Giorgio Vasari's Lives in the Artists (1550) was the landmark biography concentrating on secular lives. Vasari produced celebrities of his topics, since the Lives grew to become an early "bestseller". At the risk of sounding cliché, the best biographies do exactly this: deliver their topics to lifetime. An excellent biography https://advertisesmart.com/view/post/Peter-O--39;Toole:-A-Life-in-Performance/225