Author Information:

A Londoner by birth and an Essex man by choice, aged 15, I wrote a quiz for the late Jeremy Beadle on the London radio station LBC. Two years later, I was the biggest outside contributor to the best-selling "Hunter Davies's Bigger Book of British Lists". My own first book - "50 Fantastic Hits" - was published when I was 24. I have since written 29 books, often with a showbusiness theme. I am the author of biographies of Julia Roberts (2003) and Judy Garland (2007); a history of television scandal ("TV Babylon" in 1997); four editions of a best-selling encyclopaedia of film stars "Fade To Black" (2000, 2003, 2005, 2010); a guide to the films of Marilyn Monroe (2000); "Essex Murders" (2007), a book about homicide in my county for which I also took many of the photographs; "Assassins and Assassinations" (2008), a look at 25 of the most notorious plots; "The Arsenal Companion" (2008), the first of two books on the north London footballing giants; "501 Most Notorious Crimes" (2009); "Arsenal On This Day" (2009) and "Cricket On This Day" (2009). In 2010, Hamlyn published the first in a series of in-depth trivia books "Firsts, Lasts & Onlys®: Cricket (2010), Football (2010), and Golf (2010). In 2015 Pitch published the sixth in the series, on rugby. My 30th book will be published in time for Christmas 2022. I have contributed to the following books: Hunter Davies's Bigger Book of British Lists (1982); Poison Pen The Unauthorised Biography of Kitty Kelley by George Carpozi Jr (1992); Clinton Confidential The Climb To Power: The Unauthorised Biography of Bill and Hillary Clinton by George Carpozi Jr (1995); Tom Jones: Close Up by Lucy Ellis and Bryony Sutherland (2000); The Pocket Essential Marx Brothers by Mark Bego (2001), White Slave: The Autobiography by Marco Pierre White and James Steen (2006) and The Kitchen Magpie by James Steen (2014).