Books provide insight into lives of icons

NEW YORK (AP) -- Two fashion icons will adorn bookstore shelves this fall, with a veteran fashion reporter delving into the Calvin Klein empire and photographer Helmut Newton telling his life story.
"The House of Klein: Fashion, Controversy and a Business Obsession" (Wiley, September 2003, $24.95) by former Women's Wear Daily and New York Post reporter Lisa Marsh examines the Bronx-born designer who helped American fashion compete with Paris and chronicles the corporate battles that led to Klein's success in cashing in on that image.
In "Autobiography" (Nan A. Talese-Doubleday, September 2003, $27.95), 83-year-old photographer Helmut Newton serves up his own dirty laundry.
Newton gained fame in the 1960s with provocative, sometimes scandalous, photo spreads in French Vogue that featured seminude women with idiosyncratic props such as neck braces and riding saddles. The "bad boy" photographer describes his pampered childhood in Berlin and his escape from the Nazis, as well as his adventures as a "kept" boy in Singapore and a soldier in Australia. He also gives the back stories on his most famous photos, including shots of artist Salvador Dali, disgraced Austrian leader Kurt Waldheim, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and photographer and Nazi-era filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl.