Life of John Cleese, by a London feature writer, gossip columnist, and show-business reporter. While not a winner, Margolis's account will greatly interest comedy fans. Is Cleese ``the funniest man in the world,'' as Margolis claims? A strong case—drawn from Cleese's 12 scripts and performances for the British supersitcom Fawlty Towers and his script for and performance in A Fish Called Wanda (Britain's most successful film comedy ever), to say nothing of his handcrafted Schweppervescence ads—can be made for this idea. The sad part is that Margolis's opening hundred pages, before Cleese arrives at his leadership of the Monty Python team of writer-actors, are so footslogging—despite the reader's inherent curiosity about Cleese's childhood quirks and the foibles of his young manhood. Cleese was born in dreary Weston-super-Mare, at age 13 reached his adult height of six feet four, and has gone through life as an eccentrically serious man. He set out to be a lawyer but at Cambridge fell into stage comedies that eventually took him on the road with his university troupe, members of which became the nucleus of the Monty Python team. The team's groundbreaking inventiveness rose above satire into a madcap frolicking that broke nearly all barriers to what could be said or shown on British TV. Cleese, however, was not fulfilled by Monty Python, most of whose skits he thinks are dreadfully witless, and set out to craft the absolutely most satisfying TV comedy possible. With his separated wife, Connie Booth, he wrote Fawlty Towers—or rewrote, since most episodes went through ten drafts until every rift was packed with comic ore. Meanwhile, Cleese started up Video Arts, an amazingly successful company that produced seriocomic how-to-run-a-business films. The story of a generally stone-faced, slow-reading polymath whose comic genius takes fans, ballistically, through the roof. (Eight pages of photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1992
ISBN: 0-312-08162-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1992
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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