Darwin Porter: 31 books

Katharine Hepburn was the world's greatest screen diva--the most famous actress in American history. But until the appearance of this biography, no one had ever published the intimate details of her complicated and ferociously secretive private life. Thanks to the deferential and obsequious whitewashes...

God had a talent for creating exceptional women--Helen of Troy and Cleopatra come to mind. So does Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, who lives again in this "warts-and-all" portrait. It's being released on the 20th anniversary of the tragic death, in 1994, of the icon who changed America's...

The truth about Steve McQueen is spectacularly different from the legend projected by his screen persona and Hollywood's media machine. Lurid aspects of McQueen's early life include a gothic horror of a childhood and stints as both a porno performer and pay for play hustler to both men and women....

The notorious Linda Lovelace was America's first Queen of Porn, presiding over a fast-developing multi-billion-dollar film industry during the decadent 1970s. Her movie, Deep Throat, redefined the nation's views on obscenity and was credited with changing America's sexual attitudes more than anything...

One hot summer night in 1945, three young American writers, each an enfant terrible, came together in a stuffy Manhattan apartment for the first time. Each member of this pink triangle was on the dawn of world fame—Tennessee Williams for A Streetcar Named Desire; Gore Vidal for his notorious homosexual...

No other book in the history of publishing has assembled in one volume 80 years of pansexual scandals associated with the Kennedys-all in one guilty pleasure of a sizzling book. Meticulously researched, it showcases the indiscretions and extramarital romps of America's most famous political clan....

Written to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the violent death of a star who lived fast, died young, and became a legend, this book was compiled after fifty years of input from James Dean’s friends, lovers (male and female), and enemies. Much of the information within it has never been published...

The hottest compendium of inter-generational scandal in the history of Hollywood. An overview of exhibitionism, sexuality, and sin as filtered through 85 years of Hollywood indiscretion. As they were unfolding, the events described within this book were known only within Hollywood's most decadent...

This is history’s first comprehensive, unauthorized overview of the greatest mother-daughter act in showbiz history, Debbie Reynolds (“hard as nails and with more balls than any five guys I know”) and her talented, often traumatized daughter, Carrie Fisher ("one of the smartest, hippest...

Peter O’Toole shot to world stardom for his Oscar-nominated performance in David Lean’s four-hour epic, Lawrence of Arabia, following it with a life of legendary debauchery. Before his recent death in 2013, he generated seven additional Oscar nominations for other noteworthy films, a few of which...

Before she died, Elizabeth Taylor claimed that previous biographers had revealed "only half of my story, but I can't tell the other half because I'd get sued." In response to that challenge, Blood Moon presents history’s most comprehensive compilation of the unpublished—until now—secrets...

Born in Central Europe during the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, three “vonderful vimmen”—Zsa Zsa, Eva, and Magda Gabor—transferred their glittery dreams and gold-digging ambitions to Hollywood. They supplemented America’s most Imperial Age with “guts, glamour, and goulash,”...

On the campus of Yale University, in 1970, an “odd couple,” Hillary Rodham and Bill (“Bubba”) Clinton, came together at a Mark Rothko exhibit at the Yale Art Museum. Before the end of that rainy afternoon, they had formed an unbreakable bond forged while they rested on the seat of a Henry...

After Betty Grable, but before there was Marilyn, America's penchant for popcorn blondes focused on LANA, the "ultimate movie star." She had it all: Looks to die for, money to burn, the romantic adulation of the world, and lovers who included the world's most desirable men. In her...