He was a nobody who became a porn star, a porn star who became a destitute freebaser, an addict who set up his dealer to be robbed, and finally witness to a retaliatory massacre at the house they called Wonderland.

Somehow, River Phoenix’s reluctance to be a star only made him more famous. When he died outside an LA club in 1993, it only cemented his troubled legend.

He came home from Vietnam, wrote the novel that became Full Metal Jacket, was nominated for an Oscar and riding high. Then he got thrown in jail for stockpiling stolen library books, started drinking, cut off his friends and fled to a remote Greek island. He never made it back.

Bonnie Lee Bakley always wanted to marry a celebrity. The one she chose was Robert Blake, a troubled and only intermittently famous man who would end up accused of her murder.

Peter Bart was once a movie executive like everyone else, but as the head of Variety, the industry’s powerful source of news,

How a high-powered lawyer and a rough-edged private detective ended up at the center of the biggest, dirtiest scandal in Hollywood history.

He was just another coked-up agent (representing the likes of Steven Soderbergh) when he disappeared into Iraq, shooting heaps of footage he would attempt to package into a pro-war documentary. And that was just the beginning.

Two years ago, the fitness guru abruptly disappeared from public life. His friends worry that he’s being held against his will inside his Hollywood Hills mansion, or something even worse.

Sex, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court.

Analysis of the trial from future Supreme Court justice.

Every law student knows John Brady’s name. But few know the story of the bumbling murder that ended in a landmark legal ruling.

The Supreme Court justice on gay rights, the problem with consensus, and the Devil.

In 1976, newly appointed Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens voted to reinstate capital punishment in the United States. Thirty years later, he argued that it’s unconstitutional. Here, he explains why he changed his mind.

How Chief Justice John Roberts pulled off Citizens United.

How Neil Gorsuch became the second-most-polarizing man in Washington.

On the combined force of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Virginia, a Tea Party stalwart.

No one argues before the Supreme Court more than Tommy Goldstein.

At age 17, Eustace Conway moved into the North Carolina woods. He hasn’t compromised since.

Ida Wood, who lived for decades as a recluse in a New York City hotel, would have taken her secrets to the grave—if her sister hadn’t gotten there first.

Matthew Weigman was blind, overweight, 14 and alone. He could also do anything he wanted with a phone. Sometimes that meant calling Lindsay Lohan. Other times it meant sending a SWAT team to an enemy’s door.

How could a one-time rising golf star be gifted with top 10 talent yet struggle to break even on the LPGA tour, possess Madison Avenue magnetism yet be such a loner? But the most difficult thing to understand is this: Why did she take her own life?

The tale of itinerant wanderer Chris McCandless. The magazine story that preceded Into the Wild.

A profile of the reclusive musician.

If Charles Brogden pilfered a kitchen, he washed the dishes and mopped the floor before he left. And the law just couldn’t seem to run him down.

Meeting Christopher Thomas Knight, a.k.a. the North Pond Hermit, who lived alone in the Maine woods for nearly 30 years.

On the mysterious life of an the isolated heiress.