ALL I NEED IS LOVE

by Klaus Kinski ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 21, 1988

Hurricane-force autobiography from film actor Kinski--Nastassja's dad--who here writes of his astonishing life with the same ferocity that he has brought to his brilliant star turns in Aquirre: The Wrath of God, Nosferatu, Fitzcarraldo, and other movies. Born to dreadful poverty in pre-WW II Warsaw, Kinski's life--as he tells it here--has been one long mad dash for the love and comfort denied him as a child. The white-hot intensity of his run is well reflected in this memoir, which fairly blisters off the page: ""Every morning we are covered with bedbug bites. Even our faces are bloated. . .our sheets and the walls are smeared with blood. It looks as if we have all murdered each other."" Starving, stealing for a living, sent to a children's welfare home, Kinski in time found two escapes from his youthful hell--acting and sex. The acting, cultivated in the German theater and coming to flower in the films of Werner Herzog, has won him fame and wealth (although he claims that he acts just for tile cash--""We have no money, so I take the first film that comes along, like a whore on the strip who takes on the first available customer""). And the sex--starting at a tender age with his sister and rolling on through a Casanovian number of liaisons, many with underage girls and many graphically detailed here--has brought him mostly pain in two shattered marriages and a trail of broken loves. Kinski's demonic energy seems to have diminished not a whit as he enters his 60s; he tramples those who admire him (""Journalists, writers, film freaks: These vultures are trying to feed off me"") and curses those with whom he must work (""I absolutely despise this murderer Herzog. . .Big red ants should piss in his eyes, eat his balls, penetrate his asshole, and eat his guts!""). A singular celebrity biography, echoing Celine and Hamsun and throbbing with rage, pain, and lust. Not a gentle read--rather, bilious and lacerating--but certainly an unforgettable one.

Pub Date: Dec. 21, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1988

Categories: NONFICTION