Kitty Kelley

“Joe Biden was a lot more careful around the press after this 1974 profile.”

The real story of a biographer in a celebrity culture of public denials, media timidity, and legal threats. “Even after all these years I’m still not comfortable with the term unauthorized, because it sounds so nefarious, almost as if it involves breaking and entering. Admittedly, biography by its very nature is an invasion of a life—an intimate examination by the biographer, who burrows deeper and deeper to probe the unknown, reveal the unseen, illuminate the unexpected. Despite my discomfort with the word, I firmly believe that unauthorized biography can be a public service and a boon to history.”