POKER FACE THE RISE AND RISE OF LADY GAGA by maureen callahan

Poker Face: The Rise and Rise of Lady Gaga by Maureen Callahan is an unauthorized biography of Lady Gaga.

In little over a year, Stefani Germanotta, a struggling performer in New York's Lower East Side burlesque scene, has become the global demographic-smashing pop icon known as Lady Gaga. She is a once-in-a-decade artist, a gifted singer, composer, designer, and performance artist who mixes high and low culture, the avant-garde with the accessible, authenticity with artifice.

Who is Lady Gaga? She is a twenty-four-year-old woman whose stage mantra--"I'm a free bitch!"--is the polar opposite of who she is offstage: isolated, insecure, and unable to be alone. She is an outré artist who wanted to be a sensitive singer-songwriter, whose musical heroes include Britney Spears, Billy Joel, and Bruce Springsteen. She is a woman who says no man can ever compete with her career, but who still isn't over the ex-boyfriend who said she was too ambitious. She claims not to care what people think, but spends her downtime online, reading what people have to say about her. She claims to be a con artist and utterly authentic. She is never less than compelling.

Based on over fifty original interviews with friends, employees, rivals, and music industry veterans, Poker Face is the first in-depth biography of the extraordinary cultural phenomenon that is Lady Gaga.





'Poker Face' puts poptacular Lady Gaga in perspective

By Korina Lopez, USA TODAY
No one is as gaga over Gaga as the lady herself.
Mix unbridled determination with self-love, and you've got the biggest, fiercest pop star on the planet, with five No. 1hit singles and 8 million albums sold in just over a year. Not to mention the eight awards she walked away with at Sunday's MTV Video Music Awards.

In the first biography of the 24-year-old superstar, Poker Face: The Rise and Rise of Lady Gaga (Hyperion, $24.99, 256 pp.), New York Post reporter Maureen Callahan tracks the artist's transformation from unremarkable to unforgettable, "one sequin at a time." The book is based on more than 50 interviews with current and former friends, employees and industry executives. (Gaga did not talk to the author for this unauthorized bio.)

Among Callahan's discoveries:

Gaga as myth. Surprisingly little is known about the star before Stefani Germanotta became Lady Gaga. She has revised parts of her back story, claiming that she learned to play the piano when she was 4 (not true, Callahan says) and that she's a downtown, rough-and-tumble girl (she grew up on the Upper West Side and went to Sacred Heart, an exclusive private school). "She's posited herself as none of her peers have: a blank slate, a creature of self-invention, an object of emotional projection and wish-fulfillment," Callahan writes.

Growing up Germanotta. Was she always this weird? Callahan says no. She came from a loving family. Her father, Joe, a Web-savvy businessman, used his connections to get her gigs. Her mother, Cynthia, pleaded with doormen to let her underage daughter into clubs.

She used to wear pants. Before the sequined panties and armadillo shoes, her idea of fashion-forward was American Apparel.

From point A to B. How did Germanotta transform into Gaga? Callahan points to several influences — her mother's love of fashion, her monomaniacal focus on stardom, the artsy scene of the Lower East Side, her need to be noticed — but there's no simple explanation. Callahan writes that finding the answer is "to search fruitlessly for the cracks between the girl who wanted to be the next Fiona Apple, a serious, sensitive singer-songwriter, and the glorious, demented art-freak performer on stage."

What makes her tick? Fame. She'll suffer through weeks of getting hair weaves and rehearse for hours until her performance is perfect. Even offstage, she's on. She'll strut through airports wearing stilettos and rubber dresses. "What may be most freakish and original about Lady Gaga: She is a famous person who actually seems to enjoy being famous," Callahan writes.

Tough love. Despite her success, she has been unlucky in love. Luc Carl, a bartender, never thought she'd be a star. Robert Fusari, an influential, then-engaged producer who put Gaga on the map — after she agreed to date him — sued her for $30.5 million. She countersued. They withdrew their lawsuits last week.

Who's that girl? Gaga goes by many names: provocateur, exhibitionist, cultural thief, avant-garde artiste, Madonna wannabe. But for Gaga, it doesn't matter what anyone thinks of her, just that people are thinking of her. "Gaga came across, immediately, as both a total original and a walking, derivative mash-up of the greatest pop androgynes of the twentieth century: ... (David) Bowie, Madonna, Prince," Callahan writes.

Music needs her. Callahan interviewed execs who hail Gaga as the record industry's savior, walking proof that having the backing of a well-financed record label still matters. When Interscope Records decided to invest in Gaga, they "threw the building at it," an unidentified Interscope executive says. "She's one of those overnight sensations that didn't really happen overnight. A lot of hard work and long hours went into it."



far left : david ciemny

Lady Gaga: Former Tour Manager Trashes Lady Gaga in Callahan Book
By Marcus Hondro
Last Updated Oct 19, 2010, Published Sep 5, 2010


Read more at Suite101: Lady Gaga: Former Tour Manager Trashes Lady Gaga in Callahan Book http://www.suite101.com/content/lady-gaga-former-tour-manager-trashes-lady-gaga-in-callahan-book-a282483#ixzz15TFmjTYO

A book coming out on pop sensation Lady Gaga has critical quotes from a former tour manager, David Ciemny. True or not - we all have bad days.

A biography is coming out on Lady Gaga in the middle of September 2010 and media reports suggest it is not a flattering portrait of the pop superstar. But when most of us behave poorly or insecurely if it doesn't involve a crime or serious moral infraction the world is not likely to learn about it.

But if you're famous like Lady Gaga that is not the case. Fair? Probably not but it comes with the territory and Lady Gaga hasn't gone on record with a complaint but she may nonetheless prefer for former employees to remain loyal.

Former Road Manager of Lady Gaga Tell's of Gaga Indiscretions
David Ciemny has chosen to talk about things that might be considered private. For 2009 he was Lady Gaga's tour manager and naturally around her a lot during her tours. Stressful times for a pop star who's had a meteoric rise to the very tip-top. How meteoric? Two years ago she was a warm-up act at mid-sized venues and now she headlines sold-out hockey arenas and football stadiums.

Whether Maureen Callahan, who has written the unauthorized biography of Lady Gaga due out Sept. 14, 2010 called Poker Face: The Rise and Rise of Lady Gaga, paid Ciemny for quotes about the former Stefania Germanotta or he offered them gratis is unknown. But either way they're not particularly flattering. Are they true? That we don't know but they're certainly lively stories.

The Scoop on Superstar Gaga...According to David Ciemny
He is reported to have told Callahan in the book that Lady Gaga goes on crash diets and starves herself and once lost 20 pounds(about 9.1 kilograms) between the first fitting for a show outfit and a final one. He claims that she had to be hospitalized six times in 2009 because of going on massive sweet food binges and then crash dieting and that it's the reason she had to cancel shows in January of 2010.

There are allegations of her firing people for minor indiscretions and being unpredictable (but then again, what 24-year-old isn't?) Ciemny says Lady Gaga insisted his wife Angela go over almost nightly to her, Lady Gaga's room, to sleep with the 24-year-old sensation so that GaGa had someone to "cuddle". He talks of her being sick "...physically and mentally."

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Callahan a Writer for New York Post
Callahan has been a writer and editor for the New York Post for seven years. Previous to that, a promo for Poker Face: The Rise and Rise of Lady Gaga says, she wrote for MTV, Sassy, New York magazine and Spin. Her book may prove to be an interesting and well-compiled read.

The promo says in part that the book is the first biography of Gaga and that it is a "...must read for Gaga fans who...know next to nothing about who she is and how she got that way". Some references to the book found online list a Sara Stewart as a co-author.

Poker Face: The Rise and Rise of Lady Gaga is published by Hyperion Books.



Read more at Suite101: Lady Gaga: Former Tour Manager Trashes Lady Gaga in Callahan Book