Kitty Kelley
Encyclopedia
Kitty Kelley is an American
journalist
and author of several best-selling unauthorized biographies of celebrities and politicians. Her subjects have included Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
, Elizabeth Taylor
, Frank Sinatra
, Nancy Reagan
, the British Royal Family
, the Bush family
, and Oprah Winfrey
. While Kelley’s 1997 book (The Royals) entered USA TODAY
's Best-Selling Books list at first place, her 2004 book (The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty) entered the list in second place, and her 2010 book (Oprah: A biography) entered the list in fifth place.
Kelley has been called "the consummate gossip monger, a vehicle for all the rumor and innuendo surrounding her illustrious subjects" but maintains that she is "an unabashed admirer of transparency and believe[s] in the freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment" and that, to that end, her writing is about "moving an icon out of the moonlight and into the sunlight". Her work has been called "encyclopedically vicious" but has also been cited as an antidote to celebrity mythmaking: "Her methods may often be unsound, her facts may sometimes be a bit fictional, but in the end she usually reveals something true about her subjects—which is more than you can say about a lot of celebrity biographers."
, Kitty Kelley received a B.A. in English from the University of Washington
. She worked at the New York World's Fair
in 1964 and went on to become a receptionist/press secretary for Senator Eugene McCarthy
.
Following four years as a press assistant to McCarthy, Kelley worked for two years as the editorial page researcher for The Washington Post. Since then, she has had a full-time career as a freelance writer. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, People, Ladies Home Journal, McCall's, Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune.
at the time Kelley was a student there suspected that Kelley was a kleptomaniac. University security chief David Paxton dusted valuable items on campus with “invisible powder”. Explaining the process, Nassau County Police detective Thomas Kubic of the Scientific Investigation Unit explained that in all likelihood, the powder was probably “Sneak Thief Powder”, which he described as “an almost foolproof tool in the fight against sticky fingered thieves” because once a thief touches it, a glow on the thief’s hand will appear when placed under ultra-violet light. Former Sue Nelson (later Mrs Sue Jean Tucson), who was in Kelley’s 1959 Gamma Delta Pledge class was quoted as saying:
The young women passed through uneventfully, then along came Kelley who “broke the darkness of the room with telltale luminescence”, causing other students to refer to her as “The Golden Fleecer”, and resulting in Kelley immediately being placed under house arrest and being escorted by campus police. Under scrutiny from campus security, Kelley placed items from her drawers and closet (wristwatches, rings, pendants, brooches, bracelets etc.) on her bed and twenty-eight coeds were brought to Kelley’s room and identified items that belonged to them.
After Kelley left the University of Arizona in disgrace, her parents refused to let her live with them and sent her to live in Seattle with her maternal grandparents (the Martins). It was here that Kelley suffered a breakdown and used a wheelchair during some of that time.
was Jackie Oh! (1978), a life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
, which was written on the request of Lyle Stuart
, an independent publishing maverick who promoted Kelley's 'Washington insider' angle and launched the book into the New York Times Best Seller List
. In the book, Kelley describes John F. Kennedy
's womanizing and includes personal "revelations" about Jacqueline Onassis's love life, her depression and alleged electric shock treatment. Kelley's publisher Lyle Stuart was later quoted saying "at the time I believed her shock-treatment story. Looking back, I feel I was had and the whole thing was a fable. I doubt that it ever happened. And knowing how she makes things up, I believe she was sure she could get away with it because no one would sue." Despite such skepticism, journalist Michael Crowley
stated Jackie Oh! contained "core truths—including an unflinching look at JFK that showed him to have been 'more of a Romeo than has been previously revealed.'"
This book was followed by Elizabeth Taylor
: The Last Star (1981), which was also a New York Times Best Seller in paperback and hardcover.
Kelley's next book, His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra
(1986) was declared "an act of bravery." In it, she discussed Sinatra's tumultuous marriages, alleged affairs and his links to the Mob
. Sinatra initiated a $2 million lawsuit to prevent it from being published, but dropped the lawsuit. The book was number one on the New York Times Best Seller List, and hit best-seller lists in England, Canada, Australia and France. William Safire of the New York Times said "His Way...turns out to be the most eye-opening celebrity biography of our time." In The Washington Post, Jonathan Yardley, wrote that "His Way is such an improvement over her two previous books ... that comparisons border on the pointless" and crowed that the book "reduces the legend of Ol' Blue Eyes to rubble."
magazine based on interviews she had conducted with Judith Campbell Exner, a former girlfriend of Frank Sinatra's who claimed to have had an affair with John F. Kennedy. Exner told Kelley that she had arranged ten meetings between Kennedy and Mafia gangster Sam Giancana
, and they discussed having the "mob" kill Fidel Castro
. The story made national headlines, but it soon fell apart: it emerged that Exner had been paid $50,000 to talk with Kelley, was terminally ill, and did not mention these "revelations" in her own autobiography, which had been published years earlier. A former FBI agent also came forward and said that Giancana had been under a federal wiretap, so these multiple meetings with President Kennedy would have been impossible to cover up.
: The Unauthorized Biography. She was paid $3.5 million to write the book. The book claimed that the first lady
had engaged in multiple affairs with Frank Sinatra
, that she frequently relied on astrology
, that she had lied about her age, and that she had a very poor relationship with her children, even alleging that she hit her daughter, Patti. The reliability and sources were questioned, but it was widely acknowledged that Kelly's book "was no more dishonest than the Reagans' own carefully groomed Norman Rockwell facade." As Slate
magazine writer Michael Crowley said, "During the Reagan years Nancy cultivated an image as a doting wife and skillful hostess, a reputation Kelley mercilessly diced with the zest of a Benihana
chef."
The book endured far more scrutiny than any of Kelley's others. While the book's "thin sourcing and heavy innuendo" were criticized, Newsweek concluded, "Despite her wretched excesses, Kelley has the core of the story right. Even her staunchest defenders concede that Nancy Reagan is more Marie Antoinette than Mother Teresa." Media coverage included cover stories in Time magazine ("Is She Really That Bad?", referring to Nancy Reagan), Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly ("The Kitty and Nancy Show") and People magazine ("Inside Kitty's Dish"). Kelley was also spoofed on Saturday Night Live
. Kelley appeared on many news shows and interviews promoting the book, some of which were very critical. Regardless, the book was widely recognized as an important landmark in the field of biography: "In terms of publishing here, it is the biggest thing that has happened since Uncle Tom's Cabin."
Former President
Ronald Reagan
issued a brief statement, in which he said: "While I am accustomed to reports that stray from the truth, the flagrant and absurd falsehoods cited in a recently published book clearly exceed the bounds of decency. They are patently untrue–everything from the allegation of marijuana use [by Nancy and me] to marital infidelity to my failure to be present at the birth of my daughter Patti. Many of my friends have urged me to issue a point-by-point denial of the book's many outrages. To do so would, I feel, provide legitimacy to a book that has no basis in fact and serves no decent purpose."
Carpozi said that the book was "full of sex, sin, and scandal", reminiscent of Kelley's own work.
Upon the death of Lyle Stuart, the publisher of "Jackie Oh!", the Washington Post reported that Stuart had commissioned "Poison Pen" when Kelley left him for larger more lucrative publishers.
in The Royals (Warner Books, New York, ISBN 0-446-51712-7). In the book, Kelley stated that the Windsors obscured their German ancestry and described scandals surrounding the members of the royal family.
The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty
, was published on September 14, 2004, less than two months before the 2004 U.S. Presidential election. Kelley announced plans for the book shortly after George W. Bush
's election in 2001 and worked on it for four years. In "The Family", Kelley claimed that George W. Bush snorted cocaine
with his brothers at Camp David
during his father's presidency. Kelley cites Sharon Bush, the ex-wife of George W. Bush's brother Neil Bush
, as her source for these statements, but Sharon Bush denied making the allegations.
. The 544-page book, Oprah: A Biography, was released by Random House
on April 13, 2010. The New Yorker declared the biography "one of those King Kong vs. Godzilla events in celebrity culture."
Oprah dismissed the book as a "so-called biography," but did not otherwise comment.
Kelley claimed that Perdue Farms
CEO Frank Perdue
called Winfrey a gorilla on TV in Baltimore. Kelley identified one of her sources by name as an associate producer of Oprah's show at the time. However, Winfrey’s former co-host Richard Sher
claims that this anecdote is completely untrue and confronted Kelley over the supposed inaccuracy.
According to Kelley, Bill O'Reilly
phoned Winfrey to complain that she was too left-wing. However, when Kelley appeared on O’Reilly’s show, O'Reilly told her that no such phone call ever occurred and asked Kelley if she was bothered by the inaccuracy in the book. In the paperback edition of Oprah: A Biography, as during the TV confrontation with O'Reilly, Kelley stuck by her sources at his publisher.
Kelley also said that Winfrey’s 80-year-old cousin Katharine Esters told Kelley the secret identity of Winfrey’s biological father (which Kelley declined to disclose). Esters denied knowing this information; she claimed Kelley fabricated much of their conversation and that she only granted Kelley the interview because she was under the false impression that Kelley was working with Henry Louis Gates. Kelley challenged Esters' account. In an addition to the paperback edition of Kelley's book, Esters' daughter supports Kelley. Esters herself conceded that she did tell Kelley that Oprah lied about her history of sexual abuse and exaggerated the level of poverty she endured while growing up. Kelley claimed Oprah's father Vernon also wavered on Oprah's claim of molestation as well. Kelley, however, concluded that "her father and her Aunt Katharine are like the families of other sexual abuse victims; they’re in great denial. But I believe Oprah; she’s a woman who shows the scars of sexual abuse.”
The New York Times
criticized Kelley for claiming in the book that she had 2,732 files on Winfrey, only to report the figure as 2,932 elsewhere in the book.
Kelley also was criticized for getting her facts wrong on basic historical details about the city of Baltimore at the time Winfrey worked there. She claimed that Winfrey was one of only two black women on Baltimore television at the time when, in fact, there were at least four. Kelley also mistakenly described the producer of a show competing against Winfrey’s as the community affairs director of Winfrey’s station.
Kelley claimed that Winfrey got the city of Chicago to build a parking lot for her plane, an allegation the mayor of Chicago denied
described Kelley’s work as containing "flagrant and absurd falsehoods" that "exceed the bounds of decency" and Barbara Walters
said books like Kelley’s are all about finding dirt, not the truth. The New York Times claimed that Kelley "just aims for the jugular" and Frank Sinatra
claimed Kelley "wrote the kind of lies that sell books and newspapers and magazines."
Time
magazine reported that most journalists believe Kelley "too frequently fails to bring perspective or analysis to the fruits of her reporting and at times lards her work with dollops of questionable inferences and innuendos." In addition, Kelley has been described by Joe Klein
as a "professional sensationalist" and her books have been described as "Kitty litter." Maureen Dowd
, who broke embargo to tout on the front page of the New York Times Kelley's revelations about Nancy Reagan, said "Kelley is a mean and greedy writer, so drunk on sensationalism that she lacks compassion and understanding."
Kelley's citations for her work have been known to raise questions. In her biography of Frank Sinatra, Kelley claimed to have interviewed actor Peter Lawford
on several occasions including November 5 and 6 of 1984, even though Lawford lay on his death bed on these dates after part of his stomach was removed. Kelley also claimed to have interviewed Lawford on January 5, 1985, even though the actor had died in December 1984.
, Kitty Kelley was sued over the content of her book Jackie Oh!, and settled the suit out of court. Carpozi also reported that under questioning from her publisher Lyle Stuart, Kelley confessed to having made up an intimate exchange of words between Jacqueline Onassis and columnist Pete Hamill
in the manuscript of Jackie Oh!. Carpozi claims that Kelley faced legal consequences over her Elizabeth Taylor biography too, being compelled to delete disputed material and make substantial changes to what she had written when the book emerged in paperback.
In addition, Kelley's book “the Royals” was banned in Britain because it contained sensational assertions that Kelley would have reportedly been unable to defend in court, and the British media also found Kelley's claims too potentially libelous to report on.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and author of several best-selling unauthorized biographies of celebrities and politicians. Her subjects have included Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier "Jackie" Kennedy Onassis was the wife of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and served as First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Five years later she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle...
, Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Nancy Reagan
Nancy Reagan
Nancy Davis Reagan is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and was First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989....
, the British Royal Family
British Royal Family
The British Royal Family is the group of close relatives of the monarch of the United Kingdom. The term is also commonly applied to the same group of people as the relations of the monarch in her or his role as sovereign of any of the other Commonwealth realms, thus sometimes at variance with...
, the Bush family
Bush family
The Bush family is a prominent American family. Along with many members who have been successful bankers and businessmen, across three generations the family includes two U.S. Senators, one Supreme Court Justice, two Governors, one Vice President and two Presidents...
, and Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...
. While Kelley’s 1997 book (The Royals) entered USA TODAY
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
's Best-Selling Books list at first place, her 2004 book (The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty) entered the list in second place, and her 2010 book (Oprah: A biography) entered the list in fifth place.
Kelley has been called "the consummate gossip monger, a vehicle for all the rumor and innuendo surrounding her illustrious subjects" but maintains that she is "an unabashed admirer of transparency and believe[s] in the freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment" and that, to that end, her writing is about "moving an icon out of the moonlight and into the sunlight". Her work has been called "encyclopedically vicious" but has also been cited as an antidote to celebrity mythmaking: "Her methods may often be unsound, her facts may sometimes be a bit fictional, but in the end she usually reveals something true about her subjects—which is more than you can say about a lot of celebrity biographers."
Early life
Born in Spokane, WashingtonSpokane, Washington
Spokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...
, Kitty Kelley received a B.A. in English from the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
. She worked at the New York World's Fair
1964 New York World's Fair
The 1964/1965 New York World's Fair was the third major world's fair to be held in New York City. Hailing itself as a "universal and international" exposition, the fair's theme was "Peace Through Understanding," dedicated to "Man's Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe";...
in 1964 and went on to become a receptionist/press secretary for Senator Eugene McCarthy
Eugene McCarthy
Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy was an American politician, poet, and a long-time member of the United States Congress from Minnesota. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the U.S. Senate from 1959 to 1971.In the 1968 presidential election, McCarthy was the first...
.
Following four years as a press assistant to McCarthy, Kelley worked for two years as the editorial page researcher for The Washington Post. Since then, she has had a full-time career as a freelance writer. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, People, Ladies Home Journal, McCall's, Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune.
Alleged theft & house arrest
In the Spring of 1962 about a dozen sorority sisters at the University of ArizonaUniversity of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
at the time Kelley was a student there suspected that Kelley was a kleptomaniac. University security chief David Paxton dusted valuable items on campus with “invisible powder”. Explaining the process, Nassau County Police detective Thomas Kubic of the Scientific Investigation Unit explained that in all likelihood, the powder was probably “Sneak Thief Powder”, which he described as “an almost foolproof tool in the fight against sticky fingered thieves” because once a thief touches it, a glow on the thief’s hand will appear when placed under ultra-violet light. Former Sue Nelson (later Mrs Sue Jean Tucson), who was in Kelley’s 1959 Gamma Delta Pledge class was quoted as saying:
“Just as soon as one of the girls reported jewelry taken from her room, a call went out to all sorority sisters to assemble in the main hall…The campus police took the girls, one by one, into a room and sat them at a table. They were asked to place their hands on a desk, under an ultra-violet-ray lamp. Then the rooms fluorescent lights were dimmed. Anyone whose hands had come into contact with any article dusted with powder would glow in the dark under the lamp.”
The young women passed through uneventfully, then along came Kelley who “broke the darkness of the room with telltale luminescence”, causing other students to refer to her as “The Golden Fleecer”, and resulting in Kelley immediately being placed under house arrest and being escorted by campus police. Under scrutiny from campus security, Kelley placed items from her drawers and closet (wristwatches, rings, pendants, brooches, bracelets etc.) on her bed and twenty-eight coeds were brought to Kelley’s room and identified items that belonged to them.
Aftermath
Following the theft allegations against Kelley, University security chief David Paxton and University of Arizona regents began laying the groundwork to have Kelley removed from the school. Kelley was told that she would be turned over to the Tucson police Department, arrested, fingerprinted, mugged and booked on charges of theft, and then incarcerated in the city lockup until a judge would impose bail and turn the case to the District Attorney. Kelley left the University of Arizona after being told that if she left the campus right then and there and promised never to return, charges would not be made against her.Alleged post-scandal breakdown
After Kelley left the University of Arizona in disgrace, her parents refused to let her live with them and sent her to live in Seattle with her maternal grandparents (the Martins). It was here that Kelley suffered a breakdown and used a wheelchair during some of that time.
Alleged credential falsification
When Kelley submitted details of her biography to publisher Lyle Stuart for the jacket cover of Jackie Oh! she listed one of her credentials as having been an editorial writer for the Washington Post, however the Washington Post claimed they had employed her as an editorial researcher and secretary. In a letter biographer George Carpozi Jr. sent to Kelley, her agent and lawyers on December 7, 1988, he asked "Can you explain why you described yourself as an editorial writer when, in fact, you were not?" As of 1990, Kelley had not responded.Jacqueline Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor and Frank Sinatra biographies
Kelley's first celebrity biographyBiography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
was Jackie Oh! (1978), a life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier "Jackie" Kennedy Onassis was the wife of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and served as First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Five years later she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle...
, which was written on the request of Lyle Stuart
Lyle Stuart
Lyle Stuart was an American author and independent publisher of controversial books....
, an independent publishing maverick who promoted Kelley's 'Washington insider' angle and launched the book into the New York Times Best Seller List
New York Times Best Seller list
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...
. In the book, Kelley describes John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
's womanizing and includes personal "revelations" about Jacqueline Onassis's love life, her depression and alleged electric shock treatment. Kelley's publisher Lyle Stuart was later quoted saying "at the time I believed her shock-treatment story. Looking back, I feel I was had and the whole thing was a fable. I doubt that it ever happened. And knowing how she makes things up, I believe she was sure she could get away with it because no one would sue." Despite such skepticism, journalist Michael Crowley
Michael Crowley
Michael Crowley is a senior correspondent and deputy Washington bureau chief for . From 2000 to 2010 he was a writer for The New Republic. His work has also been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, GQ, New York and Slate. Michael Crichton allegedly based a minor character on him in his...
stated Jackie Oh! contained "core truths—including an unflinching look at JFK that showed him to have been 'more of a Romeo than has been previously revealed.'"
This book was followed by Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
: The Last Star (1981), which was also a New York Times Best Seller in paperback and hardcover.
Kelley's next book, His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
(1986) was declared "an act of bravery." In it, she discussed Sinatra's tumultuous marriages, alleged affairs and his links to the Mob
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
. Sinatra initiated a $2 million lawsuit to prevent it from being published, but dropped the lawsuit. The book was number one on the New York Times Best Seller List, and hit best-seller lists in England, Canada, Australia and France. William Safire of the New York Times said "His Way...turns out to be the most eye-opening celebrity biography of our time." In The Washington Post, Jonathan Yardley, wrote that "His Way is such an improvement over her two previous books ... that comparisons border on the pointless" and crowed that the book "reduces the legend of Ol' Blue Eyes to rubble."
People magazine story
In 1990, Kelley wrote a piece for PeoplePeople (magazine)
In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...
magazine based on interviews she had conducted with Judith Campbell Exner, a former girlfriend of Frank Sinatra's who claimed to have had an affair with John F. Kennedy. Exner told Kelley that she had arranged ten meetings between Kennedy and Mafia gangster Sam Giancana
Sam Giancana
Salvatore Giancana , better known as Sam Giancana, was a Sicilian-American mobster and boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1957-1966...
, and they discussed having the "mob" kill Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
. The story made national headlines, but it soon fell apart: it emerged that Exner had been paid $50,000 to talk with Kelley, was terminally ill, and did not mention these "revelations" in her own autobiography, which had been published years earlier. A former FBI agent also came forward and said that Giancana had been under a federal wiretap, so these multiple meetings with President Kennedy would have been impossible to cover up.
Nancy Reagan biography
In 1991 Kelley published Nancy ReaganNancy Reagan
Nancy Davis Reagan is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and was First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989....
: The Unauthorized Biography. She was paid $3.5 million to write the book. The book claimed that the first lady
First Lady of the United States
First Lady of the United States is the title of the hostess of the White House. Because this position is traditionally filled by the wife of the president of the United States, the title is most often applied to the wife of a sitting president. The current first lady is Michelle Obama.-Current:The...
had engaged in multiple affairs with Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, that she frequently relied on astrology
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
, that she had lied about her age, and that she had a very poor relationship with her children, even alleging that she hit her daughter, Patti. The reliability and sources were questioned, but it was widely acknowledged that Kelly's book "was no more dishonest than the Reagans' own carefully groomed Norman Rockwell facade." As Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
magazine writer Michael Crowley said, "During the Reagan years Nancy cultivated an image as a doting wife and skillful hostess, a reputation Kelley mercilessly diced with the zest of a Benihana
Benihana
Benihana can refer to:*Benihana, Benihana's Hibachi Restaurant*Benihana * Benihana, the Japanese word for safflower...
chef."
The book endured far more scrutiny than any of Kelley's others. While the book's "thin sourcing and heavy innuendo" were criticized, Newsweek concluded, "Despite her wretched excesses, Kelley has the core of the story right. Even her staunchest defenders concede that Nancy Reagan is more Marie Antoinette than Mother Teresa." Media coverage included cover stories in Time magazine ("Is She Really That Bad?", referring to Nancy Reagan), Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly ("The Kitty and Nancy Show") and People magazine ("Inside Kitty's Dish"). Kelley was also spoofed on Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
. Kelley appeared on many news shows and interviews promoting the book, some of which were very critical. Regardless, the book was widely recognized as an important landmark in the field of biography: "In terms of publishing here, it is the biggest thing that has happened since Uncle Tom's Cabin."
Former President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
issued a brief statement, in which he said: "While I am accustomed to reports that stray from the truth, the flagrant and absurd falsehoods cited in a recently published book clearly exceed the bounds of decency. They are patently untrue–everything from the allegation of marijuana use [by Nancy and me] to marital infidelity to my failure to be present at the birth of my daughter Patti. Many of my friends have urged me to issue a point-by-point denial of the book's many outrages. To do so would, I feel, provide legitimacy to a book that has no basis in fact and serves no decent purpose."
Poison Pen
Partly as a result of Kelley's notoriety due to the Nancy Reagan book, she herself became the subject of a critical book, Poison Pen: The Unauthorized Biography of Kitty Kelley (1991), written by journalist George Carpozi, Jr.George Carpozi, Jr.
George Carpozi, Jr. was an American journalist, biographer and non-fiction author.-Early years:He was educated at James Monroe High School, New York University and Dartmouth College. He served in the US Marine Corps from 1943 until 1946...
Carpozi said that the book was "full of sex, sin, and scandal", reminiscent of Kelley's own work.
Upon the death of Lyle Stuart, the publisher of "Jackie Oh!", the Washington Post reported that Stuart had commissioned "Poison Pen" when Kelley left him for larger more lucrative publishers.
British Royal family and the Bush family
In September 1997, Kelley turned her attention to the British Royal FamilyBritish Royal Family
The British Royal Family is the group of close relatives of the monarch of the United Kingdom. The term is also commonly applied to the same group of people as the relations of the monarch in her or his role as sovereign of any of the other Commonwealth realms, thus sometimes at variance with...
in The Royals (Warner Books, New York, ISBN 0-446-51712-7). In the book, Kelley stated that the Windsors obscured their German ancestry and described scandals surrounding the members of the royal family.
The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty
The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty
The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty is a non-fiction book by the American investigative journalist Kitty Kelley. It was published on 14 September 2004, less than two months before the 2004 US Presidential election...
, was published on September 14, 2004, less than two months before the 2004 U.S. Presidential election. Kelley announced plans for the book shortly after George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
's election in 2001 and worked on it for four years. In "The Family", Kelley claimed that George W. Bush snorted cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
with his brothers at Camp David
Camp David
Camp David is the country retreat of the President of the United States and his guests. It is located in low wooded hills about 60 mi north-northwest of Washington, D.C., on the property of Catoctin Mountain Park in unincorporated Frederick County, Maryland, near Thurmont, at an elevation of...
during his father's presidency. Kelley cites Sharon Bush, the ex-wife of George W. Bush's brother Neil Bush
Neil Bush
Neil Mallon Bush is the fourth of six children of former President George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Bush . His five siblings are George Walker Bush, the former President of the United States; Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida; Robin Bush, who died of leukemia in 1953 at the age of...
, as her source for these statements, but Sharon Bush denied making the allegations.
Oprah Winfrey biography
On December 13, 2006, Crown announced that it would publish Kelley's unauthorized biography of Oprah WinfreyOprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...
. The 544-page book, Oprah: A Biography, was released by Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
on April 13, 2010. The New Yorker declared the biography "one of those King Kong vs. Godzilla events in celebrity culture."
Oprah dismissed the book as a "so-called biography," but did not otherwise comment.
Kelley claimed that Perdue Farms
Perdue Farms
Perdue Farms is a major chicken processing company based in Salisbury, Maryland, United States with annual sales in excess of $4.6B.-Origin and war era:...
CEO Frank Perdue
Frank Perdue
Franklin Parsons "Frank" Perdue , born in Salisbury, Maryland, was for many years the president and CEO of Perdue Farms, now one of the largest chicken-producing companies in the United States.-Career:...
called Winfrey a gorilla on TV in Baltimore. Kelley identified one of her sources by name as an associate producer of Oprah's show at the time. However, Winfrey’s former co-host Richard Sher
Richard Sher (newscaster)
Richard Sher is a longtime newscaster for WJZ-TV in Baltimore, Maryland. He plays a broadcaster in a cameo role in the 2006 Robin Williams movie Man of the Year....
claims that this anecdote is completely untrue and confronted Kelley over the supposed inaccuracy.
According to Kelley, Bill O'Reilly
Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)
William James "Bill" O'Reilly, Jr. is an American television host, author, syndicated columnist and political commentator. He is the host of the political commentary program The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel, which is the most watched cable news television program on American television...
phoned Winfrey to complain that she was too left-wing. However, when Kelley appeared on O’Reilly’s show, O'Reilly told her that no such phone call ever occurred and asked Kelley if she was bothered by the inaccuracy in the book. In the paperback edition of Oprah: A Biography, as during the TV confrontation with O'Reilly, Kelley stuck by her sources at his publisher.
Kelley also said that Winfrey’s 80-year-old cousin Katharine Esters told Kelley the secret identity of Winfrey’s biological father (which Kelley declined to disclose). Esters denied knowing this information; she claimed Kelley fabricated much of their conversation and that she only granted Kelley the interview because she was under the false impression that Kelley was working with Henry Louis Gates. Kelley challenged Esters' account. In an addition to the paperback edition of Kelley's book, Esters' daughter supports Kelley. Esters herself conceded that she did tell Kelley that Oprah lied about her history of sexual abuse and exaggerated the level of poverty she endured while growing up. Kelley claimed Oprah's father Vernon also wavered on Oprah's claim of molestation as well. Kelley, however, concluded that "her father and her Aunt Katharine are like the families of other sexual abuse victims; they’re in great denial. But I believe Oprah; she’s a woman who shows the scars of sexual abuse.”
The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
criticized Kelley for claiming in the book that she had 2,732 files on Winfrey, only to report the figure as 2,932 elsewhere in the book.
Kelley also was criticized for getting her facts wrong on basic historical details about the city of Baltimore at the time Winfrey worked there. She claimed that Winfrey was one of only two black women on Baltimore television at the time when, in fact, there were at least four. Kelley also mistakenly described the producer of a show competing against Winfrey’s as the community affairs director of Winfrey’s station.
Kelley claimed that Winfrey got the city of Chicago to build a parking lot for her plane, an allegation the mayor of Chicago denied
Perception of Kelley
Former President Ronald ReaganRonald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
described Kelley’s work as containing "flagrant and absurd falsehoods" that "exceed the bounds of decency" and Barbara Walters
Barbara Walters
Barbara Jill Walters is an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. She has hosted morning television shows , the television newsmagazine , former co-anchor of the ABC Evening News, and current contributor to ABC News.Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news...
said books like Kelley’s are all about finding dirt, not the truth. The New York Times claimed that Kelley "just aims for the jugular" and Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
claimed Kelley "wrote the kind of lies that sell books and newspapers and magazines."
Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine reported that most journalists believe Kelley "too frequently fails to bring perspective or analysis to the fruits of her reporting and at times lards her work with dollops of questionable inferences and innuendos." In addition, Kelley has been described by Joe Klein
Joe Klein
Joe Klein is a longtime Washington, D.C. and New York journalist and columnist, known for his novel Primary Colors, an anonymously written roman à clef portraying Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign. Klein is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a former Guggenheim...
as a "professional sensationalist" and her books have been described as "Kitty litter." Maureen Dowd
Maureen Dowd
Maureen Bridgid Dowd is a Washington D.C.-based columnist for The New York Times and best-selling author. During the 1970s and the early 1980s, she worked for Time magazine and the Washington Star, where she covered news as well as sports and wrote feature articles...
, who broke embargo to tout on the front page of the New York Times Kelley's revelations about Nancy Reagan, said "Kelley is a mean and greedy writer, so drunk on sensationalism that she lacks compassion and understanding."
Kelley's citations for her work have been known to raise questions. In her biography of Frank Sinatra, Kelley claimed to have interviewed actor Peter Lawford
Peter Lawford
Peter Sydney Ernest Aylen , better known as Peter Lawford, was an English-American actor.He was a member of the "Rat Pack", and brother-in-law to US President John F. Kennedy, perhaps more noted in later years for his off-screen activities as a celebrity than for his acting...
on several occasions including November 5 and 6 of 1984, even though Lawford lay on his death bed on these dates after part of his stomach was removed. Kelley also claimed to have interviewed Lawford on January 5, 1985, even though the actor had died in December 1984.
Lawsuits
Although Kitty Kelley claims she has never been sued according to the reporting of George Carpozi, Jr.George Carpozi, Jr.
George Carpozi, Jr. was an American journalist, biographer and non-fiction author.-Early years:He was educated at James Monroe High School, New York University and Dartmouth College. He served in the US Marine Corps from 1943 until 1946...
, Kitty Kelley was sued over the content of her book Jackie Oh!, and settled the suit out of court. Carpozi also reported that under questioning from her publisher Lyle Stuart, Kelley confessed to having made up an intimate exchange of words between Jacqueline Onassis and columnist Pete Hamill
Pete Hamill
Pete Hamill is an American journalist, novelist, essayist, editor and educator. Widely traveled and having written on a broad range of topics, he is perhaps best known for his career as a New York City journalist, as "the author of columns that sought to capture the particular flavors of New York...
in the manuscript of Jackie Oh!. Carpozi claims that Kelley faced legal consequences over her Elizabeth Taylor biography too, being compelled to delete disputed material and make substantial changes to what she had written when the book emerged in paperback.
In addition, Kelley's book “the Royals” was banned in Britain because it contained sensational assertions that Kelley would have reportedly been unable to defend in court, and the British media also found Kelley's claims too potentially libelous to report on.
Awards and Honors
Kelley has been widely recognized by her peers for her contributions to the genre of biography. She is a winner of the 2005 PEN Oakland Censorship Award and the Outstanding Author Award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors for her “courageous writing on popular culture.” She has received the Medal of Merit from the Lotos Club of New York City and was selected by Vanity Fair magazine for its Hall of Fame as part of the “Media Decade.”External links
- Kitty Kelley Official Website
- Kitty Kelley Facebook page
- "Unauthorized, But Not Untrue" by Kitty Kelley, The American Scholar
- "Everywoman: A Review of Oprah by Kitty Kelley" by J. J. Phillips, Konch Magazine
- "Movie on Oprah Winfrey Being Made Based on Bestselling Biography by Kitty Kelley"
- "'Oprah' Captures a Complex Personality and Life" Los Angeles Times
- "Celebrity Smackdown" The New Yorker
- "Kitty Kelley: Colonoscopist to the stars", Slate.com
- "The Cat that Roared" by Sally Denton
- New York Times Book Review, "The Family: 'Here Comes the Son'"
- Village Voice, "Kitty Galore"
- New York Times Book Review, "No stone unthrown"