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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
America's Least Informative, June 22, 2001
This review is from: Former Child Star: The Story of America's Least Wanted (Paperback)
If your goal in reading this book is to see lots of names thrown around with cursory information such as Gary Coleman's date of birth, then this book is for you. If on the other hand, you are looking for insight into the psychological aspects of being a child star or a former child star, bypass this book. I expected to learn, for example, what it was like to memorize a script a week? What it was like to do rehersal after rehersal? What it was like to have people pestering you for autographs? What was like to search for acting jobs after you were no longer a cute kid. I found none of this. Instead, I read a printed version of Entertainment Tonight. In fact is was less insightful. After finishing the book, I asked myself, "What was this book about?".
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Self-Congratulatory Novice Writes Distorted History of TV Performers, May 31, 2009
This review is from: Former Child Star: The Story of America's Least Wanted (Paperback)
This self-congratulatory first-time "writer" (who we assume is male--there is no author bio included) takes the completely wrong approach to the subject and comes up with a distorted history of television child stars. Focusing completely on the problem cases and the few people he could interview, the author draws conclusions that are not supported by all the facts. But this isn't a book about all the facts--it's just sensationalism that is worse than the National Enquirer.
The introduction is a smirky self-history of how he came to stumble upon the subject. The author has no obvious qualifications to write the book other than a daddy who funded it.
He then claims that the first big "star" he has to thank is Rodney Allen Rippy. Who? A "star"? You mean the kid who was in a few commercials? That's this writer's idea of a star?
Then he states emphatically that this book is only about TV stars and won't cover movie stars. But the entire second chapter is about Jackie Coogan's childhood movie history. Didn't the author read his own introduction?
Much of the "research" seems to be rehashed gossip from some old newspaper articles. The book is therefore filled with mistakes and misstatements. It's a total distortion of TV history. Instead of starting with the real first TV kid stars (like Dick Van Patten on Mama or Little Ricky on I Love Lucy--which are ignored here), the author claims the first was Rick Nelson on Ozzie and Harriet!
Then he glides over some major real child stars (most noticeably Jerry Mathers from Leave It to Beaver, who gets a couple sentences here but starred in the first TV show that told a story from the child's perspective and the first to have a child in pretty much every scene) and instead focuses on the people he could interview. Jon Provost from Dennis the Menace is not a milestone in the medium, but he is mentioned throughout this book.
This is a perfect example of how not to write a book about television history. Don't just focus on the few sources you can get access to and then create a false timeline based on those people alone. A better writer and researcher would have done a complete analysis of the medium instead of focusing on the already widely-known tabloid stories of a few troubled child actors.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful!, December 21, 2011
This review is from: Former Child Star: The Story of America's Least Wanted (Paperback)
How can anybody bash this book? I think it's wonderful. Joal Ryan really did her homework in trying to find the origins of the Former Child Star 'Curse'. She pinpoints exactly why people think former child stars are 'losers' in the first chapter, and gives examples of typecasting woes in the next two, tells of the first child star statistic (Anissa Jones of "Family Affair") and the subsequent troubles of former child stars after that, including the cast of "Diff'rent Strokes". Finally, she gives examples of former child stars that are successful, which turns out to be the majority of them. My only complaint (and it's very minor) is that she stuck to child television stars only (with the understandable exception of Jackie Coogan). Still, in spite of that, I thought this book was brilliant, and would definitely recommend it to people who are curious on the matter of child celebrities.
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