Geoffrey Giuliano

Geoffrey Giuliano (born September 11, 1953) is an American author, radio personality and film actor, best known for his biographies of The Beatles members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison, and of musician Pete Townshend.

Biography

Giuliano was born in Rochester, New York and raised in the villages of Albion and Olcott Beach, New York. He was the youngest of five children. He and his mother, Myrna Oneita Juliana, moved to Tampa, Florida when he was twelve. There he first became interested in acting, Vedic philosophy and fine art seriography. Giuliano has stated that "Giuliano" was his birth name. One newspaper, however, has reported that he was born "Jeffrey Juliana", that he adopted "Geoffrey Giuliano" as a pen name, and that in 1997 he changed his legal name to "Jagannatha Dasa". For a brief period the honorific title of "Puripada" was awarded him by several of his Indian yoga students, but Giuliano/Dasa ultimately rejected the title as inappropriate.

Giuliano attended Hillsborough Community College in Tampa and, in the mid-1970s, SUNY Brockport (class of 1976). On August 6, 1977, Jeffrey Joseph Juliana married Brenda Lee Black (later author/animal rights activist Vrnda Devi) in Hillsborough County, Florida, and together they had four children, Sesa Nichole, Devin Leigh, Avalon Oneita and India Skye. He also has a young son from another relationship, Tulsi Mala Kuptsov born in Bangkok in mid July 2003. Giuliano has resided primarily in Southeast Asia since 2000 with his two grandchildren, Kashi and Varsana Jones. In April of 2007 he married Kesorn Faunmaong, a Bangkok executive at Citicorp of Issan descent. On February 28, 2008 their son, Eden Garret Giuliano was born in a Bangkok Hospital.

Literary work

Giuliano has written some thirty five often controversial biographies on 1960's musicians and several audio works (100 to date) on subjects as diverse as Frank Sinatra as well as archival interviews with survivors of the Titanic entitled, "That Fateful Night: True Stories of Titanic Survivors In Their Own Words." Giuliano has also authored two London Sunday Times bestselling biographies, "Dark Horse: The Secret Life of George Harrison" and "Blackbird: The Life And Times Of Paul McCartney." Along the way, he has collaborated with John Lennon's half-sister Julia Baird and British BBC TV personality Gloria Hunniford. Steve Holly wrote the backword to his Blackbird book, and Timothy Leary penned the backword to Giuliano's the Lost Beatles Interviews. In late 1998, Random House Audio asked Giuliano to form a company for them called Tribute Audio (see information regarding Giuliano's many audio releases on Amazon.com), which produced a line of celebrity, interview laced, original spoken word CDs, all written, produced and narrated by the author. He worked in that capacity for some five years.

Giuliano has been a likely target for many fans of his biographical subjects due to his unrelenting warts and all writing style. On August 11, 1996 the Calgary Sun made the point in a review of his work on the life of the Who's Pete Townshend. "Unlike so many fawning rock biographers who lavish false praise on a bunch of worthless morons, Giuliano has the ability to get to the heart of the man and by doing so gives readers a glimpse of a period in history. Fans will never get closer to the man than in "Behind Blue Eyes" Unfortunately, Giuliano does such a magnificent job that many fans may wish they had never searched so hard." Giuliano told Eye Weekly that he briefly worked for Townshend, but was fired after stealing a tape from him. A research assistant of Giuliano's subsequently wrote to the newspaper to defend him.

A biography Giuliano authored about John Lennon (released in 2000) was similarly controversial. Giuliano claimed the book was based in part on transcripts of Lennon's journal given to him by the singer Harry Nilsson, who died on January 16, 1994. The claim was made after Nilsson's death, and several people close to Nilsson do not believe he ever had the transcripts in his possession. Washington Post reporter David Segal quoted Giuliano's response when he was asked to corroborate his claim that Nilsson gave him the diaries. "My wife knows, my son knows," Giuliano snapped yesterday, his voice rising in anger. "Look, I'm already a rich man. I own a $700,000 home that's paid for. It's obvious that I'm going to do things in an ethical manner." Segal also reported the view of Steven Gutstein, a former New York assistant district attorney who was asked to read the diaries during an early 1980's larceny lawsuit against former Lennon personal assistant Fred Seaman. After reading some of the more sensational claims in Giuliano's book, Gutstein commented, "This is a Mad magazine version of the diaries." Gutstein described his own memory of the diaries as "a lot of philosophical musings combined with mundane details of everyday life." Asked how she would respond to the book, Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono commented, "Ugh, Geoffrey Giuliano, oh, I don't want to comment on him. If you follow all his other writings, you know all about him."

Both the public and reviewers were torn over the controversial tome. On July 15, 2000 Colin Carlson of the Library Journal commented, "Non-fans will be put off by this image of Lennon as cad, drug addict, and paranoiac; this often sensationalized account is for voyeurs and fans with deconstructive tendencies and is one of the best, most detailed books available on this subject." A Washington Post review of Giuliano's Lennon book said, "In exhaustive detail, using information purportedly gleaned from an unpublished Lennon diary (a text never directly quoted from), Giuliano reveals the not-so-shocking news that Lennon was not an altogether happy man. In other words, we get more of the character assassination that was begun in such high style by Albert Goldman's notorious The Lives of John Lennon." A "Publisher's Weekly" reviewer commented, "If Giuliano's own double-talk isn't enough to diminish this work's credibility, his endless, voyeuristic descriptions of Lennon's sexual encounters are."

A September 15, 2006 review of Giuliano's book Revolver: The Secret History of the Beatles in Kirkus Reviews said: "The few scraps of new information presented emanate from Giuliano's connection to George Harrison, but he fails to adequately explain his relationship with the former Beatle." George Harrison, interviewed in Los Angeles on December 14, 1992, was asked if he had ever met Giuliano. He replied, "Yeah, I met him briefly. I have no way of recalling what year it was. I met him at the home of "Legs" Larry Smith for possibly thirty minutes. I visited with Mr. Smith and he was in his flat." In the same interview, he stated, "There is a certain trick to the way Giuliano goes about his work. He acts as if he is kind of authorized, and [all] these people, not just him, but all these type of people, have a skill of wheedling their way into places that are going to be some benefit to them in getting their books written." Harrison's wife Olivia wrote a letter to the newspaper The Guardian in 1992 attacking Giuliano. She wrote, "like a starving dog he [Giuliano] scavenges his heroes, picking up bits of gristle and sinew along the way." She specifically objected to a George Harrison quote that Giuliano used on the cover of one of his books, stating: "My husband once made the remark: "That guy knows more about my life than I do." Giuliano missed the joke and used it to endorse his book."

David Pitt reviewing for Booklist, published by the American Library Association looked far more kindly on the work however. "Drawing on a variety of exclusive interviews with many of the principals, this latest Beatles bio focuses on an aspect of the group with which some fans may not be sufficiently familiar. Although the group's public image was one of playfulness and big smiles, the Fab Four were often mired in internal politics and conflict. The book details the enormous pressures the Beatles operated under and shows that, in addition to musicians, they very quickly had to become businessmen and diplomats. The Giulianos also offer up an assortment of trivia tidbits that may come as a surprise to some readers. For instance: Paul sang lead vocals on "Love Me Do," although it was supposed to be John; a key line in "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" was a blooper; John, not Ringo, played drums on "Back in the USSR." The book's usefulness to Beatle fans will depend entirely on how much they have already read about the group, but one thing is certain: for the average reader, it's an eye-opener."

Hindu beliefs

In the March, 1991 edition of Hinduism Today, Giuliano was once quoted as saying: "I'm very orthodox. The only books I read are religious Indian texts." The article also stated that while still working for McDonald's Giuliano met a sannyasa Bhaktihirday Mangalniloy Maharaja at a Hare Krishna temple in Toronto, and became his disciple. It also mentioned that Geoffrey and his first wife Vrnda Devi were raising their four children as vegetarian Hindus.

Giuliano explained his relationship to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in an editorial in the September 10, 1999 edition of Vaishnava News, stating that he had been "vaguely" critical of ISKCON over the years, but adding, "Can I ever repay the personal debt to ISKCON that I've had? Absolutely not, nor can now my children, in the second generation." According to the official website of SRI (srilotus.com), Giuliano founded the umbrella charity, SRI/The Spiritual Realization Institute, which manifested as a free veggie food pantry (Dasa Food For All) in Lockport, New York, as well as an animal sanctuary, Devotional Yoga center, spiritual retreat and not-for-profit publishing house. The Internal Revenue Service issued a determination letter in January 1997 granting the organization exemption from Federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The organization is not a private foundation within the meaning of section 509(a) because it is classified under sections 509(a)(1) and 170(b)(1)(A)(vi). In September, 1998, Giuliano/Jagannatha Dasa offered "any qualified, responsible devotee of Sri Sri Radha Krishna who is presently dissatisfied with their current membership, association or seva with ISKCON" a "position of authority at least equal to their current service (and in many cases, greater) within SRI's international organization."

Films and other media

Giuliano co-directed the DVD "The Beatles A Celebration." A review on Beatles Collectors.com stated that "the production itself is very unprofessional," and that its content consists of "a tabloid style account covering only the negative publicity that cropped up during the Beatles career." Giuliano went on to play a supporting role as pirate Captain Li in a made-for-television movie that aired on the Hallmark Channel cable network called "Mysterious Island." Since that time he has co-starred in the about to be released film "Lost At Sea" and also stared in the action thriller, "Bangkok Adrenaline"

On November 19, 2005, a film, "Stoned: The Wild & Wicked World of Brian Jones," premiered in London. The movie was directed by Stephen Woolley and co-produced by Nik Powell, the producing team behind such films as "Mona Lisa," "Interview with the Vampire" and "The Crying Game." The film was "based on and inspired by" Guiliano's book "Paint It Black: The Murder of Brian Jones," as well as Terry Robbins' "Who Killed Christopher Robin" and Anna Wohlin's "The Murder of Brian Jones." Producer/Director Stephen Wooley has said that he saw Giuliano's book in a bookstore and brought it to the attention of his screenwriters. The screenwriters responded by asking if he had seen Robbins' book, which Wooley then read and found to be much more detailed than Giuliano's. Wooley also interviewed Anna Wohlin, Brian Jones' last girlfriend, who wrote her own book subsequent to the interview, causing Wooley to buy the rights to her book as well as the others. Commenting on the relative importance of the diverse source material for the movie, Wooley said, "In the end it wasn't so much the books, it was talking to both Anna about the state of Brian's mind that night, and Janet (a nurse who was present at Brian Jones' home on the day he died), about Frank's (the alleged murderer of Jones) state of mind that night - his instability and the fact he just been fired that day without being properly paid - that confirmed in my mind there was a movie here."

As a singer songwriter Giuliano has released two CDs, "Chocolate Wings" (2001)and the Indo fusion work, "God Dwells Within" (2006). Giluiano's website includes a song called "Food For All/Homes For All" which co-wrote with former Moody Blues and Wings guitarist Denny Laine. According to the website the song was recorded at Mark Recording Studios in Clarence, New York, by Laine, Ritchie Havens, Ginger Baker and Ben E. King.

In late 2005 Giuliano was hired by an American radio syndicator, KGB, to host a series of two-hour radio shows, "Geoffrey Giuliano's Roots Of Rock", which aired on more than 60 stations in the United States and Canada. The shows produced so far have highlighted such classic rock acts as the Beatles, U2, and Jimi Hendrix.

Ronald McDonald and animal rights

Giuliano worked for an ad agency in Toronto, Canada portraying McDonald's advertising figurehead Ronald McDonald for "basically a year and a half," travelling to personal appearances for "The Ronald McDonald Safety Show." A statement dated "Fall/Summer 1990" in which Giuliano decried "concerns who make their millions off the murder of countless animals and the exploitation of children for their own ends" was submitted on behalf of the plaintiffs in the 1991 London McLibel case. In an interview he gave in London some years later, Geoffrey summed up his bad experience playing Ronald north of the border. "There's no question that I was manipulating these children. I was a highly paid, highly trained, highly polished actor. Every show was a performance and I had a mandate to get that message out there, and yeah, it was not too hard - anybody can manipulate a child. I just went home one night, and I said, 'I cannot do this, I can't live with myself if I continue to do this.' Giuliano also played the Marvelous Magical Burger King for the Burger King Corporation doing shows and other appearances throughout New England. The author /actor has spoken widely regarding his turbulent term as the McDonald's clown and the shadowy ethical implications of factory farming and animal rights for such groups as PETA. Giuliano has been an ardent vegetarian abstaining from meat, fish or eggs since 1970. In 2001 Giuliano published the book, "Compassionate Cuisine," authored by then wife Vrnda Devi.

External links

• www.geoffreygiuliano.com
• Geoffrey Giuliano at IMDb