Oh and if you like jazz, Art Pepper’s Straight Life is the best I’ve read (along with Keef’s fave an autobiography by Mezz Mezzrow, Really the Blues). Pepper is a brilliant player and a petty addict and criminal. The juxtaposition is amazing.
Two I recall with pleasure
John Brown and his family
Robert Lincoln
Abe Lincoln, too, of course, but everyone has read those.
Lewis, of Lewis and Clark
Pythagoras
William Wallace
You See, I Haven’t Forgotten
Yves Montand
I’ll have to give that one a look. I tried reading Dizzy Gillespie’s To Be or Not to Bop, but couldn’t get into it.
You will thank me!! It is a transcribed oral history, with his wife that supported him getting sober collected all of the interviewed and pulled them into shape.
I hate posting on smart phones. That previous post made sense at one point.
I think Fraser’s analysis of the Kirk-o-Field murder and so-called Casket Letters was pretty good, but she does make a lot of excuses for Mary’s horrible personal decisions. I feel sorry for Mary too–my sympathies almost always go to people who get their heads chopped off–and she was the victim of incredible injustices in both Scotland and England, but she made some very stupid choices that put her in that situation.
I’ve got it on hold at the library, and I ordered his wife’s book ART: Why I Stuck With a Junkie Jazzman: Inventing a Marriage, which gets good reviews.
Richard Feynman
T E Lawrence
Joan Crawford
Bette Davis
Vincent Price
Charlie Chaplin
David Niven
Stephen Fry
Dawn French
Bob Newhart
Carl Reiner
Penny Marshall
and of course, from our own Eve, Theda Bara and Vernon and Irene Castle.
I’ve started one on Ulysses S Grant but haven’t gotten very far as yet.
I’m not generally a biography reader though I have read biographies on the following:
the Wright brothers
Neil Armstrong
Iron Man Tony Iommi
I am Ozzie Ozzie Osbourne
Autobiographies of Mick Foley and Hulk Hogan.
Hogan’s was actually ghost written by Alan Dean Foster (who also ghost wrote the novelization of Star Wars for George Lucas) but Foley dismissed early attempts by the publisher to give him a ghost writer and wrote it by himself. And it’s a much better book for it.
I picked up a copy of Chris Jericho’s second autobiography for cheap when the Borders affiliated bookstore in the mall was closing down, but I didn’t realize at the time it was the second one, so I haven’t read it, hoping to someday get ahold of the first and read them in order. I think a third one has since come out.
I maybe leaving a few out but here’s my list of biographical/autobiographical subjects:
Billy Wilder
Frank Capra
David O. Selznick
Dore Schary
Charles Schulz
Howard Hughes
Theodore Roosevelt
Franklin Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Voltaire
Stan Laurel
Oliver Hardy
Roy Cohn
Slavomir Rawicz
Jean-Marie Deguignet
St. Augustine
I read Schulz and Peanuts by David Michaelis, and recommend it to any fan of the strip.
Barack Obama, dreams of my father. Loved it.
Burnt toast, by desperate housewives actress Teri Hatcher
Tried the biography of Dutch politician Abraham Kuyper, didn’t get through…
Some saints lives.
My Pride and Joy - the autobiography of George Adamson. Fascinating story, and I loved the punning title.
Fun Fact: In college, one of my professors and mentors was not only a close friend of Schulz, he was the model for Shermy in the strip (and yes, his name was Sherman).
I wrote Schulz a letter back in '76 telling him how much I enjoyed the jubilee TV special, and got a nice reply from him personally. Don’t have that anymore either, dammit! :mad:
Heinrich Himmler
William Clark Quantrill
Josef Mengele
Pat Garrett
Billy The Kid
Jesse James
I got hooked on biographies as a kid. I even read about Luther Burbank and Admiral George Dewey, even though I had no idea what they’d done to deserve biographies.
Within the past few years I’ve enjoyed reading about
John Whiteside “Jack” Parsons, the autodidact rocket engineer, scourge of CalTech; and bizarro occultist, disciple of Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley (been reading these for years; I usually check out new ones when they come out)
Theodore, Eleanor, and Franklin Roosevelt
Gabrielle D’Annunzio, decadent poet, Italian national hero of WWI, conqueror of Fiume, cocaine addict, collaborator with Debussy, fucker of hundreds of prominent women even though he was bald and short including Eleonora Duce, Louisa Casati, and Ida Rubinstein
Erich von Stroheim, great silent film director and player of Max in Sunset Boulevard
Dorothy Parker, American poet, writer, critic, and humorist
Charles Fort, American writer, science critic, and general whackadoodle
Charles Lindbergh, aviator and anti-semite
Huey Long, Louisiana politician and Trump precursor
I am given pause by the fact that, aside from the Roosevelts, all of the people on the above list were for all intents and purposes INSANE.
I read the autobiography of my favorite guitarist, Bob Mould. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I mean, I certainly learned a lot of fun, interesting facts about the man, but it did not slake my thirst for a proper Hüsker Dü biography with participation from all the band members, which is unlikely to ever happen. Oh, well.
Lincoln Steffens (autobiography of).
At one time as famous as Ben Franklin, though never hit the heights of Grant. But parts of it are actually, seriously, good. And without doubt had more effect on my thinking than any statesmen or scientist or actor that I’ve read (which I guess covers most of the field).
Two of the subjects I’m interested in are education and politics, and part of that’s down to Lincoln Steffens. I guess it’s history (because it’s mostly pre-war). Doesn’t really have anything to say about military tactics, strategy, Hollywood or science (unless you know what you are looking at), and it tails off badly at the end, but still in print last I looked.