Absolutely - Goldie : the biography

Thirty years after her television debut, Goldie Hawn is still at the top: Hollywood's longest-lasting comedy actress.

Though her contemporaries -- Meryl Streep, Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand -- are acknowledged as finer actresses, Goldie Hawn's entrepreneurial streak, carefully veiled behind the girly facade, has generated a far greater personal fortune.

Hollywood's publicity men continue to project her as the quintessential Miss American Pie, and an indulgent Press has helped to rewrite some of the more colourful aspects of the past.

Yet behind the golden giggle exists a complex woman -- 'schizophrenically ambitious', as a former business partner puts it.

Sexually vulnerable but extremely manipulative, she has enjoyed affairs with an impressive roll-call of Hollywood celebrities and others, yet manages to preserve an air of girlish innocence throughout.

She has overcome anorexia, a nervous breakdown and dyslexia.

She has had public fall-outs with Demi Moore and Kirstey Alley.

She has been criticised for her 'cold, hard streak'.

Yet despite many setbacks she remains one of the most-loved icons of twentieth-century American culture.She has also managed, as no comedienne has ever done before, to break through Hollywood's glass ceiling.

Absolutely...Goldie is a definitive biography of this Hollywood phenomenon, sourced from a wide range of individuals who have known her well, some of whom have never spoken before.