Famous Family Secrets

May 23, 2007 — -- Oprah Winfrey's father, Vernon, will probably never get his tell-all book on his daughter's must-read book club list. At the moment, "Things Unspoken," is not in bookstores; it's being shopped to agents. But a couple of excerpts are already circulating, and they paint a less-than-flattering picture of the media superstar.

The memoir gossips about Oprah as a child, when she was living in Milwaukee with her mother and visiting her estranged father in Nashville, Tenn.

"Our daughter was out of hand, an unruly child," Vernon quotes Oprah's mother, Vernita, as saying, "She said she stayed out all times of the night and lied regarding her whereabouts, said she made herself known to boys," he writes.

That interesting euphemism is just the beginning.

"She had secrets," writes Oprah's father. "Dark secrets," he continues. "Some I didn't discover till she was a grown woman, till it was too late."

When Winfrey was informed about the book by the New York Daily News, she said she was "shocked and disappointed," according to an article published Tuesday.

Winfrey is just one example of the famous and would-be famous contending with relatives who write "family secret" books and magazine articles or talk "out of school" on TV shows. A brief search turned up the following examples of publicity engendered family feuds.

Jennifer Aniston's mother, Nancy, became estranged from her famous daughter for apparently talking about her on a tabloid TV show. She wrote about their relationship in "From Mother and Daughter to Friends; A Memoir."

Meg Ryan's mother, Susan Jordan, scolded her daughter in a British newspaper for taking up with Russell Crowe a number of years ago. Meg was already upset with her mother, as the story goes, ever since her mother left her family to pursue a career.

Andrew Giuliani's relationship with his famous father-turned-presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani, soured when the former mayor of New York City divorced Andrew's mother, Donna Hanover, and married Judith Nathan. Andrew spoke about it to the press, saying his devotion to becoming a professional golfer allowed no time for the sort of distraction campaigning for his father would create.

Angelina Jolie said she stopped talking to her father, Jon Voight, after he wrote a letter that she considered hurtful. Voight appeared on "Access Hollywood" in what he claimed was an attempt to "get her help" for her "serious mental problems." She then dropped his name from hers.

Demi Moore's mother, Virginia Guynes, committed the "ultimate sin" when she sold gossip about her daughter to the tabloids.

All was forgiven when Moore learned in 1999 that her mother was sick. Moore visited her mother in the hospital and was at her side when she died of a brain tumor that same year.

Double-Edged Sword for Dishing It Out

Writing about the famous can be a lucrative business. It's estimated that the U.S. book publishing industry, which is composed of 2,600 companies, earns a combined annual revenue of $30 billion. How much of that is from tell-all books is impossible to compute. But it's not uncommon for publishers to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) in advances to those who are willing to heap dirt on the most famous of famous family members.

What sort of impact does such a book have on the individual in question?

"She [Oprah] has a great image which she and the media have spent millions and years creating," said entertainment attorney Jerry Reisman. "While her father will probably be looked on as a money-driven author just trying to make money off her name and fame, all he could possibly do is add to her biography, and if it's bad it will probably be overlooked by the public and accepted for what her father is all about — money."

While money may be one motive, it seems that some books stem from familial jealousy.

"No one can know what a specific person's motivations are, but in general terms, when someone chooses to tell their story in a public way rather than in private, that certainly opens up the issue of other motivations," said Dr. William Callahan, a psychiatrist in Orange County, Calif., who has treated a few high-profile clients for the last 16 years.

"Those motivations are called secondary gains — correcting the record, gaining sympathy, exacting revenge, and of course the profit motive," he said. "Many people who are public spend a lot of time and effort keeping parts of their life private. They decide what is the part that will be public and what boundaries there are around the part that they want to be private. What I see in my higher-profile clients is even more concern about their privacy and making sure that's respected."

For publishers, tell-all books can be fraught with peril. Some companies refuse even to print the family secret tomes out of fear of being associated with a popular star "gone bad." Others can't wait to get their hands on what one publisher told ABCNEWS.com "will probably be a best-seller."

"I wish I had signed Mr. Winfrey," said Karen Hunter, distinguished lecturer at Hunter College, who just started a career in publishing in a division of Simon & Schuster. "That will sell."

Hunter wrote her first book in 1997 with LL Cool J and has written other offerings with Queen Latifah and the Rev. Al Sharpton, to name a few.

"We're in a sad place where this is something we embrace. We relish in shame, we uplift people like Martha Stewart," she said. "I'm sad for Oprah. I'm sad she's dealing with this, that he [her father] didn't even apparently have the decency to tell her about the book."

But Hunter is convinced the book will be a commercial success.

"Sick thing that we have -- we want to see people succeed, then we want them to fail," she said. "We root for the underdog, which Oprah was but now we're spending an inordinate amount of time on this woman trying to bring her down. We want to see her stumble, and I hate to say it, but I'll probably buy the book."

The Dirty Laundry?

Why all the interest in famous families' dirty laundry?

"I think there is a bit of voyeurism in us as a society and that's why we're so obsessed with these stories," said Callahan.

Some stars can't wait for the attention, even if it's not all that flattering. In some cases, it actually helps their careers.

"When Paris Hilton gets out of jail, she'll be more famous than ever," said Hunter. "Lindsay Lohan, whether she's drunk and underage or acting crazy, will still get movies."

It's a reminder of what the master showman P.T. Barnum once said: "I don't care what they write about me, as long as they spell my name right."

In this case, Oprah Winfrey doesn't seem to agree. "The last person in the world to be doing a book about me is Vernon Winfrey," she told the Daily News. "The last person."

ABC News' Sarah Hodd contributed to this report.