IN DEFENSE OF KITTY KELLEY

Now that Matt Lauer has done himself proud with his sanctimonious interview of Kitty Kelley -- a holier-than-thou attempt to prove that a "Today" show co-host who shills for every piece of NBC Entertainment drek imaginable can be mistaken for a legitimate journalist -- I'm going to post a profile I did of Kitty Kelly that never appeared in English.

I wrote it for a German magazine many years ago, when her unauthorized biography of Frank Sinatra, "His Way," was published. After interviewing her at length at her home, which was then in Georgetown, I came away impressed. Despite the somewhat sarcastic tone of my piece, I had a sneaking admiration for her, and I think it shows. I also think she hasn't changed a bit.

While I'm typing the profile into the system, divert yourself with an excerpt from Kelley's latest unauthorized book, "The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty," which had the Pecksniffian Lauer so exercised. "Today" is not above posting it on its Web site. (And scroll down for the Lauer vs. Kelley video.)

Here's the way that profile of mine begins:

For a professional snoop, Kitty Kelley harbors a remarkably decorous feeling about her work. The least suggestion that she takes a certain pleasure in exposing the sexual peccadillos of her high and mighty targets brings an intense glare to her china-blue eyes.

Maybe it's because she wants to convey the idea that she suffers for her work. The mere supposition that she enjoys tattling about the drug addictions and the desperate boozing of the rich and famous -- worse, that she has become a millionaire by holding their private tragedies up to public ridicule -- puts a wounded expression on her face and a solemn tone in her voice.

"Take pleasure?" she asks, hardly able to contain her sense of injury. "I don't do that kind of thing in my writing. I've established a reputation as an unauthorized biographer, but that doesn't give me license. I have to be very fair. And I have to abide by the laws of libel, which I do. I let the reader make up his mind."

By now Kelley has a small, tight smile on her face. Not content with this rather academic defense, the 44-year-old author of "Jackie Oh!," "Elizabeth Taylor: The Last Star," and "His Way," swivels her body on the loveseat in her Georgetown living room like a petite artillery gun.

 She's now 62 and still a pistol. Hang on, the rest is coming. Read it here.

September 15, 2004 11:06 AM |

Categories:

Me Elsewhere

'WILD SIDE' STILL ROCKS 

Nelson Algren was one of the great American authors of the 20th century, it is no exaggeration to say, and among the most neglected. Consider his underrated classic, "A Walk on the Wild Side." The title -- popularized and co-opted as an idiomatic phrase by Hollywood and Madison Avenue (institutions Algren loathed) -- is familiar to most anyone who speaks English or knows Lou Reed's lyrics. But the novel itself? Hardly.

BUSTER KEATON REVISITED 
Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat is not a biography. "This book is merely a fan's notes," Edward McPherson writes in the introduction, although his publisher ignores the disclaimer and calls it a biography on the cover. In fact, the book is a bit of both, a difficult combination to bring off unless you're David Thomson, who set the standard with Rosebud, his penetrating rumination on the life and career of Orson Welles, which was nothing if not a distillation of every obsessive thought he ever had about the myth and the man and all his movies.
LAUREN BACALL, STILL SALTY AT 80 
When Lauren Bacall writes that her singing voice ranges "somewhere between B minus sharp and outer space," she's being candid and funny. It's not every stage star with two Tony Awards for best actress in a musical whose vocal talent offers so little promise. (OK, Harvey Fierstein excepted.) Still less would one admit it.
THE STARS ACCORDING TO BOGDANOVICH 
Peter Bogdanovich's superb collection of movie-star profiles and interviews -- a sequel to Who the Devil Made It, his interviews of top film directors -- begins with an affectionate tale about Orson Welles that reminds us just how intimate the author's connection to Hollywood's greatest has been. But contrary to what we've come to expect from dime-a-dozen celebrities and celebrity interviews not worth two cents, the tale avoids bromidic egotism and journalistic platitudes.
SAMMY'S WHITE DREAMS 
Four decades ago Lenny Bruce sentenced Sammy Davis Jr. to "30 years in Biloxi," stripping him of "his Jewish star" and "his religious statue of Elizabeth Taylor." Now we have two new biographies of Davis that spring him from ridicule, if not from doubts about his legacy, and restore a measure of dignity to a black entertainer whose huge fame and success never overcame his devout wish -- indeed his lifelong effort -- to be white.
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This page contains a single entry by CriticalMASS published on September 15, 2004 11:06 AM.

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