Hack Literature: The Celebrity Story

I just finished reading The Bryan Ferry Story by Rex Balfour (1976), an unauthorised biography about my equal 1st favourite rock-star

For those of you that don’t know who Bryan Ferry is, he’s the front man of the 1970’s rock band/ art project Roxy Music, with a simultaneous solo career that’s been going on for about 35 years now. He was the guy who caused a bit of trouble about ten years ago when he was misrepresented as a Nazi sympathiser, when in fact he had just expressed a liking for the work of Leni Riefenstahl. Not the same thing, but deffinately not great publicity...

Whilst they may be no argument as to Ferry’s musical innovation, inspiration and slight genius, this biography portrays him as the mad stylish reclusive wizard who single handily invented music. An all-round toadying piece of fanatic clap trap.

Moreover, the book was written only three years into Ferry’s career and since then he’s had many more hits, fox-hunting children, divorces and affairs, not to mention the whole Nazi thing, and I can’t help but think ‘wouldn’t it have been better if they had waited?’

Something I have learnt about biographies is that they should be all about mystery, scandal and intrigue. A Kim Kardashian book would just not be interesting because we already know EVERYTHING about her. I don’t think there’s anything I could find out in a book about her and her deepest darkest personal life that I couldn’t find out by simply walking past a news agent. Her life is not so much as open book as it is a large billboard on Broadway, and I don’t care.

Biographies are also all about timing.

It’s strange when young or uninteresting celebrities get biographies about them before they’ve had enough life lived to fill them. I just looked on line and discovered that Justin Bieber has a biography, Justin Bieber: First Step 2 Forever- My Story. Isn’t he about five? To fill a 100+ page book he would have had to start doing coke and getting divorced in kindergarten. All I’m asking is wait until the story is at least two thirds through.

Having said that, it would be wrong to say that celebrities should put out biographies until they are dead, in fact it’s probably good that they don’t, because we know how the story ends and because it means that they can do a big old money grubbing sequel when their lives go to shit. Take for example Rolling Stones Guitarist mark III Ronny Wood, whose biography Ronny came out for Christmas 2007. Not even a year later later he was in rehab, on sabbatical from the Stones, broke and divorced living with a 21 years Old Russian model. I can’t wait to read about that in Ronny 2: Oops, my bad.

I picked up where The Bryan Ferry Story ended in 1975 with another book, the autobiography of his erstwhile fiancé Jerry Hall, Telling Tall Tales. In this ‘book’ Hall goes into great detail about the cuckolding she did to poor Bryan with Mick Jagger, as well as everything she didn’t like about Ferry and how mean he was. Not only was this the airing dirty laundry to the equivalent of putting shitty undies on your doorknob, but it made her come off as a naive, foolish, mean, vain and self-sensationalising moron, which is a shame because I actually like her. Tell all, but don’t be cruel, or people will laugh derisively at the fact that the perfect home life you were so happy about by the end of your book will end in within 20 years.

By contrast Keith Richard’s Life is a beautiful book, one of the best autobiographies I’ve read. It’s told in the spare and wandering style of Richard’s own words, which aren’t half as confused as one would expect. Love, fame, fall-outs, appalling excess and deaths creep into the narrative in a quiet, funny way without wallowing in appalling excess or praising his fortunes. Richard’s neither attempts to rationalise or descends to self-pity.

In short, I would advise you to read this book, and if you are a celebrity considering a biography, I would advise you to wait for your life to become more interesting and so that the disadvantages of hindsight don’t come back to bite you in the arse. I would also recommend a good ghost writer, my services are available.