A life of Connery that's given its richness as much by the whimsically outspoken star himself as by Yule. Yule combines the detail of his David Puttnam bio (Fast Fade, 1988) with the focus on acting that enlivened his Al Pacino bio (Life on the Wire, 1991) and makes a satisfying study of Connery's lust to give his talent its head. A Scot often mistaken for an Irishman, Tommy Connery (Sean is a stage name) was raised in Edinburgh and early came into the family ulcer, which he has passed on to his son Jason, a rising young actor. The ulcer got Connery out of the Navy at 19. An early interest in body-building boosted his stage career and general charisma, though he was always magnetic. Small film roles as well as stage classics led to Dr. No and James Bond, who was a mixed blessing for Connery, bringing him wealth but also the burden of typecasting, against which he fought endlessly. This fight led to film roles that stretched him as a character actor but brought on a long list of flops. It took Connery nearly 30 years to find a blockbuster in the $100-million range (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) that wasn't a Bond film, although, ironically, Indiana Jones himself is a Bond clone. The Connery whom Yule draws is a charming chauvinist pig who has not led a monastic life, waves off women like flies, greatly prefers golf to gals. Much time and money have been given to Scottish charities and youth. He spends big but grips his pennies, has a vital interest in not being screwed. Everyone speaks of Connery as a joy to work with, a truly focused actor and the ultimate professional whose presence brings order—though incompetence makes him gripe loudly. Much, much better than average, and made so by Connery's wit. (Photos—not seen.)
Pub Date: Aug. 27, 1992
ISBN: 1-55611-277-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Donald Fine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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
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