An entertaining memoir that refreshingly focuses on character and dialogue over stardom.
A debut account of brushes with fame, love affairs, and hilarious conversations from an actor’s life.
Trebor writes that his parents, whom he describes as “decent and loving as they were middle class,” agreed to fund his early acting education at Northwestern University despite their initial worries. Right from the start, he showed prodigious talent and charisma, winning the lead in a production of Jean Anouilh’s play Poor Bitos as well as the affection of a beautiful but already engaged woman. Despite his raunchy fantasy life and youthfully crass sense of humor, Trebor says that he earned a reputation as a “four square Mr. Clean.” His star continued to rise in the school’s drama department, leading to him spending a summer at a regional theatrical repertory in California alongside then-unknown Robin Williams and going to New York City with his first serious girlfriend. Unfortunately, both the relationship and his few potential career breaks fell apart. Eventually, his striking resemblance to the Son of Sam serial killer led to him getting a glowing New York Times review for a role opposite Martin Sheen in a TV movie. This took Trebor to Hollywood, where he eventually married his longtime girlfriend and landed a popular recurring role on the TV show Xena: Warrior Princess. Throughout, Trebor boils down his advice to aspiring actors with brief asides: “Tip #2: Don’t sweat the small stuff when it comes to rivals getting a role….Let the other guy get the coronary.” His story follows a traditional rise-to-fame narrative but without ever relying on clichés; instead, he focuses on the many personalities he encountered, both on-set and off. At times, the memoir has the pace of a screenplay; it’s heavy on dialogue and features simple, concise summations of others’ reactions, such as “silence” or “slightly awkward pause.” These smart choices eliminate excessive nostalgia and highlight Trebor’s incredible wit; the book’s best moments are when he verbally spars with his parents, acting legends, or his own lovers, firing off punch lines on everything from waffles to director Akira Kurosawa. He presents the life of a working actor who neither attained incredible fame nor succumbed to despair, and his engaging, charming voice creates a story that feels extraordinary.
An entertaining memoir that refreshingly focuses on character and dialogue over stardom.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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