User:Nedbarrett/James Spada

James Spada

James Spada is an author, publisher and photographer who has produced two dozen books over the past thirty-five years. He has had three New York Times bestsellers, including his biographies of Grace Kelly and Peter Lawford. He has written both intimate text-only biographies and illustrated coffee-table books.

Early Life

As a thirteen-year-old kid in Staten Island, James Spada started the first Marilyn Monroe Memorial Fan Club. He produced four bulletins and one yearbook a year for four years, when he had to disband the club due to lack of money. In college he founded EMK: The Edward M. Kennedy Quarterly, and worked as an intern in Senator Kennedy’s Boston office in 1970.

Life as and Author and Photographer

At 23 his first book, Barbra: The First Decade--The Films and Career of Barbra Streisand, was published. He followed that up with the authorized book The Films of Robert Redford. He went on to write illustrated coffee-table books about Streisand, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Midler, Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty, and Jane Fonda.

In 1987 his first non-pictorial biography, Grace: The Secret Lives of a Princess, became a major international bestseller. He followed that up with intimate biographies of Peter Lawford, Bette Davis, Barbra Streisand, and Julia Roberts.

His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, People, Ladies Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, The New York Times Book Review, McCall’s, the Los Angeles Times, the London Sunday Express, and many other publications.

In 2010 his first work of fiction, Days When My Heart was Volcanic—A Novel of Edgar Allan Poe, was published. In recent years he has become equally renowned as a photographer of the male nude. His first collection, Black & White Men, was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award as the Best Visual Arts Book of 2000.

Celebrity Biographies

James Spada's celebrity biographies include:

• Captain and Tennille (Rock 'n pop stars) (Creative Education 1978)
• Streisand: The Woman and the Legend (Comet; New edition edition September 15, 1983)
• The Films of Robert Redford (Lyle Stuart March, 1984)
• The Divine Bette Midler (Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Company; 1st Collier Books edition 1984)
• Judy and Liza (Doubleday February, 1986)
• Grace - The Secret Lives of a Princess. An Intimate Biography of Grace Kelly (dolphin books; 1st edition 1987)
• Barbra: The First Decade, the Films and Career of Barbra Streisand (Citadel Press March, 1990)
• Peter Lawford, The Man Who Kept the Secrets (Bantam July 1, 1992)
• More Than a Woman: An Intimate Biography of Bette Davis (Bantam September 1, 1994)
• Streisand: Her Life (Random House Value Publishing October 15, 1997)
• Julia: Her Life (February 1, 2004)
• Days When My Heart Was Volcanic: A Novel of Edgar Allan Poe (CreateSpace August 28, 2010)

Photography Books

James Spada's collections of photography include:

• Monroe: Her Life in Pictures (Main Street Books July 2, 1982)
• Hepburn: Her Life in Pictures (Bookthrift Co; 1 edition October 1984)
• Fonda, Her Life in Pictures (Doubleday Books (October 1985)
• Black and White Men (Bookazine Company; 1st edition October 30, 2000)
• Ronald Reagan: His Life in Pictures (December 31, 2000)
• Jackie: Her Life in Pictures (St. Martin's Griffin May 19, 2001)
• John and Caroline: Their Lives in Pictures (St. Martin's Griffin July 8, 2002)
• The Bush Family : Four Generations of History in Photographs (August 1, 2004)
• Edwardian Men: Photographs by James Spada (Pond Street Press; First Edition edition August, 2004)

External Links

• http://www.jamesspadashollywood.com