat it, America is obsessed with gossip. Here is a fascinating look at five decades of dish: a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the personalities that control what we read and see; the unholy and unchanging trinity of celebrity, publicist and reporter that has stoked the American appetite for gossip from the salad days of silver-screen magazines to the instantaneous communication of the scoop-filled Internet. Insider Jeannette Walls delivers a tantalizing tell-all that features not only gossip itself, but its history, its movers and shakers (including quite a few tony Ivy Leaguers), high and low points, and the watershed events and personalities---like Elvis, Diana, Michael Jackson and O. J.---that altered it forever. Here is the famous formula for People, the astonishing magazine that began amid sneers and snipes but went on to become one of the publishing industry's greatest success stories. Here too is the incredible truth behind explosive material that didn't see the light of day. From the humble beginnings of the National Enquirer, aided by the avuncular beneficence of crime kingpin Joe Costello, to the lurid Hollywood trial of Confidential magazine, where the "libeled" stars were proved more guilty than not of the salacious episodes the publication revealed, Jeannette Walls expertly traces the formation and development of the hush-hush industry. She shows us that tabloid TV shows are nothing new: they were preceded in the Fifties by the wildly successful Night Beat, hosted by none other than Mike Wallace, who turned the show into a forum for sex and scandal with his relentless prying and probing into the lives of celebrated figures.

Download or read book Dear Mr You written by Mary-Louise Parker and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-11-10 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book "renders the singular arc of a woman's life through letters Mary-Louise Parker composes to the men, real and hypothetical, who have informed the person she is today. Beginning with the grandfather she never knew, the letters range from a missive to the beloved priest from her childhood to remembrances of former lovers to an homage to a firefighter she encountered to a heartfelt communication with the uncle of the infant daughter she adopted"--