Biographies

Bradshaw, Terry & David Fisher. It’s Only a Game. Pocket Books, 2001.
These days Terry Bradshaw is a sports analyst with FOX Network's NFL Sunday. However, his true claim to fame is his two Super Bowl MVP awards earned while he quarterbacked the four-time Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers. This autobiography traces Bradshaw's life from his childhood, college, and pro football days, through three divorces, to his current success as a sports broadcaster. It gives an honest, revealing look at a person who is not only a jovial, joke-cracking TV commentator but also a hardworking, dedicated man who takes his career, Christianity, renewed family commitment, and the game of football very seriously.

Curie, Eve. (Translated by Vincent Sheehan). Madame Curie. Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1937. Biography can hardly be more personal than this. Madame Curie is an account of the life of the famous scientist by her own daughter, Eve Curie. Remarkably, the biography avoids the pitfalls one might expect in such an "intimate portrait"; the reader is scarcely conscious of the biographer’s presence as the story of Marie Curie unfolds. We are assured in the introduction by the biographer that "it would have been a crime to add the slightest ornament to this story, so like a myth. I have not related a single anecdote of which I am not sure . . . or so much as invented the color of a dress. The facts are as stated; the quoted words were actually pronounced." Small wonder then, that the reader comes away with an extraordinarily vivid picture of the woman who began with no higher ambition than to educate herself enough to gain an income through which she might live with her father and support him in his old age. But life held greater things for her, leading to groundbreaking scientific researches in the fields of physics and chemistry. Twice winner of the Nobel Prize and the recipient of many other honors, Marie Curie was nevertheless a painfully shy woman who had a marked taste for scientific investigation, but most definitely not for the fame that accompanied it. Madame Curie does full justice to a life remarkable for its humility, dedication, and perseverance in the face of enormous obstacles.

DeLong, Candice. Special Agent: My Life on the Front Lines as a Woman in the FBI. Hyperion, 2001. Candice DeLong was a nurse before deciding to take FBI training. In Special Agent, she tells how the FBI then became her life and how it affected both her personal and professional lives. She tells about many of the very interesting cases she worked including the Unabomber and serial rapists. Candice was part of the FBI during the transitional period after Hoover. The treatment of women as agents was changing and was sometimes quite difficult. She shares some of those stories, sometimes including humorous anecdotes. One of the chapters includes guidelines for women to avoid sexual assault or how to deal with an attacker. Candice DeLong retired from a very challenging and rewarding career in a male dominated agency. Reading about that career is interesting and enlightening.

Dillard, Annie. An American Childhood. Perennial Library, 1986. A memoir of Dillard's childhood in 1950s Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, An American Childhood is a series of essays detailing her upbringing in an affluent family. She highlights events throughout her childhood such as growing up in the Presbyterian Church, spring dances at the country club, trips to the library and days at school with poignant detail. A wonderful and thoughtful look at childhood, Dillard's memoir is highly recommended.

Erickson, Carolly. The First Elizabeth. Summit Books, 1983. I have read many books on the life and reign of Elizabeth I, and her life never ceases to fascinate me. The abandoned child of a disgraced mother, Elizabeth survived her father and both her siblings to become the mistress of England. Shrewd, willful, charismatic, and completely in control, she dominated and used those around her to fulfill her goals. Ruling alone, she ushered in one of England’s golden ages: she succeeded in unifying England under one church, defeating Spain, and making Britain a driving force in Europe. Excellent book & fascinating personality!

Erickson, Carlyle. Mistress Anne. Summit Books, 1984. While this book was a good source of information on Anne Boleyn's world, the facts given about Anne herself were sketchy at best. In spite of fascinating details such as descriptions of the French court where Anne grew up and the accounts of the court procedures of Henry VIII's divorce from Katharine of Aragon, one never really gets the feel of Anne as a real person. Who was this woman that so bewitched a king that world history was literally changed? Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church to marry her, and even though the hoped for male heir was not produced and Anne literally lost her head on the block, the union did produce one of the greatest rulers the world has ever seen. This biography lacks the information about Anne's day-to-day life is one reason for this, but does provide many interesting details about the times.

Finstad, Suzanne. Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood. Harmony Books, 2001. Natalie Wood was always a star; her mother made sure this was true. A superstitious Russian Immigrant, who claimed to be royalty, Maria had been told by a gypsy, long before little Natasha Zakharenko's birth, that her second child would be famous throughout the world. When the beautiful child with the hypnotic eyes was first placed in Maria's arms, she knew the prophecy would become true and proceeded to do everything in her power to make sure of it. Natasha is the haunting story of a vulnerable and talented actress whom many of us felt we knew. We watched her mature on the movie screen before our eyes — in Miracle on 34th Street, Rebel Without a Cause, West Side Story, Splendor in the Grass, and on and on. She has been hailed — along with Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor — as one of the top three female movie stars in the history of film, making her a legend in her own lifetime and beyond. But the story of what Natalie endured, of what her life was like when the doors of the sound stages closed, has long been obscured. Natasha is based on years of exhaustive research into Natalie's turbulent life and mysterious drowning in the dark water that was her greatest fear. Finstad, a former lawyer, conducted nearly four hundred interviews with Natalie's family, close friends, legendary costars, lovers, film crews, and virtually everyone connected with the investigation of her strange death. Through these firsthand accounts from many who have never spoken publicly before, Finstad has reconstructed a life of emotional abuse and exploitation, of almost unprecedented fame, great loneliness, poignancy, and loss. She sheds an unwavering light on Natalie's complex relationships with James Dean, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Raymond Burr, Warren Beatty, and Robert Wagner and reveals the two lost loves of Natalie's life, whom her controlling mother prevented her from marrying. Finstad tells this beauty's heartbreaking story with sensitivity and grace, revealing a complex and conflicting mix of fragility and strength in a woman who was swept along by forces few could have resisted. Natasha is impossible to put down — it is the definitive biography of Natalie Wood that we've long been waiting for.

Flexner, James Thomas. Washington the Indispensable Man. Boston, Little, Brown, 1974. Forget the legend of the cherry tree, the picture of prayer in the snow at Valley Forge, and the story of the wooden false teeth. In Washington the Indispensable Man, James Thomas Flexner presents a carefully-researched and entertaining picture of Washington and his times. Interspersed with the facts of Washington’s life are personal details of which most readers might not be aware—such as the number of times Washington passed through heavy gunfire and emerged completely unscathed, thus creating a legend of his invulnerability to bullets. Flexner’s biography steers clear of Washington the historical icon and gives us instead an appealingly human general and first president, one who struggled with a quick temper, was plagued by self-doubts, and had a taste for gambling and the company of beautiful women. For anyone interested in George Washington or the time of the American Revolution, Flexner’s work is an indispensable biography.

Hertog, Susan. Anne Morrow Lindbergh : Her Life. Doubleday, 1999. Lindbergh's book, A Gift from the Sea, changed Hertog's life, and she has now returned the favor by writing the first in-depth biography of her mentor. The result--an engrossing portrait of a very private woman forced to suffer very public tragedies--will stand in illuminating counterpoint to Scott Berg's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Charles Lindbergh, who carried his wife to great heights, both literally and figuratively, and dragged her down into the abyss of moral ambiguity. Anne, whose father was the American ambassador to Mexico, met the famous aviator while visiting her family on a break from Smith College in 1927. Shy and contemplative, she had written, "I want to marry a hero," then, to her unending surprise, did so. But her hero was the world's hero, too, and the couple had to contend with a voracious press and an intrusive public. They found peace in the air, however, and Anne became a gifted pilot in her own right. Poetic by nature, she was profoundly inspired by these experiences and kept detailed journals that became the source of her popular books. Hertog focuses on Anne's struggle to reconcile her need to write with her demanding duties as wife, mother, and celebrity, but these conflicts pale before the horror of the murder of the Lindberghs' first-born son, a catastrophe that drove Anne ever more deeply into spiritual reflection and stoicism, even as it shook her and Charles' faith in humanity. Anne had five more children, published a string of successful books, and remained loyal to her husband, even after he became a vocal Nazi sympathizer. As Hertog unravels all the strands of her subject's complicated life, gentle but tenacious Anne emerges as a woman determined to cleave to traditional values in the face of incomprehensible upheaval and as an artist who could never put herself first.

Paterniti, Michael. Driving Mr. Albert: a trip across America with Einstein’s brain. Random House, 2000. This book could be subtitled ‘a very odd biography.’ Thomas Stoltz Harvey, the pathologist who performed the autopsy on Albert Einstein and subsequently stole his brain, is the main character. Michael Paterniti, a freelance writer/journalist who tracked down the thief and the brain and drove them across the USA, is another character. Einstein is the third character in this seriously funny book. Travel with these three for an entertaining look at some serious subjects.

Sharipo, Marc.Mariah Carey. Turnaround, 2001. The youngest of three children and the product of a bi-racial marriage, Mariah Carey was a natural from birth. She took to singing at a very early age. Her parents, Patricia and Alfred Carey, divorced when Mariah was only three years old due to stress in the marriage and racist acts projected toward them by a very judgmental public. Being raised in a single parent household, her mother, who was a struggling opera singer and a part-time opera coach, did all she could to nurture Mariah’s powerful singing voice. Mariah, who was no whiz in the classroom, did manage to graduate high school in 1987. Three months later she was off to New York City to try her hand at making a career in the music business. All Mariah had, at that point in her life, were the clothes on her back, and an extremely focused idea about being the next big singing superstar. She lived in a one-bedroom apartment with two other struggling females determined to make a life in the show business arena. She survived on Macaroni and cheese dinners and her hopes of stardom. Her big break would come with a recording contract with Sony Records. Through a failed marriage to Sony Record’s president Tommy Mottola, and other celebrity courtship’s that went sour, Mariah bounced back and showed the world that she has what it takes to make it. She was nominated artist of the decade 1990-2000 and has received countless other awards since. A true Cinderella story of a girl that went from rags to riches, Mariah Carey has become that superstar she always dreamed that she would someday become.

Sobel, Dava. Galileo's Daughter. Walker and Co., 1999.Galileo Galilei’s telescopes allowed him to discover a new reality in the heavens. But for publicly declaring his astounding argument – that the Earth revolves around the sun – he was accused of heresy and put under house arrest by the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Living a far different life, Galileo’s daughter Virginia, a cloistered nun, proved to be her father’s greatest source of strength through the difficult years of his trial. Drawing upon the remarkable surviving letters that Virginia wrote to her father, Dava Sobel has written a fascinating history of Medici era Italy, a mesmerizing account of Galileo's scientific discoveries and his trial by church authorities, and a touching portrayal of a father/daughter relationship. Galileo's Daughter is a profoundly moving portrait of the man who changed the way we see the universe and an unforgettable story.

August 8, 2001