Quote Unquote

“It is a sad day when an icon like Barbara Walters, in the sunset of her life, is reduced to publicly branding herself as an adulterer, humiliating an innocent family with accounts of her illicit affair, and speaking negatively against me all for the sake of selling a book. It speaks to her true character.” – Star Jones to Us magazine, in regard to the frank confessions in Barbara Walters' memoir.

Quote Unquote

"It's about the 23 years since I was told I was about to die from a terminal, incurable illness, my 27 breakups with 10 women, Internet chat-room sex, God (or lack thereof), Sex and the City, the miraculous conception and birth of my daughter, and antidepressant medication." – actor Evan Handler, on what his book, It's Only Temporary: The Good News and the Bad News of Being Alive, is about. (Page Six)

The Walters Affair

However horrible it is now to picture The View's slightly doddering senior, Barbara Walters, being intimate with a man, she did in fact have her share of flings. On Tuesday's Oprah she admits to having a yearslong affair in the 1970s with Edward Brooke, the Republican senator from Massachusets. "I was certainly involved," Walters tells Winfrey. "He was exciting. He was bwilliant. It was exciting times in Washington." Brooke was the first African-American to be popularly elected into the Senate, in 1967, and because their romance would have ruined both their careers had it been made public, Walters waited until now to tell it in her new memoir, Audition. (CNN)

Base Hit

Met, Dodger, and Yankee vet Darryl Strawberry, who struggled with cocaine addiction through most of his career, is writing his memoir, to be published next year. He's calling it Straw. Seriously? (AP)

Inside Mommy

A book coming out soon, called My Beautiful Mommy, explains why Mommy got prettier after the bandages came off. It's a book for kids under eight. (Newsweek via Jezebel; t/y Clancy)

Quote Unquote

"I'm no sort of threat to national security. The only thing I'm a threat to is myself! I flew eight hours to get there, was interrogated for eight hours, then had to fly eight hours back. I don't think anyone in the history of aviation has flown so far and so long to go nowhere!" – British author Sebastian Horsley, who was denied entry to the US at Newark Airport to promote his "filthy" tell-all, Dandy in the Underworld. (Page Six)

That Touch of Mantle

In his upcoming tell-all Doris Day: The Untold Story of the Girl Next Door, David Kaufman reveals that Day was not quite the breathy, huffy virgin she portrayed in too many movies. Seems that when the New York Yankee horndog Mickey Mantle made a cameo in her 1962 movie, That Touch of Mink, the two did the deed after a day of shooting. (She'd might have done and tired of costar Cary Grant already.) "Mantle boasted to friends that not only had he slept with Day at his regular suite in New York's St Moritz Hotel," writes Kaufman, "but that she was 'one of the best fucks of his life.' " A spokeswoman for Day as good as confirms the story by saying the actress, now 84, has no comment. (Page Six)

Cruise Lawyers Up

Former Village People cowboy Randy Jones has a book coming out in the fall that's part memoir, part "cultural history." It's called, with some irony we expect, Macho Man. (YMCA is probably already copyrighted in other youth-organization literature.) In the book, Jones describes the time he met Taps star Tom Cruise at a 1982 party Andy Warhol threw for Peter Gatien's Limelight nightclub in Atlanta. "Tom and I had the same management company at the time," Jones told Gatecrasher's Ben Widdicombe. Seems it was quite a party. But after talking to a spokeswoman and attorney for Cruise yesterday, the book's editor told Widdicombe that Cruise's name had been removed from Macho Man's final version. (Photo: Hawthorne/Getty)

Wife Is a Four-Letter Word

In The Real McCain, a John McCain biography of sorts, author Cliff Schecter relates this charming story about the GOP's presidential candidate:

In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.

(The Raw Story via Guanabee)

Turner and Pooch: Peggy Sue Got Sued

Kathleen Turner has publicly and legally apologized to Nicolas Cage for writing in her autobiography, Send Yourself Roses, the total fiction that he was arrested twice for drunk driving and stole a Chihuahua during the making of their 1986 movie, Peggy Sue Got Married. Cage filed and won a defamation, libel, and slander suit against Turner, who will pay Cage's legal fees and make a substantial donation to the National Adult Protective Services Foundation, a charity that benefits vulnerable adults. In addition, the Daily Mail, which excerpted the actress' claims, will remove the article from its website and publish an apology, and the publisher will include a correction and apology in printed copies of Turner's book. In other words, you don't fuck with Nic. (E! Online)

Whitney Responds

According to her rep, Whitney Houston has taken the high road, if you'll pardon the expression, in not responding to such claims in ex-husband Bobby Brown's new tell-all that until she drove him to use hard drugs he was just an innocent pot smoker. Her rep said in a statement: "Miss Houston is sad that Bobby feels he need to say such things but she chooses to take the high road and will not speak badly about the father of her child even if it's to set the record straight." (AHN)

Quote Unquote

"I never used cocaine until after I met Whitney. Before then, I had experimented with other drugs, but marijuana was my drug of choice. ...[The marriage] was doomed from the very beginning. Within the first year we separated, with several more to follow. I think we got married for all the wrong reasons. Now, I realize Whitney had a different agenda than I did when we got married. I believe her agenda was to clean up her image, while mine was to be loved and have children." – Bobby Brown in his memoir, Bobby Brown: The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But. (Page Six)

Tori Tells Tyra

Words Fail Him

Keith Richards' autobiography will most likely be a slim volume. He can't remember a thing. (Source)

sNap!

Tori Spelling met SupposiTori Spelling at the Virgin Megastore in San Francisco today where Spelling was signing her new book sTori Telling. It's rumored the book will be making its debut next week on the New York Times best-seller list.

Harry Potter and the Half-Wit Author

Once upon a time JK Rowling's thoughts turned to suicide.

Simon Says

When the BBC turns Simon Doonan's memoir, Nasty: My Family and Other Glamorous Varmints, into a sitcom, he hopes everybody's-first-pick, Oscar-winner Linda Hunt, will play him. "Linda would be great," says the creative director of Barneys, "and she's about my size. I'm just 5-foot-41/2 on my passport." The series, produced by Jon Plowman of The Office and Absolutely Fabulous fame, will be "deranged, wacky and brilliant," says Doonan, and "they might even have me play my own grandmother." (Page Six)

Billy Keeps Blooming

The 20th annual Lamda Literary Awards presentation (the Oscars of book-reading) is May 29 and James St James' young adult novel, Freak Show, is a finalist in two categories: Best Children's/Young Adult and Best Gay Debut Fiction. St James' editor at Simon & Schuster is urging the author to wear his gold Dior boots to the ceremony. God knows his protagonist Billy Bloom would.

LifesTori

Tori Spelling and the Village People's original cowboy, Randy Jones, at D'Or in New York last night for Chip Duckett's launch party for Spelling's autobiography, sTORI Telling.

Shelf Life: They'll Frey for This

Seems like it was only last week that Misha Defonseca's best-selling book, Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust Years, was discovered to be a flight of the author's fantasy. Apparently Defonseca (real name: Monique De Wael) didn't live with a pack of wolves to escape the Nazis; nor did she walk 1,900 miles across Europe in search of her parents. She didn't kill a German soldier and she's actually not Jewish. Today we learn that Margaret B Jones's autobiography Love and Consequences: A Memoir of Hope and Survival, about her growing up with gangbangers in South Los Angeles is fiction from table of contents to index. Instead of being a half-white, half-Native American who grew up in a foster home and sold drugs for the Bloods, Jones (real name: Margaret Seltzer) is a white woman who was raised by her birth parents in Sherman Oaks and graduated from an exclusive private school in the Valley. Both women are scheduled to appear on Oprah for a severe tongue-lashing, followed by an old-fashioned book-burning. (Pictured: Defonseca and Jones – or are they?)

On the Same Page

The Olsen sisters, Ashley and Mary-Kate, are publishing a coffee-table book through Penguin Young Readers Group. Influence – unlike Paris Hilton's books of a few years ago, which were mostly blank – will actually have content. Ashley Olsen says the book will concern "“the most interesting, challenging, creative people we know – the ones who helped pave the way for us and our generation.” So who are those challenging road workers who sat for interviews with the twins? Christian Louboutin, Lauren Hutton, Terry Richardson, and Bob Colacello, among others. Sounds like a full house. Hope they didn't forget Uncle Jesse. (Us; photo: Getty)

Just Like a Woman

Of course, you had to know that this most romantic of photographs of young love metaphorically bracing itself against the vicissitudes of life would end in a rancorous tell-all. The girl with Dylan on the cover of 1963's classic The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album is not a model, but his girlfriend at the time, Suze Rotolo, and she's written a memoir about her life with him. In A Freewheelin' Time, due in May, she tells how she aborted Dylan's baby and says, "He had an uncanny ability to complicate the obvious and sanctify the banal – just like a poet... Bob was charismatic; he was a beacon, a lighthouse. He was also a black hole." (Page Six)

"Much time was spent in front of the mirror trying on one wrinkled article of clothing after another, until it all came together to look as if Bob had just gotten up and thrown something on. Image was all," Rotolo recalls, noting that she more or less invented the bell-bottoms for him: she slit the jeans he wears on the cover of "Another Side of Bob Dylan" and inserted fabric from another pair to fit them over his boots.

Assisted Living

The novel Celebutantes isn't on shelves yet but judging from the promotional videos, it looks like the movie's already been cast. And shot. (t/y John)

James and His Giant Reach

On Bradford Shellhammer's extremely colorful blog, Bradford Shellhammer (jeez, why couldn't we have a cool name like that?), he explains why he loves James St James' young-adult novel, Freak Show, so much. In part:

Ten years ago, when I was Billy Bloom’s age, books like this did not exist. Had they, I bet there would have been less pain in my life, and the entire world. Thank God for James St. James. He’s given a generation of freaks, fags, and misfits a tale to call their own. The tale of the outsider seeking acceptance is an old one. But the tale of drag queen seeking it is something new entirely. And the fact that it is age appropriate, unlike much gay fiction, makes it even better. Get one for every teen on your shopping list, whether they’re freaks or just fond of those types of people.

Tracking Trachtenberg

Robert Tractenberg, author of When I Knew, the book upon which Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey's When I Knew documentary was based, was caught cold on the street at Sundance and grilled by Gaywired's Ross von Metzke about when HE knew. Says Metzke: "The hightlight for me are the people [at Sundance] who manage to infuse the festival with a project that really makes you think."

Quote Unquote

"He caused so many problems. He was arrested twice for drunk-driving and, I think, once for stealing a dog. He'd come across a chihuahua he liked and stuck it in his jacket. On the last night of filming, he came into my trailer after he'd clearly been drinking heavily. He fell on his knees and asked if I could ever forgive him. I said, 'Not right now. I have a scene to shoot. Excuse me,' and just walked out." – Kathleen Turner on shooting Peggy Sue Got Married with Nicolas Cage, in an excerpt from her autobiography Send Yourself Roses. (Daily Mail)

Psalm People

In light of a recent event in the Spears family, Mama Lynn's how-to book on parenting, Pop Culture Mom: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World, due for a spring 2008 drop, now seems like an idea for an SNL sketch and has been put on hold by its publisher not permanently but definitely indefinitely. "The book is delayed indefinitely. It's delayed, not cancelled," confirmed a spokeswoman for Thomas Nelson, which publishes inspirational books and bibles. "We are standing behind Lynn at this time and understand that she needs time with her family – we support that." (People)

Isn't She Lovely?

Attention shoppers. The beautiful James St James will be manning the World of Wonder Storefront Gallery during our festive holiday group show, "Merry Titmas," and may even continue doing so into the new year. So stop by the gallery, look at the art, perhaps buy a Christmas canvas or 12, and if you've got a copy of James' novel, Freak Show, he'll be happy to sign it for you. (Photo: Steven Corfe)

Freak Show One of Three Best Teen Books of 2007

Freak Show, by James St. James (Dutton, $18.99; ages 14-up). A 17-year-old drag queen, sent to live with his dad in Florida, hits his new school "like the crack of a bat." Funniest young-adult novel of the year – and a profile in out-of-the-mainstream courage.

Slam, by Nick Hornby (Putnam, $19.99; ages 14-up). Life is "ticking along quite nicely" for Sam, a 16-year-old Londoner and skateboard nut, when his ex-girlfriend alerts him that he is going to become a father.

The White Darkness, by Geraldine McCaughrean (HarperCollins, $16.99; ages 12-up). A 14-year-old English girl fixated on the polar explorer Capt. "Titus" Oates is whisked off by a family friend to Antarctica – a murderously beautiful kingdom that reflects her own locked-down state of mind.

(Washington Post)

Freak Show: Special Christmas Tree Edition

Unbeknownst to us, until James alerted us to it this morning, an increasing underground trend is emerging in the literary fan-world, involving the decoration of a christmas tree in an homage to James St James' award-winning novel Freak Show. Trees come adorned with tiaras, miniature book covers, and no doubt a little fairy dust sprinkled on top, if you know what we mean. Special thanks to Freak Show readers Melissa Chauvin and Alexiss Marchand for making everyone's holiday a little more freakish.

– Steven Corfe

There's Good Nose and Bad Nose

Actually, there's just bad nose. Deborah Gibson's took a turn for the worse after a surgeon's botched attempt to make it less trunk, more button (via Jezebel). But our nose got bent out of shape (which, if you've ever seen us, you know we mean more bent) when we saw that Star is yet another magazine that's stolen the title Knifestyles of the Rich and Famous from the original Details magazine's mid-'80s cosmetic surgery column. On her website, Martha Frankel, author of the gambling memoir Hats & Eyeglasses, fondly remembers her days writing the column for that magazine.

I wrote the first Knifestyles of the Rich and Famous, a first-person, on-going column about plastic surgery for DETAILS. This was in the mid-80's, when plastic surgery was still in the closet. I had my breasts made smaller (one of the highlights of my life), and met women and men who had every single part of themselves transformed. These people told me their stories, both successes and failures. Knifestyles was both uplifting (no pun intended) and very frightening – when plastic surgery goes wrong, it goes horribly wrong.

Ovine Intervention

Madonna has been taken to task by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for dyeing the sheep that live on the grounds of her Ashcombe estate in Wiltshire, like those pictured here, for a photo shoot in homage to famed photog Cecil Beaton, who used to live on the estate. The RSPCA and outraged animal-rights activists have called it an irresponsible publicity stunt that will lead to copycat incidents. Because, you know, so many of the celebrities who keep sheep on their land find white so humdrum an ovine color and now that Madonna's done it..... The shoot was for the book Vogue Living: Houses, Gardens, People, profiling 36 celebrity homes and gardens. Vogue, you'll recall, is a dyed-in-the-wool, so to speak, champion of fur-wearing. Meanwhile, we remember once in New York going to a dinner party for the Wool Bureau, at which rack of lamb was served.

Guide to Hookers

Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash has written a book succinctly called Slash: The Autobiography (out now), which covers pretty much what you'd expect: his rise to fame with the band, its extraordinary success with the albums Appetite for Destruction and Use Your Illusion I and II, his acrimonious relationship with frontman Axl Rose, and his addiction to heroin. Oh, and where to find the best prostitutes in the world. He says South America. Wait. Slash wrote? A book? We're pretty sure it must have come about – like how that guy in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly blinked his life story with one eye – by Slash picking out the words letter by letter on his guitar with co-author Anthony Bozza typing them into the computer. Accordingly, Slash's autobio uses only the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. (Source)

FYI

Michael Musto informs us via his VV column La Dolce Musto that Dan Savage's book The Kid, about his experiences with his boyfriend raising a... kid, is being adapted into a musical directed by The Women's Scott Elliott. And that the sequel to Another Gay Movie, ingeniously titled Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild, will start shooting in two weeks in Fort Lauderdale, with most of the cast, plus RuPaul, Lady Bunny, and Logo's Will Wikle.

Freak Show on the Road

James' second bookstore appearance in San Francisco was even more exciting than the first. James was reunited with an old Club Kid friend. I didn't catch her name but she's the one James is kissing. A couple of young Club Kids came. One had to rush out cos her mohawk was falling due to the heavy fog. She made a hairspray run and returned just in time for the signing! Someone needs to teach today's kids about Knox Gelatin. It deflects bullets! Can't wait for Miss Trannyshack tonight. (Sandra Bernhard's flight was a bit late and she was reportedly a wee bit cranky but was fine once she hit her hotel. Needless to say, Heklina did not bring her to the signing.)

Text and photos by Jimmy D. (Photos, from top: Once upon a time; holiday shopping; "I want THAT one!"; old friends; naked drag queens; We love James!)

Freak Show on the Road

"Ya probably get a bazillion snaps of the boy... What's a few more?" says Jimmy D who took these photos of James St James reading his award-winning novel Freak Show in San Francisco. "These are from his signing at A Different Light. If you want to use any of them... feel free. However! If you do (cos they're just so freakin' amazing) I want a cut! Like on the underwear James wants to market.... Oh my." Oh my.

Captions, from top: "I have arrived!"; "It's my dealer"; Martha Graham; serious book signing; blur!

Cheeta's Tail-All

We don't know if Cheeta, in his ghostwritten memoir, Cheeta: My Story, will be revealing whether or not he ever touched Maureen O'Sullivan inappropriately (like children, animals can get away with that), but it's bound to be a good read nonetheless. The now-graying 75-year-old chimp starred in a dozen Tarzan movies, outliving his costars, and retired from films in 1967, after presumably having a speaking part in Dr Doolittle. Said the oldest living chimp's publisher, Dan Halpern, "Tarzan and Jane's best friend still loves the ladies. In 2006, he was seen canoodling with legendary chimpologist Jane Goodall. Cheeta, who's been known to watch his old movies with his grandson, promises to dish on his career (and the likes of Errol Flynn), as Hollywood's most famous swinger." (Quote via Page Six; top photo: Jill Greenberg)

First Love

In Mitchell Symons' new book Where Do Nudists Keep Their Hankies? many provocative questions – like what are Brazilian bikini waxes called in Brazil? – are answered, but the folks at Page Six went immediately to the section about when celebrities lost their virginities.

Clint Eastwood, David Duchovny, Bruce Willis and Jerry Hall gave up their innocence at 14. Topping them are: Johnny Depp, James Caan and Jon Bon Jovi, who were just 13. Don Johnson was a mere 12. And Sean Connery confessed, "I was 8, but I can't recall with whom."

One-Cent Post Worth a Million Bucks

We just got the news that James St James just got the news that his novel Freak Show just won the School Library Journal's Best Young Adult Book of the Year award.

And Mills to Go Before We Sleep

Hopefully, the inimitable Cindy Adams today in her New York Post column has written the last thing we ever need to read about Heather Mills. It's her fast and furious, can't-stop-reading synopsis of the rough draft of a new book she's been privy to preview, The Unsinkable Heather Mills by Nell Simpson. And drafts don't come any rougher on their subjects than this one. Especially when condensed by Adams:

Next, her boyfriend Peter overdoses on heroin. She herself sleeps on the streets. She worked for a jeweler. She stole from the jeweler. She's arrested. Then come paragraphs on the sex trade, naked photos, endless lying, pleasuring Arabs, being kept. Then comes her craze for status, socializing with her betters, "wanting that power for herself" and her "hope to find a rich and powerful man of her own."

And Adams knows how to put the last word on the last thing:

Page 209 tells us the UK's David Letterman, talk-show host Jonathan Ross, has actually said, "Heather is a fucking liar. I wouldn't be surprised if we found out she's actually got two legs."

Literary Lion on the Lam

Celebrity biographer Andrew Morton says that researching the life of Tom Cruise made investigating the royal family seem like "a walk in the park." Morton reportedly has had to go into hiding because the book he's written about the Lions for Lambs star is about to be published, and Cruise and the Church of Scientology are none too happy. In his new biography, Morton, whose previous books detailed the lives of Princess Diana and Monica Lewinsky, questions Cruise's relationship with Katie Holmes, his beliefs, and his sexuality. "I have received threats from the Scientologists and things have become pretty heavy," says Morton. "To the extent that it's almost more than my lawyers can handle. I've sold my flat and I'm not telling anyone where I'm moving to. I intend to disappear for a while." (Source; photo: CNN)

Recently Dead

One of America's great writers, Norman Mailer, died early this morning of renal failure at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. He was 84. The two-time Pulitzer prize-winner was a provocative and prolific author who remained actively relevant in American literature longer than any writer of his generation, from his debut novel, The Naked and the Dead, to his last, The Castle in the Forest, about Hitler's childhood, which he predicted would cause people "to have a shit fit." All the while, he was a kind of macho one-man entertainment complex: He produced, directed, and acted in movies; dabbled in journalism; was obsessed with Marilyn Monroe; flew gliders; challenged professional boxers; knocked out Gore Vidal; and stabbed one of his six wives. His current wife, Norris Church Mailer, survived him, as did nine children, 10 grandchildren, and a sister. (AP; photos: Mailer in 1962, and on Time cover in 1973)

Borat Make Presence at Books Store

Clipped from Sunday's LA Times. The Event Guidelines are particularly disagreeable. Sacha Baron Cohen needs to get over himself. He's not the Spice Girls. (Hours later, however, not being able to get that "Borat will be with us for a limited time" bit out of our head, we realize the Guidelines unpleasantness most likely lies with Borders.)

Snap!

Candid shots of Jake Gyllenhaal by fash photog Mario Testino, included in his thick new celebrity-stuffed book, Let Me In. (via Towleroad)

Blind Faith

It seems incredulous, but Lynn Spears is writing a book on parenting. The manuscript for Pop Culture Mom: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World, which sounds more like a tell-all than a how-to, is due at Christian publishing house Thomas Nelson in December. “It’s a parenting book that’s going to have faith elements to it," says the publisher's rep. "I don’t think it’s totally been written yet.” Whatever advice Mama Spears has to offer in the book will indeed have to be taken in faith, because Britney cut Lynn out of her life in February and their relationship has been toxic ever since. (Us; photo via Paparazzi This)

Colin and the Click Clique

Showing his support for Amnesty International, Colin Farrell threw on a clean T-shirt and joined 10 award-winning authors for a book signing and panel discussion at the Columbus Circle Borders in New York. The occasion was the publication of the novel Click, in which the authors have attempted to piece together the life of photojournalist George "Gee" Keane. The proceeds of the book will go to AI. (QueerVerve)

Quote Unquote

"He was always pumping me. He never talked about his wife. Whenever he came to Washington, he'd give me a call. I've always been attracted to renegades. I was not intimidated by his bad-boy reputation. These kind of guys are always sweetie-pies underneath. It was not serious. For me it was just fun, but I adored him. He would always open the door for me, and whenever he'd meet me, he'd be standing there with a little bouquet of flowers. There was something so incredibly touching about him. I don't think I've ever been treated as well by anybody in my life as I was by Hunter." – Washington DC journalist Sally Quinn, about her relationship with writer Hunter S Thompson, in the new oral biography Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S Thompson. (Page Six)