FANS insist on a strange dogma: we want our stars to be the same off screen as on. Often, biographies and autobiographies are the first time that we begin to suspect our idols are not as they appear. Sometimes, they are simply different.

Three new books certainly reveal other strands of famous personalities we probably believe we know well.

Amanda Barrie became a much-loved figure through arguably the nation's most famous soap, Coronation Street. She played feisty but basically sweet-natured Alma, to whom life just seemed to happen.

As a result, we had already pigeon-holed Barrie. But, her autobiography reveals a far more complex person -- and far more turbulent personal life. She was born Shirley Broadbent in Ashton-under-Lyne, Manchester and landed her first theatre job at the age of four. Already in the midst of her parents' disintegrating marriage, she became the object of a pushy stage mother. By 13, she was working as a chorus girl and in 1956, became a regular at London's famous Winston Club. Leggy, pretty and petite, she won small film parts until 1963 when she was the eponymous lead in Carry on Cleo.

One of the most enduring images of that time is of the doe-eyed beauty emerging from her milky bath, all chaste and seeming innocence.

Her innocence was not the only curtain in a multi-layered life.

Amanda had relationships with both men and women over the years, and she also talks frankly about her affair with rock idol Billy Fury. Coronation Street provided a wonderful showcase for Barrie's acting talents. Of the cast, she now recalls:"It's the laughter and the friendships that I remember best." Such fame placed her private life always in danger of leaping into the spotlight, but even so, she was not totally happy with the way Alma died from cancer.

This is a highly readable book, with plenty of references to people and places that many readers will know. For all that she lays her heart bare, we can acknowledge that she is not as perhaps we assumed. Basically, she is better.

Joyce Grenfell came from an earlier era to become a different kind of British institution. To many, she was the jolly hockey sticks gym mistress in The Happiest Days of Your Life, and Ruby Gates in the St Trinians' films.

She was gangly and approachable -- if daffy -- upper class. She was, in fact, the daughter of an American railroad millionaire, and her aunt was the MP Nancy Astor. She grew up among rich people and always claimed that her stage career began by accident.

During the second world war, she sang to the troops and post-war honed her skills in revues before embarking on solo shows which filled theatres.

Her timing was always magnificent. Just close your eyes and you can hear her saying in those marvellous stentorian tones "Don't do that, Sydney" to the fictitious naughty schoolboy in her sketches, implying some disgraceful behaviour.

In her own life, although childless and seemingly spotless, she had a love affair in Cairo with Prince Aly Khan. In this excellent book, the image is finally fleshed out -- humorous, giving, complex. Just Joyce.

When Spike Milligan died earlier this year, the eulogies were many and affectionate.

Those who knew him from the Goons appreciated his anarchic style, but new generations quickly discovered him via Telegoons and his TV series Q.

Too complex for many to claim to have known the real man, it is left now for us to glean more through his writing. And this entertaining volume allows that well.

It is an anthology of the best of his work, including Puckoon, Goodby Soldier, Adolf Hitler: My Part In His Downfall, and some of the really wacky Goon Show scripts.

To enjoy it you must first totally embrace Milligan's brand of lunacy. His humour was always essential to our cultural development, and the sheer integrity of the man was never in doubt.

It is important to read this book in large tracts, rather than dip into it. Only by reading complete chunks will you get to know Milligan better, and like him the more for it.