The Enduring Appeal Of The Celebrity Memoir
Becoming a writer has never been more popular, so it's not surprising that every celebrity is writing a book. But we also can't stop ourselves from reading them.
By Olivia Allen
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Published
In the age of oversharing and #relatablecontent, one literary form reigns supreme: the celebrity memoir. With Julia Fox's Down the Drain seen on every esoteric Christmas gift guide and in the hands of every hot guy or girl on either side of the Atlantic, there is no escape. Despite the current bout of salacious celeb media, the appetite for drama is nothing new, with the prying masses craning for further information behind the glitz and glamor for years gone past. From fading Hollywood starlets to the all-American stars of the aughts and up to the insta-icons of today, the appeal of the tell-all endures, weaving its charm through the tides of evolving culture.
As humans, we’re always desperate to know more, desperate to be in on the drama. The intrigue of the celebrity story is a tale as old as time and as long as there’s been a spotlight, people have been keen to see into the shadows. However, as with any art form, the genre has its trailblazers. One of the first to lay it all on the line, the glamorous and dramatic Tallulah Bankhead paved the way with her snappily titled Tallulah: My Autobiography. In it, Bankhead narrated the ups and downs of her drama-filled life against a backdrop of run ins with Cary Grant and Joan Collins, interjecting iconic musings such as “I sniffed stardom, but my nose betrayed me” while reflecting on the fickle beast of show business and the Golden Age of Hollywood.
To a modern audience, au fait with knowing the ins and outs of every celeb’s sex life, Ms. Bankhead's account may not be particularly scandalous, but her candid writing laid the groundwork for the countless My Storys to come. At the conception of the modern “celebrity,” Bankhead demonstrated that famous people are just like us! They’re fallible and fuck up, she shed the facade and spelt out the grisly truth behind the glam.