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Things I've Said, But Probably Shouldn't Have: An Unrepentant Memoir
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Things I've Said, But Probably Shouldn't Have: An Unrepentant Memoir
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by Bruce Dern, Robert Crane, and Christopher Fryer
Sales Rank : 218111
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Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Wiley April 20, 2007
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0470106379
ISBN-13: 978-0470106372
Product Dimensions:
9.3 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
Dern, who got his acting break in Roger Corman films, is best known for roles in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and the Oscar-nominated Coming Home. While he's been an actor for decades, his rambling career account suffers from inaccuracy; for example, when Dern wrongly identifies Elia Kazan as Jewish (he was brought up Catholic). Born a Midwest child of privilege, Dern learned the Method with Lee Strasberg, who suggested he go to Hollywood. And from the moment he gets there, he trumpets his own abilities. His memoir details his fellow actors, directors and pictures, and reveals that he turned down an audition for The Godfather and rebuffed Woody Allen. While briefly touching on his marriages and his obsession with running, Dern saves his eloquence for the magic that can occur on a set. He reserves high praise for directors like Hitchcock, because "we might do something nobody had ever done before." Despite his wild run, his memoir is so dominated by ego, it fails to hold our interest.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Sturdy second- and occasionally first-line actor Dern comes clean about his life and career in a memoir that required two as-told-to scribes to whip into shape (it still reads like recording transcripts, bumpy but personal). Dern haled from Glencoe on Chicago's swanky North Shore, where his family occupied one of three contiguous estates owned by the founders of the Carson Pirie Scott department stores (an older cousin was poet and Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish). After high school, he decamped for New York and Lee Strasberg's notorious Actors Studio. Directed early on by Elia Kazan on stage, Dern proceeded to a torrent of TV and film work, most notably including cult favorites The Wild Angels and Silent Running as well as Coming Home, which got him a supporting actor Oscar nomination. He costarred in Hitchcock's last film, A Family Plot, but then turned down The Godfather and Marathon Man and accepted The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant. He affects an offhand, entertaining manner here, making this a fun addition for movie collections. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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