Catty Kitty With Gossip Monger Kitty Kelley In Town, Sample These Morsels From Her Bestsellers
In the rarified world of celebrity journalism, Spokane native Kitty Kelley is a phenomenon. She is one of a handful of “unauthorized” biographers who boasts a recognizable name.
You know you’ve arrived when your very name identifies immediately the kind of work you do. What else, after all, but gossip could be meant by the label “Kitty-Kelleyesque”?
The secret of Kelley’s success is simple: Exhaustive research mixed with an uncanny talent for ferreting out and passing on the ugliest, nastiest, sleaziest rumors imaginable. Some are even true.
But true or not, the reading public is receptive to the dirt that Kelley dishes. Her latest book, “The Royals,” had a 1 million-strong first printing that reportedly earned the former Lilac Princess a $4.5 million advance.
So, all indications are that a healthy crowd should show up at Auntie’s Bookstore at 7:30 tonight to hear Kelley read from her take on the dysfunctional Windsors.
As a preview of the event, we offer the following snippets from “The Royals” and two of Kelley’s other best-sellers, “His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra” and “Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography.”
It should give you some idea of what to expect. We call it Kitty’s closet of sleazy secrets:
Chapter One
In the Family Way
From “His Way”
Frank Sinatra’s mother, nicknamed “Hat Pin Dolly,” supplemented the family income by performing abortions.
From “Nancy Reagan”
Reagan’s mother, Edie, “had the foulest mouth in the world and she told the dirtiest, filthiest jokes you ever heard in your life.”
From “The Royals”
The Queen Mother, so goes one story, was the result of an affair between her father, the 14th Earl of Strathamore, and a Welsh maid who worked at Glamis Castle in Scotland.
Chapter Two
Everybody’s a Movie Critic
“The Royals”
“A movie like ‘Schindler’s List’ just incites morbid curiosity,” Princess Margaret told her butler. “I couldn’t stand it. It was so thoroughly unpleasant and disgusting that I had to get up and leave.”
“Nancy Reagan”
Jane Wyman divorced Ronald Reagan because, she told Gregory Peck, “I just couldn’t stand to watch that damn ‘King’s Row’ one more time.”’
“His Way”
Roger Ebert blamed the box-office failure of the film “Dirty Dingus Magee” on Sinatra, writing that he’s “notorious for not really caring about his movies. If a shot doesn’t work, he doesn’t like to try it again; he might be late getting back to Vegas.”
Chapter Three
No Sex, Please, We’re Celebrities
“Nancy Reagan”
“Ronnie liked the big, outdoor Pasadena Rose Bowl Parade queen type of woman,” said Doris Lilly, author of “How to Marry a Millionaire.” “I know because I was one of them.”
“His Way”
“The problems were never in the bedroom,” Ava Gardner said of her marriage to Sinatra. “We were always great in bed. The trouble usually started on the way to the bidet.”
“The Royals”
In describing Princes Charles’ longtime love, Camilla Parker Bowles, a former private secretary of Lord Mountbatten said, “She was perfect for him - horsey and accommodating. Charles is like all Windsor men. … They like women who look like men. Long legs in riding breeches. They want their tarts to look like their horses.”
Chapter Four
The Notable Demise
“The Royals”
The death of England’s King George V was “hastened” when a courtier gave him a lethal injection of cocaine and morphine “so that his death could be announced in the morning Times rather than the less prestigious afternoon papers.”
“Nancy Reagan”
Reagan’s father wanted to die at home, and his doctor tried to arrange the old man’s last request. Reagan insisted that the doctor resign. Her father died several days later - at Scottsdale Memorial Hospital.
“His Way”
Sinatra’s mother, Dolly, died when the Learjet in which she was flying smashed into a mountain outside Los Angeles. A rescuer, circling the snow-covered peak in a rescue plane, “spotted Dolly’s large muumuu dress hanging from a tree.”
Chapter Five
Family Resemblance
“His Way”
Sinatra on his son: “He’s so like me it’s frightening.”
“The Royals”
Princess Diana on her son, Prince William: “She bragged that at thirteen he was ‘taller than his father … and so very different.”’
“Nancy Reagan”
Patti Davis on her look at age 13: “My hair was parted way over on one side, hanging in my face. I had on thick, black eye makeup and white lipstick, and my skirt was so short and tight I could hardly walk. Mom and Dad gasped as they walked to meet me …”
Chapter Six
A Celebrity by Any Other Name …
“His Way”
Sinatra had bodyguards named Joe Tomatoes and Jerry the Crusher.
“Nancy Reagan”
Ron Reagan’s nickname is “Skipper.”
“The Royals”
When anti-German bias swept over England during World War I, King George V’s cousin, Prince Louis of Battenberg, was forced to anglicize his surname - to Mountbatten.
Chapter Seven
Plight of the Clueless
“The Royals”
When asked whether she had made phone calls to a reported lover from public phone booths, Princess Diana bristled. “I don’t even know how to use a parking meter, let alone a phone box,” she said.
“Nancy Reagan”
During a 1980 interview, “Today” host Tom Brokaw said that, with a net worth of $3 million, the Reagans were among the “very prosperous, upper middle class.” Nancy Reagan, wearing a $950 suit, replied, “Are we?”
“His Way”
Sinatra on psychoanalysis: “I’ve never gone in for that analysis bit and I don’t intend to start now. All I know is that I’m feelin’ great, and I’m not askin’ myself why. … So long as I keep busy I feel great.”
Chapter Eight
Temper, Temper
“Nancy Reagan”
A friend of Patti Davis remembers her as a girl running to a neighbors’ house, “her face bruised and bleeding. She’d be crying, ‘Help, help! She’s doing it again.’ Her mother had just smashed her in the face with a hairbrush because she hadn’t done her homework or cleaned her room.”
“His Way”
Insisting that he wanted a different waiter, Sinatra “emphasized” his point at a New York restaurant by tipping over a table, “splashing drinks and crashing plates and glasses to the floor.”
“The Royals”
When a security-minded U.S. Secret Service agent refused his order to drive away, Prince Philip smacked the agent in the head with a rolled-up magazine. “I’m fed up to the teeth with your bloody security,” he snarled. “Move this … car and move it now!”
Chapter Nine
They Hate Me, They Really, Really Hate Me
“Nancy Reagan”
“I’m getting terrible press,” Reagan told her astrologer. “It’s so unfair. I want to be loved. … I’m really a very nice person. Can you tell me what to do?”
“His Way”
Sinatra regularly terrorized Las Vegas’ casino employees. So much so that after knocking out two of Sinatra’s teeth in a fight, Carl Cohen, the Sands’ executive vice president, was championed on posters proclaiming “Elect Carl Cohen Mayor.”
“The Royals”
“All the Windsors are mean as cat’s piss,” said one ex-Windsor employee. “All of them - from the Queen on down, and she’s the leader of the miserly lot.”
Chapter 10
I Love You Dear, But …
“The Royals”
Prince Charles, pointing to food on the plate of the bulimic Princess Diana at dinner time: “Is that going to reappear later? What a waste.”
“His Way”
Sinatra to third wife Mia Farrow after she sheared off her trademark long hair: “It’s terrific. Now you can go out for Little League like the rest of the boys!”
“Nancy Reagan”
Reagan began indulging an “obvious” infatuation with Frank Sinatra when her husband was governor of California. “Even the governor’s staff noticed how she took every opportunity to be in his presence and how she flushed with excitement whenever he entered the room. … Frank Sinatra acted like a dog marking his territory.”
Epilogue
What’s Good for the Goose …
From “Poison Pen,” George Carpozi Jr.’s 1991 “unauthorized” biography of Kitty Kelley: In regaling readers with tales of Kelley’s alleged sexual escapades, Carpozi writes that, “Before the editors and staff on the (Washington) Post had ever become acquainted with the body of her work, they knew the work of her body.”
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