Customer Reviews

Breathing Out

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Peggy Lipton, best known for playing Julie in the seminal TV hippie/cop show, THE MOD SQUAD, was one of the most beautiful girls of the 1960s, an era of much beauty. Lipton had a radiance and a natural glow about her that made her stand out, and she wasn't a bad actress, though THE MOD SQUAD didn't give her that much to do. She was sulky and bold, as though she were trying to play James Dean's part in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, and like Dean in REBEL, her character, Julie, had to bond in a convincing way with other misfits. "With Michael and Clarence, I had an intuitive, wordless connection," she writes. The three of them could be lounging around a hippe pad together, or riding their big Harleys down Sunset Boulevard, and that connection remained. She was a star in her day (40 years ago), and she accomplished all this almost by accident,while wearing the coolest clothes ever seen on TV, and fighting crime, and reconciling the values of a drug and street culture to the strict law and order regime of a Quinn Martin production.

Behind the scenes Peggy was much gossiped about and as her revealing memoir tells us, it turns out to have been all true. Her affair with Paul McCartney is beautifully told. As she describes it, she was kind of squeezed in between Jane Asher and Linda Eastman, and I for one can see how Asher, Eastman, and Heather Mills are all variations on the Peggy Lipton type. She lived with Lou Adler and so she was right at the center of the LA "youthquake" with the Monterey Pop Festival, the Mamas and the Papas, etc. She even made an LP which I wish was included as a CD in the back of this book but alas no. She survived a close encounter with Sammy Davis Jr., and she "ended up spending three long weekends" with the one and only Elvis Presley. I'm just scratching the surface here. She got around in a serious way--she was "rapaciously romantic," she admits.

When she married Quincy Jones, she sort of withdrew from acting, and then David Lynch and TWIN PEAKS put her back on the map again. Her accounts of working with both men are equally satisfying. Most of all her readers will grow genuinely fond of her by the time the book comes to a close.

Revealing your history (including sexual experiences) is a choice. It's interesting to me that we're often more critical of women who write tell-all books then men. In fact, I've read a number of reviews criticizing famous males when they don't reveal more and praising them when they do.
A personal, honest journey is not revealing dirt. And Ms. Lipton had a wonderful relationship for many years in which she had her children. Obviously relationships are important to her.
I found her a true bright light on Twin Peaks. And she is more beautiful as a mature woman than ever! Breathing Out is a good thing.

When I was growing up, I wished more than anything that I could be Julie Barnes... so as soon as I heard about this book, I ran out and bought it.

Peggy has had an amazing life, filled with despair and wonder, and she shares her stories in a very direct, honest manner. While parts of Peggy mirrored the emotional, vulnerable Julie that she played on the show, she is also much more sensual and complicated than her public persona.

I guess I just assumed that a woman as beautiful and famous as Peggy would have led a happy life, but that was naive on my part. Breathing Out was a surprising memoir: so much of it was heavy and depressing, but then it became inspirational as Peggy grew stronger and learned to face her past, so she could change her future.

This is a well-written, fast-paced and absorbing memoir. I recommend it very much.

I have been a fan of Peggy Lipton's for years. I was so pleased to hear she had a book coming out, but was concerned that it would fall in line with the rest of the celebrity tell-all shlock. Suffice it to say, it does not. Yes, she does go into to detail of her relationships with famous people, but it's well integrated with her longer more meaningful life journey. I fully enjoyed this read and I highly recommend it.

The bio is a tell-all but...most typical teenage girls in the 1960's were dreaming of dating/sleeping with Paul McCartney (or any Beatle)and being a movie or TV star but Peggy lived the dream. But as she honestly reveals, the dream becomes a nightmare when adorable Paul McCartney makes her feel used and empty. Peggy was an icon of her times and everyone wanted to be like her or date her. But this bio shows that she did not have the idyllic life everyone believed she did. She not only pulls back the curtin on her life, she shows the dark side to being a star and dating celebrities. The book's format was a little too breezy for my taste. Peggy has some very serious things happen to her in her childhood and the writing style did not match these events.

For years, Peggy Lipton was for me the gorgeous blonde that I watched on the Mod Squad as a very young child and then part of David Lynch's wonderfully twisted dreamscape, Twin Peaks. Recently, though, I saw her on a television interview and found her just as intriguing as the roles I remember her playing. The impression she made led me to buy "Breathing Out" and read it in two sittings. The book read like a conversation with a friend. She tells some great stories and reveals her very human side -- that is, as a woman looking to love and be loved. Truly, it was refreshing to see that life isn't a breeze for her. Above all, her honesty is a breath of fresh air in this era of packaging the humanity of celebrities.

I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would and in a way, it was like reading a diary of someone you know. When I was a kid and Peggy Lipton starred on Mod Squad, she was the girl everyone wanted to be. Tall, blonde, beautiful, and cool. But in everything I ever saw her in, there was a sadness and sort of a remoteness about her. Reading about her childhood you understand where that comes from and even with all the great things and people in her life, that aura is still there. The book is very easy to read and I thought well written. Chapters are brief, only two or three pages, so it is easy to read, put down, pick back up and while it's enjoyable, you're not in a rush to finish it or dying to know what happened next. She is very honest, but elusive. Though she talks about her relationship with Paul McCartney, it never comes across as anything more than a one night stand to him. She gives no clue as to why she and Quincy Jones split up and she was the one to initiate the break, though she was obviously madly in love with him. In the end, though you know more about her than you did at the beginning, she is still the elusive, beautiful, remote creature she was 40 years ago.

Peggy is so intense; I give her two thumbs up for her revealing and honest telling of her life's story thus far. I couldn't put the book down, and I thought the writing was smooth, not chunky.( BTW, the book was written with two excellent professional authors who craft together the story seamlessly) I think it's unfair to characterise the book as a salacious kiss and tell. Although Peggy is upfront about her adventures and sexual shenanigans, against the backdrop of the swinging sixties and with the authors avowal of the horrific abuse scenario; her "sins" seem minimal.Once Peggy meets up with Quincy her 14 year relationship seems like halcyon as she finds security and safety for a time in her marriage and experience of motherhood.For the record, noting the booklist review- I don't think Peggy intimates that she "slept" with Sammy Davis Jr- in fact that story is carefully told- she ends up agreeing to a long sailing vacation cruise and is taken along as the sexy cargo free-gift-with purchase- Sammy's "date"... Eventually before they set sail, she is "rescued" from this scenario and this reader was relieved that Peggy was able to mollify Sammy Davis jr enough to escape a full blown ego fueled tirade because the "chick walked" , inventing some saving face plot.
I loved hearing about how satisfying working on Mod Squad was for the trio, this WAS ground breaking television, and Peggy did a beautiful job.The Guru encounters were oh so telling and I will reserve my judgements about this relationship; I want to applaud Peggy was carefully telling it like it is ; and was- and not just pretending to write a superficial memoir name dropping hollywood bio. The tender balance between candor and discretion is carefully maintained and the story was respectful to Peggy's family and friends- this book was a pleasure, and worth waiting for.

Really enjoyed this book. Purchased it cause I have a copy of her album and love it. Peg is an amazing woman and will always be beautiful.

Very easy read. However I personally liked Peggy Lipton better before I read her book than I do now. I was a major Mod Squad fan and there was some info on that but the rest just reminded me of goofy young people kinda stuff JMO