Jimmy McDonough is a biographer and journalist. He is best known for his biographies of Russ Meyer, Andy Milligan, Tammy Wynette, Al Green, and Neil Young.[1] He is noted by critics for his remarkably exhaustive accounts and for his tendency to avoid romanticizing his subjects' lives. For this reason, he was described by The Times as "a literary Terminator".[2] Time's Richard Corliss declared his first published work The Ghastly One "a masterpiece"[3] and John Waters has repeatedly named it one of his favorite books[4] (this was actually McDonough's second effort; the first, Shakey: The Biography of Neil Young, had been held up by a lawsuit over the claim that Young had tried to prevent publication).[5] Other reviewers decry the inclusion of his personal experience/reactions often found in his books as a sort of biographical treason. In addition to the aforementioned biographies, McDonough has authored profiles on Jimmy Scott, Gary Stewart,[6] Hubert Selby, Jr., the Ormond family[7] and Link Wray,[8] and over the span of his career he has written for a number of publications including: The Village Voice, Film Comment, and Variety.
In 2010, McDonough's biography of Tammy Wynette was published[9] and the book was optioned by director David O. Russell, who had also optioned the author's Russ Meyer biography,[10] but neither movie ever materialized. McDonough assisted musician John Fogerty with his 2015 autobiography Fortunate Son and that same year the director Nicolas Winding Refn published a book of exploitation movie posters largely based on McDonough's collection.[11] Soul Survivor, the author's biography of singer Al Green, was published August 29, 2017.[12] This book appears to be just as contentious as his previous works, with one early reviewer declaring that "McDonough presents himself as someone who, like Green, simply does not give a fuck about what others think."[13]
In 2017, McDonough (along with his cat Buster) became an animated character in the two-part episode on George Jones and Tammy Wynette for Mike Judge's Tales From the Tour Bus. He also edited "Regional Renegades," the first volume for Nicolas Winding Refn's byNWR.com site, which went live in the summer of 2018. In 2019, McDonough appeared as the "Strange Man" in the episode 10 finale of Refn's Too Old to Die Young series. He also provided voice-overs for other episodes. From 2018 to 2022 McDonough was Editor-in-Chief of byNWR.com, where he contributed lengthy profiles on Texas honky-tonk singer Frankie Miller, Wayne Cochran, Gary Stewart, carnival star Georgette Dante, Margaret Doll Rod, Tammy Faye Starlite, and the women in Texas exploitation director Dale Berry's films, as well as hosting a podcast on Mississippi preacher Estus Pirkle and the films he made with Ron Ormond.
In 2023 McDonough published an exhaustive Ormonds biography,The Exotic Ones: That Fabulous Film-Making Family from Music City, U.S.A. – The Ormonds, a book that had been in the works for nearly forty years. He also wrote a long essay for the Blu-ray set released in conjunction with the book that features all of the Ormond exploitation/religious pictures, From Hollywood to Heaven: The Lost and Saved Films of the Ormond Family. Both Margaret Doll Rod and Tammy Faye Starlite made guest appearances on McDonough's book tour, which was dubbed "The 2023 Jimmy Jimmy Coco Puff World Tour" on social media.
McDonough is reportedly finishing a long-awaited biography of honky-tonk singer and musician Gary Stewart next.
McDonough lives in the Pacific Northwest.[14] He is somewhat enigmatic about himself, as revealed in a rare 2011 (internet conducted) interview with Jonathan Penner.[15]
