Celebrity biographies - are there any good ones?

I admit that when Mrs.T isn't reading it I have picked up and laughed out loud at Peter Kay's latest but there's clearly a lot of dross out there. Not wishing to single anyone out but can Ant and Dec's Ooh! What A Lovely Pair really tell us anything we didn't already know about those lovable Geordies?

Anyone picked up a celebrity biog and been surprised at the content?

Looking through the Amazon biography bestsellers I see that Mein Kampf is one place above Jah Wobble's Memoirs of a Geezer at 84 and 85 respectively.

I do quite like all the Victor Bockris written bios. I have read most of'em. Lou Reed, Keith Richards, Andy Warhol,... Quite entertaining. Just noticed that there are quite a few more that I need to catch up on.

My husband quite liked Ludwig Wittgenstein by Ray Monk but maybe that's not your thing? What are you looking for? Trashy bios? Musician's?

Jean Smith's EDIE is mostly transcripts of her family and various Warholes but is amazing on detail.

loved alan alda's first volume of autobiography.

I totally second the Edie bio. Very good!

Then again I am the worst person to ask. I read complete dross like...

Confessions of a Video Vixen by Karrine Steffans

(I read the Lou, Edie, Andy books in one go. When I had my VU obsession going on. hah)

I have read two Kate Moss bios. How sad is that?

Dino, Steve Tosches' biography of Dean Martin is quite good. It sometimes reads more like fiction, Tosches makes some assumptions about Martin's inner thoughts he clearly has no way of knowing, but it is an interesting read with lots of information about Dino's cultural and historical background.

Tainted Life, Marc Almond's autobiography, is quite entertaining, and a surprisingly smooth read, considering he apparently really wrote it himself without the help of a ghost writer.

Dino is oen of the few bios I didn't finish. Just couldn't seem to finish it. But it is considered to be a classic.

I can see why, the way it's written doesn't make it easy coffee table reading, plus it gets quite depressing towards the end. But it is a good book.

My husband quite liked Ludwig Wittgenstein by Ray Monk but maybe that's not your thing?

heheh, no, I'm sure it's an excellent book and I guess Wittgenstein was a celeb in certain circles but I was more wondering whether any of these books, which seem to come out every week, by various major and minor 'slebs are any good? Like did you read one of the Kate Moss ones and think "well that was a surprising insight into the world of fashion" or is it just a load of old tosh about living in the Cotswolds and shopping?

I quite liked Frank Skinner's one, but I can't quite remember why. I think it made him come across as a bit of a bastard, and I think I appreciated the honesty. Also, he genuinely has had quite an interesting life (converting to Catholicism, well-read and educated despite his "laddish" persona) and gave a fairly decent stab at personal insight into what makes him tick.

Tuomas, it wasn't that it was difficult. I think more that I... I wasn't that interested. It just seemed to plod.

Er, I don't mean that being working class and having an education is interesting or anything. I'm not sure what I mean, other than that Skinner's insights into the way he's chosen to lead his life and career were quite surprising given the career he'd had until that point.

Gave up the booze too

Lee Server's books about Robert Mitchum and Ava Gardner, Baby I Don't Care and Love Is Nothing to thread.

That too. xpost

I don't really read celebrity biogs, I think that one, Margrave of the Marshes (Peel) and Moab is my Washpot (Fry) are the only ones I can remember reading. I figured the other two were quite well-known and respected, and thought I'd rep for Skinner's, which was a cut above what I imagine Jade/Katie Price/Ant and Dec would come up with.

Albert Goldman's Lennon one is good for, WTF-did-he-just-say-that yuks

I love Dino, but as Tuomas says, it is more like intensely (over-)written fiction than a biography. Hellfire, Tosches' biography of Jerry Lee Lewis is similar but shorter, maybe better (it's been a while since I read them). But you've got to enjoy Tosches' style & obsessions to get along with them (I do).

George Jones's I Lived to Tell it All is a pretty conventional hardscrabble youth -> success -> fall -> redemption ghosted biog, but it has some of the most wtf hitting-the-bottom stories I've read: the whole middle section when he's being taken over and verbally abused by the duck & old man voices is something.

the whole middle section when he's being taken over and verbally abused by the duck & old man voices is something

This I must read

Baby I Don't Care
This^^^ for sure.

I love celeb bios. As a result I know way too much about them and end up reciting all these boring tidbits during their films. (I'm exaggerating, honestly.)

Ha I did read all the Buster Keaton books at the library, so I DO have that trivia-mouth problem, but only during his movies. (esp. The General for some reason.)