Author Bill Zehme, whose subjects included Sinatra, Hugh Hefner, Leno and Andy Kaufman, is dead at 64
CHICAGO — Name a star or celebrity of the last 40 years and it’s likely that person was the subject of Bill Zehme’s keen mind and artful writing, in such magazines as Rolling Stone, Playboy, Vanity Fair and Esquire, and in bestselling books in collaboration with Jay Leno and Regis Philbin, and about Andy Kaufman and Frank Sinatra.
“Bill was a great writer but he was an even greater person,” said Tom Dreesen of suburban Harvey, for years Sinatra’s opening act. “Humble about his writing skills, and more interested in knowing about you than you knowing about him.”
Zehme was diagnosed a decade ago with colorectal cancer. Ever upbeat through it all, he was never strong enough since to write more than a bit for magazines or to complete his long-brewing biography
