Book picks similar to
Natalie and R.J by Warren G. Harris


biographies
non-fiction
biography
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The Day the Laughter Stopped


David A. Yallop - 1976
    Will take 25-35 days

Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice


Maureen McCormick - 2008
    No wonder her younger sister Jan was jealous! For countless adolescents across America who came of age in the early 1970s, Marcia was the ideal American teenager. Girls wanted to be her. Boys wanted to date her. But what viewers didn't know about the always-sunny, perfect Marcia was that offscreen, her real-life counterpart, Maureen McCormick, the young actress who portrayed her, was living a very different—and not-so-wonderful—life. Now, for the very first time, Maureen tells the shocking and inspirational true story of the beloved teen generations have invited into their living rooms—and the woman she became.In Here's the Story, Maureen takes us behind the scenes of America's favorite television family, the Bradys. With poignancy and candor, she reveals the lifelong friendships, the hurtful jealousies, the offscreen romance, the loving support her television family provided during a life-or-death moment, and the inconsolable loss of a man who had been a second father. But The Brady Bunch was only the beginning. Haunted by the perfection of her television alter ego, Maureen landed on the dark side, caught up in a fast-paced, drug-fueled, star-studded Hollywood existence that ultimately led to the biggest battle of her life.Moving from drug dens on Wonderland Avenue to wild parties at the Playboy mansion and exotic escapades on the beaches of Hawaii, this candid, hard-hitting memoir exposes a side of a beloved pop-culture icon the paparazzi missed. Yet it is also a story of remarkable success. After kicking her drug habit, Maureen battled depression, reconnected with her mother, whom she nursed through the end of her life, and then found herself in a pitched battle for her family in which she ultimately triumphed.There is no question: Maureen McCormick is a survivor. After fifty years, she has finally learned what it means to love the person you are, insight that has brought her peace in a happy marriage and as a mother. Here's the Story is the empowering, engaging, shocking, and emotional tale of Maureen McCormick's courageous struggle over adversity and her lifelong battle to come to terms with the idea of perfection—and herself.

I Love Her, That's Why!: An Autobiography


George Burns - 1955
    From humble beginnings in New York, Burns and Allen went on to become much-loved stars of stage, radio, television, and the big-screen, one of the few entertainers to be successful in each venue. The book begins with Burns' childhood and early struggles in vaudeville before he meets Gracie Allen. Burns then details his efforts to win her affections; their marriage and adoptions of two children; radio, film, and TV productions (including the script of a 1955 show for their television series). Included are 16 pages of illustrations. George Burns, born in 1896, passed away at age 100 in 1996. Gracie Allen preceded him in death, passing away in 1964.

The Queen's Marriage


Lady Colin Campbell - 2018
    In this new book royal historian Lady Colin Campbell covers The Queen’s Marriage in intimate detail. Using her connections and impeccable sources she recounts details of the inside story of the monarch’s relationship with the Duke of Edinburgh and her close family.

Finding Me: A Decade of Darkness, a Life Reclaimed - A Memoir of the Cleveland Kidnappings


Michelle Knight - 2014
    Michelle was a young single mother when she was kidnapped by a local school bus driver named Ariel Castro. For more than a decade afterward, she endured unimaginable torture at the hand of her abductor. In 2003 Amanda Berry joined her in captivity, followed by Gina DeJesus in 2004. Their escape on May 6, 2013, made headlines around the world.Barely out of her own tumultuous childhood, Michelle was estranged from her family and fighting for custody of her young son when she disappeared. Local police believed she had run away, so they removed her from the missing persons lists fifteen months after she vanished. Castro tormented her with these facts, reminding her that no one was looking for her, that the outside world had forgotten her. But Michelle would not be broken.In Finding Me, Michelle will reveal the heartbreaking details of her story, including the thoughts and prayers that helped her find courage to endure her unimaginable circumstances and now build a life worth living. By sharing both her past and her efforts to create a future, Michelle becomes a voice for the voiceless and a powerful symbol of hope for the thousands of children and young adults who go missing every year.

Legends and Lipstick: My Scandalous Stories of Hollywood's Golden Era


Nancy Bacon - 2017
    Her life is one of stunning extremes. The author tells her whole story of what it was like to have love affairs with the likes of Paul Newman, Errol Flynn, Tommy Smothers, Rod Taylor, Vince Edwards, and Hugh O’Brian, plus exciting friendships with the Rat Pack, Judy Garland, Bobby Kennedy, Jay Sebring, Elizabeth Taylor, John Wayne, and Marilyn Monroe (to name only a few!).

Me Moir - Volume One


Vic Reeves - 2006
    Growing up in Yorkshire and then CountyDurham, the boy who would be Reeves somehow managed to escape the attentions of 'Randy Mandy' and get a crash course in pig castration, before having encounters with Jimi Hendrix and the Yorkshire Ripper.Peopled with weird and wonderful characters, Vic Reeves' memoir is authentic, witty and inventive, and as unique as you'd expect from one of Britain's most exceptional comedy talents.

The Fire She Set


Leigh Overton Boyd - 2020
    They did not talk about their mom's extended absences or why their dad put Scotch tape on the backdoor frame. To cover up the chaos, they kept their clothes neat and got good grades. But when they were teenagers, an arson fire destroyed their home and killed their parents. Rumors were thick that summer that smart, angry, fourteen-year-old Lisa set the blaze. Then, adult powers they did not understand squelched the investigation. As teenagers accustomed to keeping silent, they packed up and moved on.Forty years later, Leigh, the oldest, decided it was time to find out who killed their parents. She obtained copies of the police and fire investigations and began unwrapping the past. This memoir is the story of that investigation as Leigh tried to piece together the truth, but found more lies instead. With the help of her sisters, Leigh was able to reconstruct much of what happened to them in the beach towns around Atlantic City in the early 1970s. After the fire, one sister turned to heroin and another to alcohol; Leigh became Miss Atlantic City. Then, one by one, they each moved to California and shut the door on their past, even though they privately wondered whether one of them killed Frank and Nancy Overton. It's funny. They never wondered whether one of their parents was trying to kill them.

Comrade Rockstar: The Life and Mystery of Dean Reed, the All-American Boy Who Brought Rock 'n' Roll to the Soviet Union


Reggie Nadelson - 2006
    Failing to gain recognition for his music in his native United States, he achieved celebrity in South America in the early 1960s and then, unbelievably, became the biggest rock star in the Soviet Union, where he was awarded the Lenin Prize and his icons were sold alongside those of Josef Stalin. His albums went gold from Bulgaria to Berlin. He made highly successful movies and, naively earnest, was an unwitting acolyte for socialism; everywhere he went, he was mobbed by his fans. And then, in 1986, at the height of his fame, right after 60 Minutes had devoted a segment to him, finally giving him the recognition he had never attained at home, he drowned in mysterious circumstances in East Berlin.Drawn magnetically to his story, Reggie Nadelson pursued the mystery of Dean Reed's life and death across America and Eastern Europe, her own journey mirroring his. As she traveled, the Berlin Wall came down, the Soviet Union crumbled, and Reed became an increasingly alluring figure, his life an unrepeatable tale of the Cold War world. Encountering the characters— musicians and DJs, politicians and public figures, lovers and wives—who peopled Reed's life, Nadelson was drawn further and further into a seedy, often hilarious subculture of sex, politics, and rock 'n' roll. Part biography, part memoir and personal journey, Comrade Rockstar is an unforgettable chronicle of an utterly improbable life

The Perfect Hour: The Romance of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ginevra King, His First Love


James L.W. West III - 2005
    Scott Fitzgerald was a handsome, ambitious sophomore at Princeton when he fell in love for the first time. Ginevra King, though only sixteen, was beautiful, socially poised, and blessed with the confidence that considerable wealth can bring. Their romance began instantly, flourished in heartfelt letters, and quickly ran its course–but Scott never forgot it. Now, for the first time, scholar and biographer James L. W. West III tells the story of the youthful passion that shaped Scott Fitzgerald’s life as a writer.When Scott and Ginevra met in January 1915, the rest of the world was at war, but America remained a haven for young people who could afford to have a good time. Privileged and mildly rebellious, the two were swept together in a whirl of dances, parties, campus weekends, and chaperoned visits to New York.“For heaven’s sake don’t idealize me!” Ginevra warned in one of the many letters she sent to Scott, but of course that’s just what he did–for the next two decades. Though he fell in love with Zelda Sayre soon after learning of Ginevra’s engagement to a well-to-do midwesterner, Scott drew on memories of Ginevra for his most unforgettable female characters–Isabelle Borgé and Rosalind Connage in This Side of Paradise, Judy Jones in “Winter Dreams,” and above all Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. Transformed by Scott’s art, Ginevra became a new American heroine who inspired an entire generation.

The King: A Biography of Clark Gable


Charles Samuels - 2015
    The book traces Gable's life from its humble, hard-scrabble beginnings in Ohio, to his hard-work and determined efforts to achieve success on Broadway, to his meteoric rise to stardom in Hollywood, his time spent in the Army Air Force in Europe, and his many loves, including Carole Lombard who was tragically killed in an airplane crash in 1942. The King paints an intimate, contemporary portrait of Clark Gable the man, both on and off camera, and ends with Gable's work on his last film, The Misfits, and his subsequent decline in health and his death on November 16, 1960, at age 59.

The Happy Face Murderer: The Life of Serial Killer Keith Hunter Jesperson (Serial Killer True Crime Books Book 3)


Jack Smith - 2015
    Tracking down a mass murderer is a constant plot line in films, television, and literature. But these stories are so often based on real life. In certain circumstances, however, real life goes a step beyond what we could imagine happening in fiction. Sometimes, the actions of a serial killer can seem so extreme and strange, their motivations so twisted and evil, that we struggle to comprehend exactly how they fit into the modern world. In the case of Keith Hunter Jesperson, the truth behind his murder spree is more horrific than anything dreamt up by Hollywood’s best screenwriters. After a disturbing childhood left the giant of a man riddled with emotional and psychological scars, Jesperson travelled across Canada and spent time strangling and killing women whom he met along the way. While he was only convicted of eights murders, his own boasts suggest that total could have reached as high as 160. As a truck driver, he had the perfect cover story for travelling from town to town without having to put down roots. Often leaving an unsuspecting family at home, he was out in the wilderness committing heinous acts without anyone from the authorities coming close to suspecting his guilt. Jesperson, annoyed by the lack of attention he was receiving, began to leave messages to the public. Scrawled onto the walls of truck stop bathrooms, he signed each confession with a happy, smiley face. This led the media to christening him the Happy Face Killer. It was decades before the investigators came close to catching the killer, so read on to discover just how Keith Hunter Jesperson managed to get away with numerous horrific murders. This is the story of the Happy Face Killer. Scroll back up and grab your copy now!

Meet the Mertzes: The Life Stories of I Love Lucy's Other Couple


Rob Edelman - 1999
    This meticulously researched book contains interviews with Frawley's and Vance's colleagues, friends, and relatives, and explores their personal and professional lives before, during, and after I Love Lucy. With a complete filmography and videography of each, Meet the Mertzes finally sets the record straight on the lives and legacies of these compelling stars who detested one another.You'll learn about:-Vance's successful Broadway career prior to I Love Lucy-Frawley's vaudevillian roots and his passion for baseball-Vance's nervous breakdown after the collapse of her first marriage-Frawley's drinking and carousing-Lucille Ball's caustic relationship with both of her costars-Vance's hatred of being known to the world as Ethel Mertz

Joan Rivers Confidential: The Unseen Scrapbooks, Joke Cards, Personal Files, and Photos of a Very Funny Woman Who Kept Everything


Melissa Rivers - 2017
    With a career that began in the late 1950s, Joan kept mementos over the course of her entire working life, and Joan Rivers Confidential is a compilation of never-before-seen personal archives. Assembled by her daughter Melissa with Scott Currie, the book contains scripts and monologues, letters from famous friends, exchanges with fans, rare photographs, as well as classic and never-before-heard jokes—many simply scribbled on everything from hotel stationery to airplane boarding passes. Touching on subjects from her 50 years in show business (The Tonight Show, Las Vegas, Elizabeth Taylor, Heidi Abromowitz, the red carpet, and Fashion Police), this is a revelatory and humor-filled insider look at the popular, multitalented comedian.

Meth A Memoir


Wayne Huffman - 2012
    Written from within the confines of prison walls, the author gives an unflinching look at a life surrounded by drugs and drug use. It is a no holds barred, no feelings spared story that drags you, kicking and screaming, through the inner realms of the meth world. As an addict and meth cook, the author knows that there are aspects to the meth lifestyle that can only be understood by experiencing it for yourself. To help you understand this sub-culture, and those who call that world home, the author will take you into the meth world as no one else has ever done before. Everyone in America is affected by meth in one way or another. That simple fact makes this book a MUST READ.