DAVID BRET: BIOGRAPHER - BROADCASTER - RACONTEUR - CHANSONNIER - PLAYWRIGHT - SCREENWRITER

Updated August 2008 "I have written about war, I have sung about war. Now for the first time in my life, someone dear to me is fighting in a war and until he returns home safely he will be constantly in my thoughts. When will they ever learn?"   For V.... Born in Paris, France, 8 November 1954, David Bret is Britain's leading authority on the chanson, and one of the country's leading and most respected celebrity biographers. His work concentrates mainly on the French and British music-halls, and Hollywood icons. Bret did a variety of jobs--including work psychology, and singing in the tough working men's clubs of Northern England--before publishing his first book in 1988. Popular with "the trade" Bret counts/counted amongst his friends and admirers: Marlene Dietrich, Barbara, Dorothy Squires, Betty Mars, Michel Guyarmathy, Jacqeline Danno, Melina Mercouri, Peggy Lee, Alice Sapritch, Amalia Rodrigues, Maria da Fe and half the fado population of Lisbon, Elizabeth Welch, Dinah Sheridan, Marion Montgomery, Elaine Paige, Montserrat Caballe, Serge Reggiani, Roger Normand, Damia, Kirsty McColl, Charley Marouani...Greta Garbo, and H M the Queen Mother...and legendary gay porn star, Joey Stefano. These people praise him highly and have dedications in his books. David Bret is a vociferous opponent of racism, anti-Semitism and all forms of ethnic prejudice. His books bear his motto, "La vie c'est comme un jardin sans fleurs" (Life without friends is like a garden without flowers) and are additionally inscribed in support of "Les enfants de novembre", by way of the chanson, the oppressed minorities of the world. He has published 20 best-selling biographies, produced a CD for Marlene Dietrich, lectured on Rudolph Valentino in Chicago, made many television documentaries and over 600 radio broadcasts. Most of his books have been serialised in major newspapers. He has written three as yet unpublished stageplays, and two screenplays. He lives in the North of England with his wife and mostly four-legged family. The subjects of David Bret's books are diverse. In Rock Hudson he claims that Hudson did not contract AIDS by way of sex, but by way of a blood transfusion during open heart surgery. In Morrissey: Landscapes of The Mind he panders to the mostly half-crazed fans of the enigmatic ex-Smiths frontman, eager not to upset their biased impression of the singer--but more than makes up for this by allowing the singer to out himself in Morrissey: Scandal & Passion. Morrissey had wished for a previous biographer to die in a hotel fire, but he approved of Bret's acerbic wit, on a par with his own, saying "I would like to dust him down and stick him on my mantelshelf." Bret incensed some of the diehard George Formby fans with revelations of the entertainer's womanising. The George Formby Society, attacking Bret for calling Formby "a gay icon"--they assumed the writer was addressing Formby as gay, which was not the case--urged their members to boycott the book, resulting in a quadrupling of sales. The Sunday tabloids, upon reading of Gracie Fields' extra-marital affairs in Bret's fully authorised biography labelled her, a little strongly perhaps, "The Madonna of her day." The snootier element of Maria Callas's fanbase (TheTigress & The Lamb) were similarly disapproving. Did the world need know that the greatest diva of all time had a yen for gay lovers, simply because she welcomed the challenge of attempting to turn them straight--or that she washed her hair over the side of the bathtub with a pan? Did they also need to know, demanded the Callas Society, was that she liked to dine with "vulgar stars" such as Edith Piaf and Tallulah Bankhead, the subject of delicious, no-holds-barred (if not down-right dirty!) Bret biography which saw the book being sold shrink-wrapped in some parts of the United States. One imagines that Bret and the foul-mouthed Miss B would have got along famously! Bret hit the United States with a vengeance in 2007 with the publication of Valentino, Joan Crawford: Hollywood Martyr, and Clark Gable: Tormented Star--the latter reveals Gable's "gay for pay years", and his publicity stunt involvement in World War II. His most recent work, published in June 2008, is Doris Day: Reluctant Star.  RUDOLPH VALENTINO Screenplay Following the success of his biography, "Rudolph Valentino: Dream of Desire", David Bret was asked to write a screenplay, based on the book and to coincide with its publication in the United States. RUDY, a drama which takes place between 1900 and 1926, the year of the star's death, is set in Italy, England, France and the United States. It promises to be hugely controversial in that it reveals that, despite his reputation as "The World's Greatest Lover", Valentino was sexually interested only in other men, and that his relationships with the women in his life brought only heartbreak and disaster. He was, however, far less ashamed of his sexuality than he was afraid of being trapped by the image of his public persona. In 1920s America, homosexuals were stereotyped as feeble, effeminate degenerates, and Bret's screenplay goes a long to way to proving that they were anything but. MAIN CHARACTERS: Valentino, Jean Acker, Natacha Rambova, Nazimova, Ben Maddox, André Daven, Mario Carillo, Pola Negri, Mae Murray, Joe Schenck, George Ullman, Damia, Nita Naldi, George O'Brien, June Mathis, Ramon Novarro. SYNOPSIS: The story opens with Valentino, aka The Sheik. Next he is seen dancing the apache in Paris with damia. Then the Chicago Tribune's "Pink Powder Puffs" episode which partly led to his death. Flash back to his childhood in Italy: beaten by his father, coddled by his mother, rejected by his family over his homosexuality and forced to emigrate to America where he ekes out a miserable existance in New York before meeting Mae Murray and working as a gigolo-cum-taxi dancer at Maxims. Here he meets Mathis, who secures him the lead in "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse". He has affair with Novarro, and becomes involved with eccentric Russian actress Nazimova and her infamous lesbian sewing circle--this leads to meetings with his two wives, Acker and Rambova, who cause him more problems than he can sanely handle. Next comes the great love of his life, André Daven, who meets in Paris. Next his disastrous return trip to Italy, depression, the fights with leading ladies and directors, death threats, the collapse of his first marriage, charges of bigamy and mental breakdown all interwoven with his sexual exploits. The screenplay ends with Valentino's hysterical funeral, and a final image of him as The Sheik, bringing the proposed movie full-circle. DAVID BRET & ELIZABETH TAYLOR "He's a shit, but a lovable shit!" is what Elizabeth Taylor said upon hearing that she was to be the subject of a Bret biography."It was never my intention to have the book published after her death," Bret revealed in the summer of 2006 when he signed the deal with Mainstream. Circumstances entered  the equation, however, when, shortly after submitting the script, the papers were full of stories that Taylor was dying. And when the New York Post's Liz Smith informed the other Liz about Bret's book, Taylor reacted by filming her now famous "Do I LOOK like I'm dying?" interview with chat-show host Larry King. Later, upon being told of some of the things Bret had written in the book--pure guesswork, for the contents will not be revealed until publication, Taylor observed, "He's a shit, but a loveable shit!" Top 10 Singers, Loves & Hates (see Links) DAVID BRET: BIOGRAPHIES The Piaf Legend (1988) The Mistinguett Legend (1990) Maurice Chevalier: Up On Top of A Rainbow (1992) Marlene, My Friend (1993, revised 2000) Morrissey: Landscapes of The Mind (1994) Gracie Fields: The Official Biography  (1995) Tallulah Bankhead: A Scandalous Life (1996) Freddie Mercury: Living On The Edge (1996) Maria Callas: The Tigress & The Lamb (1997) Valentino: A Dream of Desire (1998); Piaf: A Passionate Life (1998) George Formby: Troubled Genius (1999) Barbra Streisand (2000) Errol Flynn: Satan's Angel (2000) Elvis: The Hollywood Years (2002) Rock Hudson (2004) Morrissey: Scandal & Passion (2004) Joan Crawford: Hollywood Martyr (2006) Clark Gable: Tormented Star (2007) Doris Day: Reluctant Star (2008) David Bret is a Marketing Affiliate for Flirt4 Free Adult Chat www.flirt4free.com See Contacts & Representation