Another centimeter-deep celebio from King (Madonna, 1991; Everybody Loves Oprah!, 1987, etc.), and one with no research acknowledgements, pointing up King's failure to land an interview with Hall or anyone close to him. As with Oprah and Madonna, King again chooses a subject whose big mouth supplies the author with magnetic filler for lending a sense of life here and there. Hall was born in Cleveland to an abusive Baptist preacher 20 years older than his wife, and today attributes his talk-show smarts to time spent watching his dad work the church crowd. A single child, Hall would stay up late to watch TV and found his real family of friends on The Tonight Show. Like Johnny Carson, he became a drummer and child magician. In high school, Hall was ever the class clown and, with his first tape recorder, seriously began interviewing classmates, much to the despair of their embarrassed parents. At Kent State, he brought down the house in his speech class when he announced that ``I plan on making my living with my oratory skills, and I'd like to be a talk-show host.'' In short, Hall was as born to the tube as Mozart was to the pianoforte. Hall began moving into the big time as a warm-up act for the Temptations, Dionne Warwick, and Nancy Wilson. His buddy Eddie Murphy drafted him into Coming to America as the hero's sidekick and, though the moneymaking film turned off most critics, reviewers singled out Hall's performance. Meanwhile, Hall had long seen a hole in late-night talk shows—blacks didn't get to chat with Carson as often as whites—so he chose to become ``bicultural'' on his late show. His self-definition: ``I'm just a guy from Cleveland. I ask real ordinary Midwestern questions.'' But he wears $900 suits. Mr. Stardust battles bad vibes from the critics and wins the moon. (Photos—not seen.)
Pub Date: Jan. 21, 1993
ISBN: 0-688-10827-X
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
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
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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