Legal Actions
By the mid 1990s, fierce competition in the celebrity biography field developed that brought even more sensationalist claims. Statutes in the United States and other countries prohibit libel lawsuits for anything written or said about a deceased person and some celebrity biographers have taken advantage of this to make questionable assertions. In certain egregious cases, respected book reviewers such as Publishers Weekly have gone out of their way to caution readers by noting that the subjects are "conveniently for legal purposes, are deceased." a number of which led to lawsuits. However, for living people, the courts can and have become involved when the subject of a book believes their character has been deliberately harmed. Such was the case with the unauthorized biography "Clint: The Life and Legend" by Patrick McGilligan. First published in the UK and then in the United States in 2002 by St. Martin's Press. Eastwood filed a $10 million libel action in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California against the author and publisher, claiming the book was riddled with fabrications and insulting statements and that at least one of the author's primary sources was dubious at best. In response, McGilligan, who had written unauthorized biographies on film personalities James Cagney, Jack Nicholson, and Fritz Lang, told the Associated Press that "He (Eastwood) has sued people religiously" and "He's made a career of suppressing dissidence." However, McGilligan and St. Martin's Press settled Eastwood's libel claim out of court and agreed to make changes to the book prescribed by Eastwood and agreed to remove certain claims in all future printings.
In other cases such as that of celebrity biographer Cliff Goodwin, his book titled "Catherine Zeta-Jones: The Biography" was canceled by Virgin Books just a few weeks before its December 2003 scheduled release. Goodwin had previously made unsubstantiated claims about Catherine Zeta-Jones and her legal counsel notified the author and publisher that legal action would be instituted if the book was published.
Some celebrity biographers:
- Ellis Amburn
- Christopher Andersen
- David Bret
- Roberto Chiesi
- Suzanne Finstad
- Albert Goldman
- Cliff Goodwin
- Boze Hadleigh
- Laura Jackson
- Kitty Kelley
- Jeff Lenburg
- Patrick McGilligan
- James Robert Parish
- Annie Réval
- Frank Sanello
- Marc Shapiro
- James Spada
- Donald Spoto
Read more about this topic: Celebrity Biographer
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