Kiernan was the author of a vast assortment of biographies that featured celebrities, literary luminaries, scientists, sports stars, psychologists, and political figures and their associates.
Kiernan earned his bachelor of arts degree in 1956from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.
In the 1970s and 1980s, he was the highly acclaimed biographer of such diverse notables as Jane Fonda, John Steinbeck, Yaser Arafat, Laurence Olivier and Roman Polanski.
[2] In researching this book, he traveled extensively throughout the Middle East to interview scores of prominent Arab spokesmen, including Yasir Arafat.
[3] According to an article in The New York Times dated November 27, 1975, a completed manuscript of a biography on Bebe Rebozo, an associate of Richard Nixon's, that was scheduled to be published by Farrar,’ Straus & Giroux was stolen from the home of Thomas Kiernan.