| AKA Robert Beck. Beck was a poor black kid from a broken home in Milwaukee who moved to Chicago and became a very successful pimp during the 1950s. After spending about 20 years of his life this way, he got thrown in jail once too many times for his taste and decided to go straight.
He started writing books for Holloway House, a small publishing house in Los Angeles that focused on black fiction, writing both fiction and stories about his life. His most famous work was Pimp: The Story of My Life, an autobiography that took an uncomfortably close look at his previous occupation.
Until at least 1990, Iceberg Slim had sold more books than any other American black man. Ice T credits him as an influence, to the extent of selecting his stage name as an homage to him. | 
