Darwin Porter (born September 13, 1937, in Greensboro, North Carolina)[1] is an American travel writer, producing numerous titles, mostly for the Frommer guidebook series, over a 50-year career span.
As a young boy in Tucker's home, Porter first met many of the stars he would later write about, including Marilyn Monroe, Ronald Reagan, Victor Mature, Richard Widmark, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, and others.
He did interviews with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Tallulah Bankhead, Ted Williams, Bette Davis, Ethel Merman, Adlai Stevenson, and then Vice President Richard Nixon.
Later, he was appointed Bureau Chief of The Miami Herald in Key West, where he was a frequent visitor to Havana, writing about the growing tensions between the United States and Cuba.
In Key West, he was befriended by playwright Tennessee Williams, who introduced him to a number of stars, such as Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, and Paul Newman, as well as such literary figures as Truman Capote, Christopher Isherwood, and Gore Vidal.
Working with the company president, Stanley Mills Haggart, a noted interior designer, author, and magazine editor, they produced some of TV's most-watched commercials, specializing in hiring movie stars to sell their products.
Other novels include Marika, based in part on information gleaned from Porter's long association with German and Austrian stars such as Hedy Lamarr, Marlene Dietrich, and Greta Keller, the leading chanteuse of Europe during the 1930s.
In the 21st century, for Blood Moon Productions, Porter has produced more Hollywood celebrity biographies than any other journalist, concentrating on iconic stars and personalities such as Marilyn Monroe, Howard Hughes, Elizabeth Taylor, Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, Humphrey Bogart, Steve McQueen, Marlon Brando, Katharine Hepburn, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Peter O'Toole, Rock Hudson, Debbie Reynolds and her daughter Carrie Fisher, Linda Lovelace, Burt Reynolds, and Kirk Douglas.
He has written biographies of TV personality Merv Griffin, singers Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra, lawman J. Edgar Hoover and politicians — Bill & Hillary Clinton, Ronald & Nancy Reagan, Donald Trump, and the Kennedys.
“Bill & Hillary brims with Washington gossip of the era, like when teenage Laura Bush ran over and killed her ex-boyfriend, or the fact that the White House hid Reagan’s Alzheimer’s so that he could finish his second term with dignity, even if he didn’t know where he was.
Insights from a closeted TV producer who first discovered James Dean, and others who interacted with him and often suffered from his mental swings and murky sexual explorations add to and expand the existing popular literature on this icon.
The in-depth survey, with its amazingly large cast of contemporaries and characters, myths refuted and realities explored, and high-octane drama packs in over seven hundred pages of detail, which may look daunting, but which offer a rollicking good read.
[3] From "Films in Review", re "LOVE TRIANGLE: Ronald Reagan, Jane Wyman, & Nancy Davis" It has to be a reflection of modern technological advances, it can't be anything else: all the Blood Moon books, most of them several hundred pages in length, are written by the same two people – Porter & Prince.
“There are already so many biographies of the Reagans on the market that one might expect similar mile-markers from this: be prepared for shock and awe; because Love Triangle doesn't take your ordinary approach to biography and describes a love triangle that eventually bumped a major Hollywood movie star from the possibility of being First Lady and replaced her with a lesser-known Grade B actress (Nancy Davis).
“From politics and betrayal to romance, infidelity, and sordid affairs, Love Triangle is a steamy, eye-opening story that blows the lid off of the Reagan illusion to raise eyebrows on both sides of the big screen.
“Black and white photos liberally pepper an account of the careers of all three and the lasting shock of their stormy relationships in a delightful pursuit especially recommended for any who relish Hollywood gossip.” [5] Frommer Country and State Guides to:[6] Anguilla, Aruba, Austria, The Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Bonaire and Curaçao, the British Virgin Islands, Bulgaria, the Cayman Islands, Denmark, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, England, Finland, France, Georgia (USA), Germany, Great Britain, Greenland, Grenada, Haiti, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Jamaica, Maine, Martinique & Guadeloupe, Massachusetts, Morocco, North Carolina, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Rumania, Scotland, Sint Maartin/St.