Rick Beyer is a best-selling author, an award-winning filmmaker and long-time history enthusiast. His newest book,
Rivals Unto Death traces the thirty-year rivalry of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.
"In this fascinating dual biography, Beyer brings these two towering figures to vivid life on the page." --New York Times bestselling author Hampton Sides.
Beyer is the co-author (with Elizabeth Sayles Sayles) of the
New York Times bestseller
The Ghost Army of World War II How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived the Enemy with Inflatable Tanks Sound Effects and Other Audacious Fakery. Beyer has spent nearly a decade researching this story. His award-winning documentary film about the unit,
The Ghost Army premiered on PBS in 2013.
The San Francisco Chronicle called the film “mesmerizing,” while
TV Guide referred to it as “entrancing.”
Beyer has also produced documentary films for The History Channel, A&E, National Geographic, the Smithsonian and others. He is the author of
The Greatest Stories Never Told series of history books published by Harper Collins, and described by the
Chicago Tribune as “an old fashioned sweetshop full of tasty morsels.”
Beyer has shared his unique take on history in interviews on
CBS, MSNBC, CNN, The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, NPR, Fox News, and audiences around the country. He has also worked as a radio reporter, a TV news producer, an ad agency creative director, and a janitor (not in that order). And here's a few other things he's done.
•Camp for ten days in the mosquito-infested Siberian Wilderness
•Flee New Orleans the day before Katrina
•Interview Jimmy Carter in the White House
•Climb Mt. Washington 5 times
•Get called stupid by David Brinkley
•Be consoled by Mary Tyler Moore
•Marry a beautiful woman during a lightning storm
A graduate of Dartmouth College, Beyer lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, with his wife, Marilyn Rea Beyer (see above about the lightning storm!)