Geoffrey Giuliano

Geoffrey Giuliano
Born (1953-09-11) September 11, 1953 (age 71)
Rochester, New York, U.S.
Occupation
  • author
Websitewww.geoffreygiuliano.com

Geoffrey Giuliano (born September 11, 1953)[1] is an American author of biographies of rock musicians.

Literary work

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Giuliano has written extensively on popular music, particularly the Beatles. By 1999, he had authored 20 books, including Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison (1990) and Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney (1991).

In an interview for The Guardian in September 1992, Giuliano offended George Harrison's wife Olivia by referring to the Beatles as "real shits in real life" and dismissing Paul McCartney as "just shallow and vacuous".[2] On October 5 that year, The Guardian published a letter from Olivia Harrison in which she wrote that "like a starving dog he [Giuliano] scavenges his heroes, picking up bits of gristle and sinew along the way."[3][4] She also complained about Giuliano's use of a quote by Harrison on the cover of Dark Horse, saying: "My husband once made the remark: 'That guy knows more about my life than I do.' Giuliano missed the joke and used it to endorse his book."[4] When interviewed in Los Angeles on December 14, 1992, Harrison said of Giuliano: "Yeah, I met him briefly. I have no way of recalling what year it was. I met him at the home of "Legs" Larry Smith for possibly thirty minutes."[5]


Giuliano's biography of John Lennon, Lennon in America: 1971–1980 (Cooper Square Press, 2000), was controversial. Giuliano said the book was based in part on transcripts of Lennon's diaries given to him by the late American singer Harry Nilsson and on audio tapes recorded by Lennon. Several people close to Nilsson said they did not believe that he ever had the transcripts in his possession; others familiar with the journal and the tapes disputed the accuracy of Giuliano's interpretation.[6] Writing in The Washington Post, David Segal described Giuliano's text as "a highly critical, luridly detailed account"; he quoted Giuliano's response when he was asked to corroborate his claim that Nilsson gave him the diaries: "It's obvious that I'm going to do things in an ethical manner." Steven Gutstein, a former New York assistant district attorney who read the diaries during an early 1980s larceny lawsuit, recalled that they contained "a lot of philosophical musings combined with mundane details of everyday life".[7] Colin Carlson of Library Journal said of Lennon in America, "Non-fans will be put off by this image of Lennon as cad, drug addict, and paranoiac; this often sensationalized account is for voyeurs and fans with deconstructive tendencies and is one of the best, most detailed books available on this subject."[8] Less impressed, a Publishers Weekly reviewer commented, "If Giuliano's own double-talk isn't enough to diminish this work's credibility, his endless, voyeuristic descriptions of Lennon's sexual encounters are."[9]

Selected bibliography

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  • Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison (1990)
  • Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney (1991)
  • The Lost Beatles Interviews (1994)
  • Paint It Black: The Murder of Brian Jones (1994)
  • Behind Blue Eyes: The Life of Pete Townshend (1996)[10]
  • Lennon in America: 1971–1980, Based in Part on the Lost Lennon Diaries (2000)

Films and other media

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He had a role in Scorpion King 3 and the costume drama Vikingdom. In 2021 he played "VIP #4" in Squid Games.

The 2005 film Stoned: The Wild & Wicked World of Brian Jones was "based on and inspired by" theee book, one of which was Guiliano's Paint It Black: The Murder of Brian Jones.[11][12]

References

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  1. ^ tell Tell Me What You See - Biography - A Brief Life Sketch of Geoffrey Giuliano/Jagannatha Dasa, downloaded from internet on May 13, 2011
  2. ^ Badman, Keith (2001). The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After the Break-Up 1970–2001. London: Omnibus Press. p. 486. ISBN 978-0-7119-8307-6.
  3. ^ Woodward, Will (December 31, 1999). "'Mrs George' Shares Husband's Interests". The Guardian. Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  4. ^ a b Badman 2001, p. 487.
  5. ^ Glass Onion: The Beatles in Their Own Words by Geoffrey Giuliano and Vrnda Devi, Da Capo Press, published 1999, pp. 179-180.
  6. ^ Heaney, James (May 28, 2000). "Lennon, Imagined". The Buffalo News. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  7. ^ Segal, David (April 18, 2000). "Lennon's Disputed Days in the Life; Yoko Ono Spokesman Rejects as 'Fiction' Bio Allegedly Based on Ex-Beatle's Lost Diaries". The Washington Post. p. C01. Archived from the original on September 13, 2017. Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  8. ^ Book Review, Lennon in America, Library Journal, May 1, 2000
  9. ^ Book Review, Lennon in America, Publishers Weekly, May 1, 2000
  10. ^ "Audio Book Review: GEORGE HARRISON: A Tribute by Geoffrey Giuliano, Author, Geoffrey Giuliano, Narrated by, Various, Read by , read by the author. Random $18 (0p) ISBN 978-0-553-52589-2".
  11. ^ Stoned (movie review) March 24, 2006]
  12. ^ Stephen Wooley on Stoned by Chris Payne, Channel4.com
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