Press Release: Oprah Winfrey Biography by Kitty Kelley
THE CROWN PUBLISHING GROUP
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: David Drake
The Crown Publishing Group
1745 Broadway
New York, NY 10019
t. 212-782-9001
e. ddrake [at] randomhouse [dot]com
OPRAH WINFREY BIOGRAPHY BY # 1 BESTSELLING INVESTIGATIVE BIOGRAPHER KITTY KELLEY TO BE PUBLISHED BY CROWN APRIL 13, 2010
NEW YORK, NY (January 21, 2010) – The highly anticipated biography of Oprah Winfrey by Kitty Kelley, America’s bestselling investigative biographer, will be published on Tuesday, April 13, 2010, by Crown Publishers with a first printing in excess of a half-million copies. Titled Oprah: A Biography, Ms. Kelley’s book will be released in the U.S. and Canada simultaneously in hardcover, audio, and electronic formats. The announcement was made today by Tina Constable, Vice President, Publisher, Crown Publishers.
Ms. Kelley’s four previous books, chronicling the lives of the Bush dynasty (The Family, 2004); the British royal family (The Royals, 1997); Nancy Reagan (Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography, 1991); and Frank Sinatra (His Way: An Unauthorized Biography Of Frank Sinatra, 1986), each debuted at # 1 on the New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction bestseller list. Her other biographies, Elizabeth Taylor: The Last Star (1981) and Jackie Oh! (1978), also were New York Times bestsellers. Her books have been published in 36 foreign languages.
Ms. Kelley completed her 544-page book earlier this month. During her three years of research and reporting she conducted 850 interviews with sources, many of whom have never before spoken for publication about Ms. Winfrey.
“We are excited to be publishing the first comprehensive biography of one of the most influential, powerful, and admired public figures of our time, by the most widely read biographer of our era,” said Constable. “Anyone who is a fan of Oprah Winfrey or who has followed her extraordinary life and career will be fascinated and newly informed by the closely observed, detailed, and well-rounded portrait of her provided by Kitty Kelley’s exhaustively researched book. Readers will come away with a greater appreciation of who Oprah really is beyond her public persona and a fuller understanding of her important place in American cultural history.”
Among the awards that Kitty Kelley has been honored with by her professional peers are the Outstanding Author Award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors for her “courageous writing on popular culture”; the Philip M. Stern Award for her “Outstanding Service to writers and the writing profession”; the Medal of Merit from the Lotus Club in New York City; and the 2005 PEN Oakland Literary Censorship Award. She has also been selected as a member of Vanity Fair magazine’s Hall of Fame. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, People, Ladies’ Home Journal, McCall’s, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune.
• Follow Kitty Kelley on Twitter: @KittyKelley