author

James Brough

b. 1918

Known for lively biographies and collaboration-driven nonfiction, this mid-20th-century writer explored famous lives with a reporter’s curiosity and a storyteller’s pace. His books ranged from Hollywood and high society to royal history and the Dionne quintuplets.

1 Audiobook

The Whole Truth and Nothing But

The Whole Truth and Nothing But

by Hedda Hopper, James Brough

About the author

James Brough was a biographer and nonfiction writer born in 1918. Reliable catalog records confirm his authorship of We Were Five, the book about the Dionne quintuplets, and he is also associated with a body of popular biographies published across the 1960s and after.

His work seems to have centered on public figures and dramatic real-life stories rather than fiction. Sources consistently describe him as a writer of biographies about well-known personalities, with titles connected to figures such as Lillie Langtry and members of the Roosevelt family.

Some online sources also give a death year of 2001, but the easily confirmed details available here are stronger on his publications than on his personal life. That makes him one of those authors best remembered through the subjects he brought to life on the page.