Ranging from trashy to tragic to triumphant, the biographies and memoirs in this compilation not only tell the stories of the women who’ve helped define “celebrity” in the past 100 years, but also provide some pretty entertaining bathroom reads.
1.) No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World’s First Supermodel, by Janice Dickinson
The best thing about Janice’s memoir—an account of how she survived an abusive home, became a highly paid model, became a drug addict, and fucked lots of famous guys—is that she’s really funny, irreverent, and (edited to be?) lucid. The second best thing about it is how deliciously TMI she is about everything: her binge-and-purge episodes before photo shoots; when she tried to trick Sylvester Stallone into thinking he was the father of her baby when he wasn’t; fucking her best friend’s (Jerry Hall) boyfriend (Mick Jagger); getting totally fucked up on coke and booze at Stephanie Seymour’s bachelorette party until she puked; what a scumbag Bill Cosby is; and describing—in detail—Liam Neeson’s penis size. The third best thing about her book is that it caught the attention of Tyra Banks, who then hired Janice as a judge on her new reality show America’s Next Top Model, introducing her particular brand of inanity to a new generation, and helping create the second phase of Janice’s career, as an arbitrary—yet weirdly reliable—source of inanity.
2.) Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland, by Gerald Clarke
Get Happy is the probably the most comprehensive biography of Judy Garland. It delves into the sad—which have since come to be cliched—consequences of child stardom spurred by stage parents and industry people who are more invested in nurturing a kid’s talent than nurturing the kid. Instead of merely giving the salacious details of her life—of which there are plenty—Clarke also investigates the reasons behind the sadness that propelled Garland’s addiction, which ultimately led to her death at 47. Also interesting is the investigation of Garland’s popularity with gay men, which ties into the book’s revelations that her father, Frank Gumm, was homosexual, as well as one of her husbands, Vincente Minnelli. (Additionally, the fact that Liza Minnelli’s grandfather and father were gay shines a whole new light onto her marriages to Peter Allen and David Gest.)
3.) Liz: An Intimate Biography of Elizabeth Taylor, by C. David Heymann
Like Judy Garland before, and Drew Barrymore since, Elizabeth Taylor grew up in the public eye, didn’t have much of a typical childhood, and began self-medicating at a young age. This book focuses mostly on the trashier aspects of her life and career—like the pills, the booze, the marriages, and the fluctuating weight—but is mostly interesting for its account of all of her “firsts” as a celebrity woman: the first to be at once vilified and idolized in the tabloid media as a “husband stealer” (decades before Angelina Jolie); the first to break the glass ceiling on actresses’ salaries; and the first to pave the way in celebrity fragrance lines.
4.) The Diana Chronicles, by Tina Brown
What’s interesting about Tina Brown’s account of Princess Diana’s life is that she managed to write a compelling book using all of the anecdotes and history that pretty much everyone already knew about our “Queen of Hearts,” by approaching the subject matter from a different angle, illuminating how feminism (or a lack thereof) played a role in antiquating the kind of woman Diana Spencer was raised to be (with an emphasis on finishing school, rather than college), and how it contributed to the gilded cage in which she eventually found herself.
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