Alex Haley

When the sprawling dramatization of Alex Haley's genealogical best-seller first aired in 1977, it was a true phenom, drawing an average audience of nearly 80 million.

Monday TV in Review: Alcatraz, Lost Girl, Being Human and More 2012

Alex Haley told the moving story behind writing Roots.

Thomas Gladysz: Lou Gordon and the Original Romney Flip-flop Thomas Gladysz 2011

The literary fraud that sheds the most light on what Obama can expect, if ever busted, was the brainchild of another black icon, the late Alex Haley.

Deconstructing Obama Jack Cashill 2011

One reason is the Autobiography of Malcolm X, a memoir ghosted by Alex Haley, who later wrote the Afro-American blockbuster Roots.

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable – review 2011

The literary fraud that sheds the most light on what Obama can expect, if ever busted, was the brainchild of another black icon, the late Alex Haley.

Deconstructing Obama Jack Cashill 2011

But what will come as a shock is Marable's assertions that the Malcolm X the world has come to know through Alex Haley's 1965 New York Times bestseller The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Spike Lee's 1992 film Malcolm X, based largely on Haley's book, is fictive.

Irene Monroe: Malcolm X Was "Gay-for-Pay," New Book Says Irene Monroe 2011

Maybe, it was the parade of so many talking heads who have died since the film was made -- Alex Haley, Robert Culp, Tony Curtis -- or the fact that Hef wannabe Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione died right before the film was shown.

Martha Rosenberg: Will Hugh Hefner Be Remembered as a Visionary or a Flesh Peddler? Martha Rosenberg 2011

Two decades ago, 22 black leaders gathered for a retreat on farmland in rural Tennessee once owned by writer Alex Haley.

Black leaders regroup to address widening poverty among African American children Krissah Thompson 2011

But what will come as a shock is Marable's assertions that the Malcolm X the world has come to know through Alex Haley's 1965 New York Times bestseller The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Spike Lee's 1992 film Malcolm X, based largely on Haley's book, is fictive.

Irene Monroe: Malcolm X Was "Gay-for-Pay," New Book Says Irene Monroe 2011

Among its biggest sellers under Mr. Sargent's leadership were "Jaws" by Peter Benchley and "Roots" by Alex Haley.

Doubleday's Dapper Leader Stephen Miller 2012