Esposito may not tell all, but he comes close in this brutally honest, yet loyal, memoir of his days with the King. From when they met in the Army to the afternoon when he was one of the first to discover the dead body of Elvis Presley where he had collapsed from his toilet throne (Esposito was the one who raised his pajama trousers to avoid embarrassment), Presley's right-hand man was in a position to know the inside scoop. He and Oumano (Paul Newman, 1989) describe Elvis as being like a little boy who spent his wealth making himself and the people around him happy. The anecdotes are endless as this pivotal member of the ``Memphis Mafia'' comes clean on the partying Elvis's parade of girlfriends and his suitcase full of sexy videotapes and Polaroids of Priscilla (Esposito handed it to her the moment she arrived at Graceland for the funeral). Esposito tells of the Elvis who stopped passersby to give them money or gifts, who would decide suddenly that ten or so of his friends all needed Harleys to race around Bel Air, who would not flinch at buying a car for family or friends who were loyal to him, and who made an infamous visit to see President Nixon. But he also gives up the goods on the Elvis who was hopelessly self-indulgent, constantly demonstrating his dubious karate skills, buying people off with expensive gifts rather than admitting he was wrong, and finally dying a prisoner in his own bedroom, uninterested in facing new challenges and addicted to prescription drugs. Video rentals of Girls! Girls! Girls! are sure to surge so people can look for the scene in which Elvis sports an erection in his too-tight pants. While apologetic and loyalist at times, Esposito doesn't let the King off too easy. (16 pages of b&w photos, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-79507-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
