Weller, Sheila

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Weller, Sheila

PERSONAL:

Born September 16, in New York, NY; daughter of Daniel (a neurosurgeon) and Helen (a journalist and editor) Weller. Education: University of California, Berkeley, B.A., 1967. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Jewish.

ADDRESSES:

Home and office—New York, NY. Agent—Ellen Levine, Trident Media Group, 41 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10010.

CAREER:

Freelance writer, 1970—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Woodrow Wilson fellowship, 1963; Newswomen's Club of New York Front Page Award, 1994, 2000, 2002, 2003; Exceptional Merit in media award, National Women's Political Caucus, 2006.

WRITINGS:

Hansel and Gretel in Beverly Hills (novel), Morrow (New York, NY), 1978.

Marrying the Hangman, Random House (New York, NY), 1992.

(With Amy Fisher) Amy Fisher: My Story, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1993.

Raging Heart: The Intimate Story of the Tragic Marriage of O.J. and Nicole Brown Simpson, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1995.

Saint of Circumstance: The Untold Story behind the Alex Kelly Rape Case: Growing up Rich and Out of Control, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1997.

Dancing at Ciro's: A Family's Love, Loss, and Scandal on the Sunset Strip, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2003.

Girls like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon—and the Journey of a Generation, Atria Books (New York, NY), 2008.

Contributor to magazines and newspapers, including Ms., Red Book, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, and Village Voice. Contributing editor to magazines, including New York, 1997-2000, Self, 2001-02, and Glamour, 2002—.

SIDELIGHTS:

Sheila Weller once commented: "My novel [Hansel and Gretel in Beverly Hills] began as a short story I did while in Joseph Heller's fiction workshop at City College of the City University of New York. It's about the odd-couple friendship of a salty, down-but-not-defeated fifty-four-year-old divorcée and her forty-year-old gay hairdresser, and what I hope it's ‘about’ are the unique survival mechanisms, the ironic language, the idiosyncratic and possibly ‘superior’ vision of people who have been defined as social orphans—people outside of the conventional Noah's Ark couples world. As an unmarried woman, I have an affinity for these people. There's a lot of subculture dialogue in the book—gay, Jewish, black—survival talk that's always interested me. The style is rather sitcomish. What can I say? I'm a Hollywood kid."

Weller provides details about this unusual Hollywood upbringing in her memoir, Dancing at Ciro's: A Family's Love, Loss, and Scandal on the Sunset Strip. Her parents and maternal uncle, Jews from New York City, moved to California in 1936. There, her father established a successful neurosurgical career, her mother became an arts reporter, and her uncle opened Ciro's, a nightclub on Sunset Strip where A-list movie stars liked to gather. Beneath this glittering veneer, however, were problems, and by the late 1950s the family disintegrated in a tangle of tax-evasion charges, adultery, violence, and emotional breakdown. Though a writer for Kirkus Reviews found the book lacking in interest, a contributor to Publishers Weekly described it as a "poignant" memoir.

Among Weller's other nonfiction books are several dealing with high-profile criminal cases. Marrying the Hangman examines the 1987 murder of Manhattan journalist Diane Pikul by her stockbroker husband; Amy Fisher: My Story, which Weller wrote with Fisher, describes how the teenaged narrator engaged in a sordid affair with a married man and, in a case that drew major media attention in 1992, attempted to kill his wife. Raging Heart: The Intimate Story of the Tragic Marriage of O.J. and Nicole Brown Simpson presents material about the infamous Simpson case, in which the former football star was charged in the stabbing death of his estranged wife.

In Girls like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon—and the Journey of a Generation, Weller presents a group biography of three women songwriters who shaped popular music in the 1960s and 1970s. With her then-husband Gerry Goffin, King—a young Brooklyn homemaker and mother—wrote such seminal hits as "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" and "Chains." Mitchell, a folksinger from Canada, wrote delicate ballads that expressed some of the era's more complex emotional depths; Simon, daughter of a Manhattan publishing mogul, penned earthy hits such as "You're So Vain." Weller discusses her subjects' music and backgrounds, but also focuses on their many romances: Mitchell had affairs with Graham Nash and Leonard Cohen, Simon dated Warren Beatty and Mick Jagger, and all three women were involved, at one time or another, with James Taylor (Simon married him, though they later divorced). Weller also writes about Mitchell's difficult decision to give up her daughter, born out of wedlock, for adoption.

Many critics enjoyed Girls like Us. London Times writer Caitlin Moran called it a "fabulous book," and Pop Matters Web site contributor Howard Cohen, noting that the book "never settles for simple sensationalism," commended it as an exemplary model of group biography. In the London Observer, however, Sean O'Hagan expressed disappointment that "the songs take second place to the colourful lives" and that the book is so "heavy on gossipy detail [but] light on penetrating analysis." Leslie Brody, writing in Los Angeles Times, felt that Weller's description of the era "compresses history with a steamroller, making very different events seem to carry equal weight." But New York Times Book Review contributor Stephanie Zacharek found much of it "entertaining and intelligent," adding that Weller is "perceptive about the social milieus that … these women had to bust out of."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Best Sellers, November, 1978, review of Hansel and Gretel in Beverly Hills, p. 243.

Booklist, March 15, 1992, Peter Robertson, review of Marrying the Hangman p. 1323.

Entertainment Weekly, June 12, 1992, Gene Lyons, review of Marrying the Hangman, p. 50; January 9, 1998, Katherine A. Hazelwood, review of Saint of Circumstance: The Untold Story behind the Alex Kelly Rape Case: Growing up Rich and Out of Control, p. 64.

Glamour, May, 1992, Laura Mathews, review of Marrying the Hangman, p. 182.

Independent (London, England), Liz Thomson, review of Girls like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon—and the Journey of a Generation.

Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 1978, review of Hansel and Gretel in Beverly Hills, p. 332; February 15, 1992, review of Marrying the Hangman, p. 245; October 1, 1997, review of Saint of Circumstance, p. 1520; January 15, 2003, review of Dancing at Ciro's: A Family's Love, Loss, and Scandal on the Sunset Strip, p. 136; March 1, 2008, review of Girls like Us.

Library Journal, April 15, 1978, review of Hansel and Gretel in Beverly Hills, p. 900; March 15, 1992, Wilda Williams, review of Marrying the Hangman, p. 104; February 15, 2003, Rosellen Brewer, review of Dancing at Ciro's, p. 141.

Los Angeles, July, 1978, Susan Squire, review of Hansel and Gretel in Beverly Hills, p. 226.

Los Angeles Times, April 27, 2003, review of Dancing at Ciro's, p. R2; May 25, 2008, Leslie Brody, review of Girls like Us.

Ms., July, 1978, review of Hansel and Gretel in Beverly Hills, p. 31.

National Post, April 19, 2008, review of Girls like Us, p. WP13.

New Woman, June, 1992, Erica Abeel, review of Marrying the Hangman, p. 30.

New York, June 1, 1992, review of Marrying the Hangman, p. 29.

New York Times, April 17, 2008, Janet Maslin, "Heroines in the Footlights, from All Sides Now," p. E1; May 13, 2008, Stephen Holden, "Trailblazers, but Selling a Romantic Kind of Love," p. E1.

New York Times Book Review, May 16, 1993, David Kelly, review of Amy Fisher: My Story, p. 32; April 13, 2003, review of Dancing at Ciro's, p. 22; April 27, 2008, Stephanie Zacharek, review of Girls like Us.

Observer (London, England), April 13, 2008, Sean O'Hagan, review of Girls like Us.

Publishers Weekly, April 24, 1978, review of Hansel and Gretel in Beverly Hills, p. 78; February 10, 1992, review of Marrying the Hangman, p. 65; October 27, 1997, review of Saint of Circumstance, p. 58; January 6, 2003, review of Dancing at Ciro's, p. 48.

Times (London, England), May 2, 2008, Caitlin Moran, review of Girls like Us.

USA Today, April 29, 2008, Elysa Gardner, review of Girls like Us, p. 9.

Washington Post Book World, February 23, 2003, review of Dancing at Ciro's, p. 3.