Review: Celebrity Anecdotes- Volume 1

Gathering material from newspapers, magazines, books, websites, DVDs, television shows, and other sources, the author devotes a few pages to each celebrity, wherein we learn about their origins, nicknames, rumored romances, family life, key credits, life in their quotations, and the anecdotes or amusing stories about each one.

Reading about Cher we learn that she was born Cherilyn Sarkisian after Lana Turner’s lesbian daughter, Cheryl Crane. According to a quote attributed to Cher, she once stated that “I’d wake up and have this fear of not knowing where I was."-on learning that she had spent time in an orphanage and lived with foster parents until the age of three." Her frankness and candor come across very clearly when clashing with director Peter Bogdanovich while filming Mask, when she said “I’m only difficult if you’re an idiot."

You may hate Simon Cowell of American Idol, however, you have to admit his one line zingers can be quite creative, although downright nasty.

Cowell has been given the nicknames, Mr. Nasty, Mr. Mean and Judge Dread as he utters such insults as “you don’t need a judge-you need an exorcist."

However, Cowell is not immune from experiencing some embarrassing moments. One evening, a couple approached him outside of an exclusive restaurant in Los Angeles, while he was smoking a cigarette and sheltering himself from the rain. Cowell was sure they were about to ask him for his autograph, however, apparently they thought he was a beggar and offered him a couple of bucks.

This is a fun book and at times an utterly engrossing read providing us with a window into the zany lives of some of our favorite actors and actresses.

You may ask, as the author mentions in the introduction, is all of the material really true? Perhaps, however, as pointed out, none of the book’s major sources has been sued in court on a regular basis. I look forward to reading the next volume in the series.