About this item
Charles Leerhsen brings the notorious Butch Cassidy to vivid life in this surprising and entertaining biography that goes beyond the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to reveal a more fascinating and complicated man than legend provides.For more than a century the life and death of Butch Cassidy have been the subject of legend, spawning a small industry of mythmakers and a major Hollywood film. But who was Butch Cassidy, really? Charles Leerhsen, bestselling author of Ty Cobb, sorts out facts from folklore and paints a brilliant portrait of the celebrated outlaw of the American West. Born into a Mormon family in Utah, Robert Leroy Parker grew up dirt poor and soon discovered that stealing horses and cattle was a fact of life in a world where small ranchers were being squeezed by banks, railroads, and cattle barons.
About the Author
Charles Leerhsen, the author of Butch Cassidy: The True Story of an American Outlaw and the New York Times bestseller Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, has written articles for Sports Illustrated, Esquire, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, Air Mail, Money, People, Yahoo News and TV Guide. He has been an editor at SI, People and Us Weekly, and spent 11 years at Newsweek, where as a senior writer he covered sports (including several Olympic Games) , entertainment, family stories and breaking news. At Newsweek he won the National Mental Health Association award for a cover story on alcohol and the family. He has also co-written three best-selling biographies: Trump: Surviving at the Top, with Donald Trump; Press On! Adventures in the Good Life, with pioneer aviator Chuck Yeager; and The Last Great Ride, with entertainment mogul Brandon Tartikoff. Leerhsen's previous books were the award-winning Crazy Good: The True Story of Dan Patch, the Most Famous Horse in America and the highly acclaimed Blood and Smoke: A True Tale of Mystery, Mayhem and the Birth of the Indy 500. He is currently working on his fifth book for Simon & Schuster. Leerhsen has three daughters: Erica, Deborah and Nora. He and his wife, the writer and psychotherapist Sarah Saffian (www.saffian.com) , live in Brooklyn.See more about the author and his books at Leerhsen.com.
