London-born Ivor Davis first came to America in the early sixties and was appointed West Coast Bureau Chief for the 4-million-a-day circulation London Daily Express in l963.

His first big assignment came the following year: to hang out, travel with, and get to know the four members of a new pop group from Liverpool who were tearing up the world with their music: the Beatles.

He was the only British daily newspaper correspondent to cover the Fab Four’s first American tour from start to finish, given unparalleled access to John, Paul, George, and Ringo. On the road, in their hotel, and during long nights of card and Monopoly games, they talked frankly about their bizarre new life. He also ghosted a regular newspaper column for George Harrison.

Over more than five decades as a writer for the Express and the Times of London, Ivor covered major events in North America. He penned a weekly entertainment column for the New York Times Syndicate for over fifteen years, interviewing some of the biggest names in show business, from Cary Grant to Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton to Tom Cruise and Muhammad Ali.

In 1962, he was smuggled onto the campus of the riot-torn University of Mississippi when James Meredith was enrolled as the first black student, and three years later Davis was on the front lines as Los Angeles’ Watts riots erupted.

He covered Robert Kennedy’s 1968 presidential bid and was in the Ambassador Hotel kitchen the night Kennedy was assassinated. He was one of the “Boys on the Bus” chronicling the life of actor- turned-politician Ronald Reagan, first, during his campaign for governor of California, and then as he ran for president.

He also witnessed some of the biggest trials in American history: Sirhan Sirhan, convicted of killing Bobby Kennedy in 1969; black-power militant Angela Davis, acquitted of murder in l972; Daniel Ellsberg’s trial for leaking the “Pentagon Papers;” and, in 1976, heiress Patty Hearst’s conviction of robbery after being kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army.

In l969 Davis co-wrote Five to Die, the first book ever published about the Sharon Tate—LaBianca murders and covered the trial for the Express. As a foreign correspondent, he traveled throughout the western hemisphere covering riots, floods, earthquakes and politics. As Editor-at-Large for Los Angeles Magazine, he and his late wife, Sally Ogle Davis, wrote over 100 major magazine and cover stories. He has reported on four World Soccer Cups for CBS radio.

Davis currently lives in Southern California and is working on two additional books: one about movies the other a true crime story.

ABOUT THE BOOK MANSON EXPOSED

Few have been so deeply embedded in the life of Charles Manson, while maintaining distance from the mesmerizing pull that drew his followers to him and compelled them to do his bidding.
Author/Journalist IVOR DAVIS kept a cool, independent and objective view as the case played out and in his gripping new book “Manson Exposed: A Reporter’s 50-Year Journey into Madness and Murder,” he shares his personal odyssey over half a century. He meticulously pieces together the complex and Byzantine story, making rivetting sense of one of the most savage and seemingly senseless massacres in American criminal history.

Davis is an eyewitness to the case. He was there. He had a front row seat during the year-long trial and sheds new light on this ever changing story by sharing how he stayed one step ahead of investigators, pinpointing why this killer band did what they did, and how they did it and who they did it to, as well as clearly identifying all the players in this warped American tragedy.

Drawing from his personal diaries, reportage and dozens of new interviews, he weaves together his memories, investigations and exclusive dossier gathered over half a century. He delivers a complex and fascinating web of raw, eyewitness interviews with Manson Family members, their lawyers, public defenders, prosecutors and many world famous celebrities whose lives were forever scarred by being immersed in this dark chapter in murder history.

EARLY PRAISE FOR MANSON EXPOSED

“The most detailed behind the scenes account of the Manson trial that I have ever read. Fascinating”
STEPHEN KAY, Los Angeles deputy district attorney and prosecutor, Charles Manson murder trial.

“Ivor Davis, who was on the scene from day one for the London Daily Express and never stopped reporting, offers new facts and fresh insights in this revealing and thorough account. Manson Exposed lives up to its title -- and then some. “
STEVE ONEY, author of And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank

“Ivor Davis has written a compulsively readable back-porch memoir about the amazing reach the Charlie Manson murder case had into the celebrity world of 1960s-70s Los Angeles. In his years as a Hollywood writer he came to know most of its famous characters personally and revisits them with a wicked eye for detail and an astonishingly detailed memory. His book brings a sometimes disturbing, often brilliant era to life.”
--MARK BOWDEN, author of best seller, Black Hawk Down, and The Last Stone, A Masterpiece of Criminal Interrogation.