ABOUT THE AUTHOR
On the sleeve of my first book (Commando: Survival of the Fittest) I wrote : "Robin Eggar wanted to be a soldier until he was 12, when he fell in love with the Rolling Stones." That joke still holds true. Through the medium of writing books and journalism I have managed to experience at first hand what both jobs entail... and I don't want to do either of them.
After leaving college in 1976 I decided to pursue a career in the music business and worked for RCA Records on such acts as David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Dolly Parton, Daryl Hall & John Oates. It was the era of punk rock and as Elvis Costello was far more exciting than the Elvis Presley's back catalogue I was fired. Then I became the manager of The Members ( whose "Sound of the Suburbs" is still a punk anthem) Jane Kennaway & Strange Behaviour, Johnny Warman and record producers Steve Lillywhite and Steve Brown. In 1981 I quit management to become a full time writer
From 1982-84 I had a weekly Pop and Rock Column in the Daily Mirror as well as writing regular music and showbusiness features. In 1984 I left to become a freelance writer. Since then my features have appeared in publications as varied as : The Sunday Times, Esquire, the Observer, Daily Mail, Sunday Mirror Magazine, the Mail on Sunday, You Magazine, Night & Day, the Saturday Times Magazine, the Guardian, the Observer, The Telegraph Magazine, The Independent Magazine, GQ Active, GQ, Sunday Express Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Woman's Own, Today, the Face, Condé Nast Traveller.
Robin Eggar with Shania Twain
During the last six years I have interviewed dozens of major celebrities including: Tom Jones, Shania Twain, Tina Turner, Garth Brooks, U2, Frank Sinatra, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, The Three Tenors, Uma Thurman, Keanu Reeves, Lucy "Xena" Lawless, Al Pacino, Helen Mirren, Ulrika Jonsson, Michael Douglas and Ralph Fiennes, Janet Jackson, Woody Allen, and novelist Iain Banks. Sports personalities include: Olympic hurdler Colin Jackson, cricketers Sachin Tendulkar, Graham Thorpe and Phil Tufnell, soccer stars Paul Ince, David Beckham, Roy Keane and the LA Lakers' basketball prodigy, Kobe Bryant.
In the course of my work I have visited over 50 countries on five continents. That has included stints travelling across the untracked wastes of Siberia and snowmobiling across Alaska, spending three months in China just prior to the massacre in Tian An Men Square and such surreal moments as listening to fado singers in a bombed out hotel in Mozambique or drinking too much beer with a government minister in Pemba. As a journalist my greatest failure was one of timing. In 1991 I left Moscow to interview a ballet company twenty minutes before the tanks rolled into Red Square.
Tom Jones: The Biography is the distillation of nearly 25 years working in the entertainment business. In many ways it is as much about stardom, what it does to people and what it means as it is about the star himself.
OTHER BOOKS BY ROBIN EGGAR:
Chinook ! (with David McMullon) Simon & Schuster, 1998
David McMullon served for eight years with the Special Forces Flight Chinook Squadron. He delivered SAS units into Iraq and was one of the first people on the scene in the aftermath of the Lockerbie bombing. His account of his life and training is both witty and shocking, human and harrowing.
Daring Days Out Metro Books, 1997
A Guide to Adventure Sports in The UK with a difference. Over the course of one summer I experienced 22 different adventure sports - everything from car racing to climbing and skydiving and jet skiing - and chronicled my experiences and feelings.
Commando: Survival of the Fittest. John Murray, 1994
Over 15 months I researched the life and training of a "batch" of Royal Marine Commando Officers. This is a fly on the wall account of their trials and tribulations, lives, loves and laughs. Subsequently one member of the batch won a bronze medal as a member of the British bobsleigh team. In May 2000 another survived on stagnant water while pursued by rebel forces in the Sierra Leone jungle.
Royal Marines Total Fitness. Vermilion Press, 1993
Royal Marines Circuit Training Vermilion Press, 1996
My experiences with the Marines led to these two fitness manuals ( co -written with RM Physical Training Instructor Dieter Loraine) designed to turn a couch potato in to a commando in 13 weeks. And you don't have to carry a weapon.