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Christopher Peter Andersen (born May 26, 1949) is an American journalist and the author of 28 books, including many bestsellers. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, Andersen joined the staff of Time Magazine as a contributing editor in 1969. From 1974 to 1986 Andersen was senior editor of Time Incorporated’s People Magazine. He has also written for a wide range of publications, including The New York Times, The New York Daily News, Life, and Vanity Fair.

While his early nonfiction books veered from psychology ('The Name Game') to true crime ('The Serpent’s Tooth') to art collecting ('The Best of Everything'), with former Sotheby’s chairman John Marion), he is best known for his controversial biographies. Between 1991 and 2008, he published 13 New York Times bestselling biographies.

Seven of Andersen’s titles have also been selected for the Readers Digest. Today’s Best Nonfiction Books of the Year series. In November 2008, NBC's Brian Williams presented Andersen with a Joan's Legacy Award for excellence in journalism regarding lung cancer, along with Ladies Home Journal, which excerpted the portion of his book The Remarkable Love Story of Dana and Christopher Reeve describing Dana Reeve's battle with lung cancer.The Day John Died and Madonna Unauthorized (1991) were made into television films.

Andersen has appeared frequently appears on TV programs such as Today Show, Entertainment Tonight, Larry King Live, the CBS Early Show, Dateline, Extra, The O’Reilly Factor, Inside Edition, and Hardball.

Married since 1972 to former international banker Valerie Hess, Andersen resides in Connecticut. They have two daughters...network TV news producer Katharine (b. 1980) and Kelly (1990).

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Christopher Andersen", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0