My story... so far
BORN in London, I was raised in the tiny hamlet of Harold Hill, Essex and educated at a Jesuits boys' grammar school. 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.
On leaving school, I worked as a researcher for Jeremy Beadle for many years. My own first book - 50 Fantastic Hits - was published when I was 24. I have since written 21 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 personality obituaries Fade To Black (2000, 2003, 2005 and 2010, which is published in America and Australia as well as the UK); a guide to the films of Marilyn Monroe (2000); Essex Murders (2007), a book about homicide in that 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) which spent several weeks in the Top 10 of The Sunday Times non-fiction best-seller list; Arsenal On This Day (2009) and Cricket On This Day (2009).
On 4 October 2010, three books in a new in-depth trivia series of "Firsts, Lasts & Onlys"® on the subjects of cricket, football and golf were published by Hamlyn. There is a dedicated website for these books and others in the series, which can be found here. As well as the United Kingdom, my books have been published in Australia and America and I am popular in eastern Europe where my work has appeared in Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia and Poland. In 2011, 501 Most Notorious Crimes was published in Brazil.
I have contributed many other books including: 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 Showbusiness Homicides: An Encyclopedia 1908-2009 by David K. Frasier (2011).
In the mid-1980s I wrote many of the questions for the television quiz show Pass the Buck (hosted by George Layton for Thames Television). I also wrote a number of unbroadcast shows - you could say I have been involved with more pilots than a kamikaze squadron. Of the shows that did make the air, I wrote for Ultra Quiz (TVS, 1983), Jeremy Beadle's Today's The Day (TV-am, 1984), Today's The Day (BBC, 1995) and University Challenge (Granada for BBC, 1999).
I was the editor of Crime Stories, Man About Town and M-Zone. I have worked for several magazines and newspapers including The Sunday Telegraph, The Daily Telegraph, The Sun, Daily Mail (where for two years I was stand-in editor on the gossip column Wicked Whispers), OK! (where I was a columnist for three years), Sunday Express, Punch (where I was a reporter-feature writer and occasional stand-in deputy editor), Idols, Maxim, For Women, Video World, Hotel & Caterer, City AM (where I was the chief sub editor), thelondonpaper and, most recently Master Detective where I have written "Paul Donnelley's Murder Month", a column on criminal history, since August 2008.
I am a member of the National Union of Journalists and the Society of Authors
I divide my time between a book-lined flat in England and a home in Algeria and am presently at work on a number of non-fiction books.
© Gordon Hawtin, 2008
"Firsts, Lasts & Onlys" is a registered trademark of Paul Donnelley. Any infringement will be vigorously pursued.