BIOGRAPHY · MOTION PICTURE ACTORS AND ACTRESSES
Charles Higham
Also known as: Charles higham, CHARLES HIGHAM
Charles Higham (pronounced HYE-um), (18 February 1931 – 21 April 2012) was an English author, editor and poet. After moving to Australia in 1954, Higham began a career in journalism, before moving to the United States in 1969. In the United States he became known as a celebrity biographer, mainly of film stars, such as Katharine Hepburn and Errol Flynn. The latter book, among several during Higham's career, was criticized for fabrications.Close friends of another of his subjects, Orson Welles, in particular Peter Bogdanovich, were critical of Higham's interpretation of his career.
IT WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT BIRTH DR. OSCAR L. NORSWORTHY HAD EVER witnessed.
— from Howard Hughes, 1996
Most acclaimed
Cecil B. DeMille
1973
Colossal. Stupendous. Epic. These adjectives, used by movie companies to hawk their wares, became cliches long ago. When used to describe the films of one director, they are accurate. More than any filmmaker in the history of the medium, Cecil B. DeMille mastered the art of the spectacle. In the process, he became a filmland founder. One hundred years ago, he made the first feature film ever shot in Hollywood and went on to become the most commercially successful producer-director in history. DeMille told his cinematic tales with painterly, extravagant images. The parting of the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments was only one of these. There were train wrecks (The Greatest Show on Earth); orgies (Manslaughter); battles (The Buccaneer); Ancient Rome (The Sign of the Cross); Ancient Egypt (Cleopatra); and the Holy Land (The Crusades). The best of these images are showcased here, in Cecil B. DeMille: The Art of the Hollywood Epic.
Murder in Hollywood
Obsessed with glamour and wealth, she followed her dream to Hollywood, and finally found fame--in death. Bonny Lee Bakley's dream was to marry a movie star. Using sex and guts, the ruthless small-town blonde finally struck it rich by wedding Robert Blake, the Emmy Award-winning actor who scored in the hit show "Baretta." When Blake found his bride of six months with a bullet in her head outside a Los Angeles restaurant, he was thrust back into the spotlight, and Bonny Lee was exposed for the manipulative woman she was--a grifter with a sordid criminal history of sex swindles, credit-card fraud, and Social Security scams. But her specialty was fleecing wealthy men for quick cash--a lucrative sting that finally brought Bonny Lee Bakley to Hollywood to live--and die--among the rich and famous. But who really murdered Bonny Lee in cold blood? How did it play into Robert and Bonny's turbulent marriage? Was she a victim of her own con--or something more sinister? What was the truth behind her fears of being stalked? And what secrets were hidden in Bonny's past that she found impossible to outrun? Now, in this riveting, fascinating account, Gary C. King brings you inside details of the most talked-about Tinseltown murder in years.
Rose
1980
The recent death of America's most famous matriarch signals the end of an amazing era. Now, drawing on hundreds of recently declassified documents, and with the cooperation of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's relatives, among others, New York Times bestselling author Charles Higham chronicles the life of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy in this dramatic, moving biography. During her times of glory, agony and ecstasy, Rose gave birth to nine children and to an unforgettable vision of the American Dream. Deeply religious, intensely ambitious for her family, she moved through fascinating worlds: politics, big business, England as the American ambassador's wife, Hollywood, high society, and Washington's inner circles. The tragic deaths of four of her children never shook her faith; she believed despite the worst that God always held her in his hands.