Robert David Crane

Robert Crane was born in Stamford, Ct. He followed his parents to Los Angeles in the Fifties and while his father became a radio and television star and his mother the rock of the family, Crane pursued film studies at USC. His short film, Mirage, appeared on the second season of Saturday Night Live. Freelancing for magazines and newspapers evolved into his first book (Jack Nicholson: Face to Face; Jack Nicholson: The Early Years reissue) and a twenty year stint at Playboy Magazine. Books on the late-night comedy series SCTV (SCTV: Behind the Scenes), actor Bruce Dern (Things I've Said but Probably Shouldn't Have; Bruce Dern: A Memoir reissue), bartenders Kirk Driscoll and Steve DeWinter (Burn the Ice) and writer-director Tom Mankiewicz (My Life as a Mankiewicz) ensued. In Spring, 2015, University Press of Kentucky published Crane: Sex, Celebrity, and My Father's Unsolved Murder co-written by Crane and frequent writing partner Christopher Fryer (Nicholson and Dern books) about growing up as a member of a show business family and how his father's infidelities, his parents' divorce, and the unsolved murder of his father affected Crane and his mother, stepfather and two sisters. The book is also a journey through the American social fabric from the days of the Vietnam War through the ravages of breast cancer and the deaths of his first wife, Kari, and of his boss and friend, actor John Candy. There is also a large dose of humor provided by Crane's magazine and newspaper interviewees such as Candy, Chevy Chase and Greg Kinnear (who played Crane's father in Paul Schrader's Auto Focus) to name a few. The Audible (audio book) version was released in October 2015.