An unauthorized biography sometimes called a kiss-and-tell, or a tell-all, is a biography written without the subject's permission or input. [1] The term is usually restricted to biographies written within the subject's lifetime or shortly after their death; as such, it is not applied to biographies of historical figures written long after their deaths. [2]
Unauthorized biographies may be considered more objective but less reliable than other biographies, because they are not subject to the subject's (subjective) approval (and therefore may contain accurate information that the subject would not have authorized), but are also not privy to information or corrections known only to the subject or the subject's close friends and family. [3]
The subjects of unauthorized biographies are almost always public figures. [4] Rarely do public figures succeed in preventing the release of unauthorized biographies. [5] Unauthorized biographies of people who are not deemed public figures may be considered violations of the right to privacy and subject to legal action. [6] As Ted Schwarz (1992) writes:
Interesting people totally unknown to the general public are usually considered private individuals, even when married to someone famous. Writing about them without their permission may be considered invasion of privacy, a situation that seldom arises with politicians, entertainers, and others who are obvious public figures. [4]
Speaking of U.S. courts, Lloyd Rich (2002) writes:
Courts maintain a strong duty to protect First Amendment speech as they have an overriding concern and fear that placing "prior restraints" on speech could lead to a "chilling effect" on other speech. Because of this deference to the First Amendment and the presumption against prior restraints, a court will usually not permit an injunction that prevents the publication and/or distribution of an unauthorized biography but instead will only permit monetary damages to be awarded to remedy the unlawful acts of the author and publisher. [5]
The legality of unauthorized biographies varies by country. Brazil enacted a short-lived law in 2014 requiring permission from biographies' subjects before publication. [7] [8] [9]
Unauthorized biographies are not necessarily unwelcomed by their subjects, and in fact some unauthorized biographies have been criticized for displaying overeager admiration for them; [10] [11] however, unauthorized biographies have a wider reputation for fueling controversy and painting unflattering portraits of their subjects. [12]
While unauthorized biographies often receive significant news coverage, their writers tend to face "media disdain" due to the perception that their work is gossipy, voyeuristic, and busybodyish. [13]
For a period in the early 1990s, a number of independent publishers — including Revolutionary Comics and Personality Comics [14] — found great success and sales of unauthorized comic book biographies. One publisher claimed that not all its biographies were unauthorized, stating that "DeForest Kelley... and Kim Basinger had sent autographed copies of their biographies, and... Walter Koenig... had edited his." [15] However, a number of these companies later faced legal challenges to their publications, [16] [17] which resulted in the unauthorized comic book biography fad dying down.
Katherine Kelley is an American journalist and author of best-selling unauthorized biographies of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Reagan, the British royal family, the Bush family, and Oprah Winfrey.
William Joseph Klem, known as "the Old Arbitrator", was an American baseball umpire who worked in Major League Baseball from 1905 to 1941, spending his entire career in the National League (NL). He worked 18 World Series, which is a major league record. Klem was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953.
Andrew David Morton is an English journalist and writer who has published biographies of royal figures such as Diana, Princess of Wales, and celebrity subjects including Tom Cruise, Madonna, Angelina Jolie and Monica Lewinsky; several of his books have been unauthorised and contain contested assertions.
Sir Andrew Jonathan Bate, CBE, FBA, FRSL, is a British academic, biographer, critic, broadcaster, scholar, and occasional novelist, playwright and poet. He specializes in Shakespeare, Romanticism and ecocriticism. He is Regents Professor of Literature and Environmental Humanities in a joint appointment in the Department of English in The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the School of Sustainability in the Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University, as well as a Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College in the University of Oxford, where he holds the title of Professor of English Literature. Bate was Provost of Worcester College, Oxford, from 2011 to 2019. From 2017 to 2019 he was Gresham Professor of Rhetoric in the City of London. He was knighted in 2015 for services to literary scholarship and higher education. He is also Chair of the Hawthornden Foundation.
Thomas Michael Bower is a British writer and former BBC journalist and television producer. He is known for his investigative journalism and for his unauthorised biographies, often of business tycoons and newspaper proprietors.
Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography (ISBN 0312286244) is a 2002 non-fiction book about the history of cocaine, written by Dominic Streatfeild and published by Diane Publishing Company. The 2003 paperback edition (ISBN 0-312-42226-1) was published by Picador. The book investigates cocaine from the chewing of the coca leaf to the large scale trafficking of cocaine into the United States.
Celebrity biographers are authors who specialize in writing sensationalized books about the lives of celebrities. Historically, biographers have been limited to those who specialized in literary works on important personalities or those officially commissioned by a living person or if deceased, by the estate to provide a biography of that person. In recent years, the term "celebrity biographer" has come into existence. ForeWord Magazine notes that "There is the literary biographer and the celebrity biographer." Designed to be entertainment, books by celebrity biographers are often referred to as "quickie" biographies due to the limited amount of research done vis-à-vis that of a literary biographer. Books about celebrities have existed for many years but the advent of the personal computer (PC) reduced writing and editing costs substantially. Combined with the Internet, that provided massive sources and easy contact, the PC created an explosion of celebrity books beginning in the early 1990s. Because of these technological tools, early writers on celebrities such as Fred Lawrence Guiles who wrote Norma Jean; the life of Marilyn Monroe in 1969 were able to substantially increase their book output while some newer celebrity biographers produce a book almost on an annual basis.
Revolutionary Comics was an American comic book publisher specializing in unauthorized profiles of entertainers and professional athletes, as well as a line of erotic comics. Its flagship series was Rock 'N' Roll Comics. Founded by Todd Loren, Revolutionary Comics was based in San Diego.
Kelley Jones is an American comics artist best known for his work on Batman with writer Doug Moench and on The Sandman with writer Neil Gaiman.
A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of their life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of the subject's personality.
Frank Sinatra had many close relationships throughout his life. He was married four times and had at least six other notable relationships in between. He had three verified children, as well as more than one of questionable paternity.
Frances Spalding is a British art historian, writer and a former editor of The Burlington Magazine.
Madonna: An Intimate Biography is a book by American author J. Randy Taraborrelli, chronicling the life of American singer Madonna. The book was released in April 2001 by Sidgwick & Jackson in the United Kingdom, and in the United States by Simon & Schuster in August 2001. Taraborrelli first considered writing the book in 1990, but, realizing the project might be premature in respect to Madonna's fledgling career, set it aside. He began writing the book in 1996, when Madonna gave birth to her daughter Lourdes.
Lars Pearson is an American writer, high school teacher, editor, and journalist. He is the owner/publisher of Mad Norwegian Press, a publishing company specializing in reference guides to television shows including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Doctor Who, plus the Faction Paradox range of novels and comic books. He is also co-author, with Lance Parkin, of "Ahistory: An Unauthorized History of the Doctor Who Universe," which puts every Doctor Who-related story onto a single timeline from the beginning of the universe to its end.
David Elliot Hoberman is an American film and television producer, best known as the co-creator and executive producer of the USA Network television series Monk, and the founder and co-owner of Mandeville Films. He has produced over 40 films in his career, including the 2010 drama film The Fighter, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The Petraeus scandal is a series of events that garnered strong media attention when an extramarital affair between retired four-star general and then-Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell became public information. Petraeus had chosen Broadwell to be his official biographer. She co-authored his biography, All In: The Education of General David Petraeus, when Petraeus was the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander. On November 9, 2012, she was reported to have been involved in the extramarital affair with Petraeus that triggered his resignation as Director of the CIA when it was discovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Rock 'N' Roll Comics was a comic book series published by Revolutionary Comics from 1989 to 1993. Revolutionary's flagship title, the series was notable for its unauthorized and unlicensed biographies of rock stars, told in comic book form but well-researched and geared to adults, often with adult situations.
"Take Me" is a song written by Rube Bloom (music) and Mack David (lyrics). It was recorded by Frank Sinatra with the Tommy Dorsey Band in 1942.
"It's Funny to Everyone but Me" is a song with words and music written by Jack Lawrence in 1939. It was recorded by The Ink Spots on May 17, 1939.
Throughout his life, Frank Sinatra, the musician and actor, was involved in many different political activities in the United States. He also held positive views toward African Americans at a time when much of the United States still had segregation.
Naturally, a slew of cheesy and downright sh-tty 'biographical' comics flooded the market from competitors [of Rock 'N' Roll Comics]. Boneyard, Rock Fantasy, Personality (AKA Friendly, Celebrity and later Pop...), First Amendment Press, and others tried to hop on the bandwagon....