Sheer luck seemed to catapult me into the paths of some pretty famous people, and by the time I was thirty, I had written three biographies and assisted two celebrities in writing their memoirs. But these experiences shed light on sides of human nature I didn’t really want to see. It was my job to get them to dump their stories, and I soon discovered the path to fame is paved with a lot of pain, both suffered and inflicted, and a lot of decadent and twisted living. Secrets kept hidden for decades would surface unexpectedly in the middle of an interview, as if the teller could no longer contain them. It was often obvious the story wasn’t being told to be part of the biography, but just to ease the weight of the person’s conscience. It was my job to sort the tellable from what was best kept hidden, to know what to reveal and what to return to the vault of memory. But all the information remained in my head, and I could never look at those people, or others like them, in the same way again. Disappointment in discovering the tarnish on the stars of Hollywood left me with a marked disdain for celebrity and fame, and though I continued to accept work from them, I developed a resentment toward them that slowly ate away at me and left me jaded.

It was in the depths of this cynicism that I received the call from Jack Harrington’s assistant asking me if I would consider helping him and his wife tell their story.

Now, you have to understand that even though I had come to pretty much despise celebrities, Jack still held a special place in my heart. The tragedy of his girlfriend’s death, the storybook quality of his marriage—they saved him from the disapproval I harbored toward his colleagues. Plus there were rumors floating around about an illness, as well as some spiritual fanaticism, which made me all the more curious about him. Not that rumors carried much weight with me. I’d heard too many and seen how few were true. But still, they fueled my interest. And of course, some schoolgirl crushes just refuse to go away. I accepted the invitation to meet with the Harringtons and discuss the project.

I didn’t know much, just the same stuff everyone else did: his start in television, his girlfriend’s death, his social activism, the truly Hollywood-like events that led to his marriage, and his absence from the public eye for nearly five years. But I’d also heard stories recently that linked him and his wife with what sounded to me like some religious cult. I hoped my childhood crush wouldn’t turn out to be a wild-eyed groupie of some self-proclaimed prophet of the God of who-knows-what. I was tired of interviewing people who gave me even more reason to hope Hollywood would someday meet a catastrophic end.