Jeff Lenburg
Quick Facts
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Biography
Jeff Lenburg (born 5 March 1956) is an American author, celebrity biographer, interviewer, and writer-producer. He has written more than 35 award-winning books, including celebrity memoirs and biographies, entertainment histories, and popular references.
Career
Lenburg has written 18 acclaimed celebrity memoirs and biographies including Renegade at Heart, the autobiography of actor Lorenzo Lamas (of TV's Renegade and Falcon Crest fame), How to Make a Million Dollars with Your Voice (Or Lose Your Tonsils Trying), with radio/TV legend Gary Owens, and All the Gold in California and Other People, Places & Things, the autobiography of Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter Larry Gatlin.
Other notable biographies:
- Peekaboo: The Story of Veronica Lake: a biography of the famous '40s star Veronica Lake
- Dudley Moore: An informal biography: A biography of English actor, comedian, and musician Dudley Moore
- Dustin Hoffman: Hollywood's Antihero: the first biography ever written about this Oscar-winning actor Dustin Hoffman
- Steve Martin: An Unauthorized Biography: a biography of American actor/comedian Steve Martin
His book Legends of Animation (June 2011) chronicles the lives of Hollywood's most famous animators such as Tex Avery, Walt Disney, William Hanna, Joseph Barbera, Matt Groening, Walter Lantz, John Lasseter, Hayao Miyazaki, and Genndy Tartakovsky.
He has also co-authored two books about Three Stooges comedy actors—Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Joe Besser, and Joe DeRita.
Besides writing about film and television figures, Lenburg has also interviewed other movers-and-shakers including baseball players George Brett and Nolan Ryan, tennis player Chris Evert, former First Lady Betty Ford, and controversial and former New York policeman Frank Serpico.
In 1995, Lenburg published his first novel Scared to Death: A Lori Matrix Hollywood Mystery, a classic Hollywood "whodunit".
Television appearances
Lenburg has appeared on such television shows as Today (1982), Showbiz Today(1993), Good Morning Arizona (2000), and The Pat McMahon Show (2004).
In 2008, he was featured—alongside Pete Docter, Will Finn, Michael Giaimo, and others—in Picture Perfect: The Making of Sleeping Beauty, a short documentary in which artists, collaborators, and historians reflect on the making of Walt Disney's 1959 animation Sleeping Beauty.
In 2013, Lenburg was featured in Lawrence Shapiro-directed documentary I Know That Voice.
Personal life
Lenburg was born on March 5, 1956. He is a graduate of Fullerton College, Fullerton, California, which once awarded him the "Journalism Alumnus of the Year Award."
He resides near Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife Debby.