Matt Thorne is an expert compiler of abstruse trivia. Reading Famous, you get the sense that famous folk, their riches insulating them from real life, behave more bizarrely than ordinary folk. They 'go haywire, start doing really weird things'.
Sinatra and Elvis: Recluses of the Night
Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, for example, stopped witnessing daylight. They slept all day and were on stage at night, 'obnoxious and heavily medicated', in Elvis's case. At a convention centre in Miami, half the seats were removed so Elvis wouldn't notice it wasn't a sold-out crowd.
Competitiveness Among Stars
Competitiveness is a common occurrence. Prince played 21 nights at the O2 Arena, so Michael Jackson planned 50 dates, except he died before he could perform there. Tina Turner and David Bowie vied for the role of the Acid Queen in Ken Russell's Tommy.
Censorious View of Bad Behaviour
Thorne's expansive history of pop is rather censorious about bad behaviour. Sinatra today looks like a 'sexist dinosaur'. He was also a coward, dodging the war, citing an ear injury and agoraphobia. Fearful some genuine ex-serviceman would lob a grenade at him when he appeared in concert, Frank surrounded himself with 32 armed policemen and four burly bodyguards.
Elvis, who did serve in the army, nevertheless in his films is also chauvinistic – spanking girls or throwing them in the sea: 'On you, wet is my favourite colour.' Paul McCartney once said that if you're famous, 'you could ask someone to take their top off and they would do it'.
Academic Insights and Denunciations
Thorne teaches 'creative writing' at London University's Royal Holloway college, so maybe this is the nonsense academics are obliged to come out with. He's on firmer ground denouncing Kanye West for wallowing in swastika and Nazi imagery. Chuck Berry is likewise treated to worthwhile denunciation. Chuck spent two years in prison for having sex with a 14-year-old girl.
Madonna Defence
Thorne does leap chivalrously to Madonna's defence, when David Letterman had the cheek to introduce her on his talk show as having 'slept with some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry'.
I had my own (long distance) encounter with Madonna when her company, Maverick, bought my Peter Sellers biography, eventually co-producing an award-winning biopic with HBO, starring Geoffrey Rush. When the film was shown on Polish television last year, I received 23p.
Conclusion
To a celebrity, says Thorne, there is no limit to the hunger, greed, ego, envy and ambition. Thorne is so knowledgeable about all these pop and rock musicians, anyone less knowledgeable may feel left out. However, when the likes of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger disappear, Professor Thorne will be on hand to effect with brilliance their scholarly resurrection.
