Customer Reviews

Hollywood Animal: A Memoir

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

This book is so much more than a Hollwyood tell-all. For one thing, it's just terrifically written-- not "terrifically written for a Hollywood hack," but "terrifically written," period. Eszterhas' style is succinct, surprising and vivid. Some think he's boasting that he admires Salinger, Faulkner and Hemingway-- but Eszterhas writes terrific prose. He seems to be speaking directly, but his details are surprising and vivid. I haven't read his journalism, but I bet his articles were great.

He alternates chapters about Hollywood (which are yes, fascinating and appalling) with chapters called "flashback" about his dirt-poor and often difficult childhood as Hungarian immigrant in Cleveland, and brief, italicized sections called "close-ups" that are portraits of unnamed Hollywood personalities (a poolcleaner, a vice president, an actress).

It's a long book, but because of the way it's structured, it's a quick read (well, it took me a few weeks to get through it, but each time I'd pick it up I'd read 60-70 pages before I could bear to put it down). Ezsterhas includes verbatim hatchet-letters he's written to agents and producers who've offended him-- including one hilarious letter to Mike Ovitz that sets off a feud that is a running theme throughout the book. And while Ezsterhas is articulate and hilarious, any reader-- including apparently Ezsterhas himself-- can see that he's also defensive, arrogant and difficult as hell.

You can't help liking him anyway.

Even as he recounts episodes of cheating on his first wife. Even as he recounts painful alienations from friends and family that he is at least partially responsible for. Even when he shows a less than forgiving heart not only to his father but, in one of the sections that shows him in a rather petty light, to old high school classmates (he carries a grudge after 20 years and seems to take some glee in it).

In part that's because Joe is onto himself. He's deeply critical of himself and the book is long and full enough to show him actually reversing earlier actions that might raise an eyebrow. His portraits are sometimes cruel, but he doesn't spare himself either-- and there's as much love as contempt. Well, nearly. You get the sense that even when he was most a "hollywood animal"-- the guy was FUN. With a kind of fairness and honesty that is rare, threatening and delightful.

In the end, the book praises "flyover" values (the states in between the coasts)--prayer, family, changing seasons, hard work. Joe moves to Ohio with his family, and stays.

I found it inspiring on a lot of levels. Yes, I'm in entertainment and picked up the book for the "hollywood gossip"-- and there's lots of it here. One of the most admirable qualities Joe has is his sheer output. He doesn't write a whole lot about his process (though there is one section detailing his work on one of the screenplays). But many times throughout the book he writes of pitching this or that spec-- here is a man who didn't wait for assignments to just get to work.

But the book is inspiring too as an American Dream/Nightmare story, complete with pitfalls and rewards. finally Joe battles with cancer-- and goes on to become an anti-smoking activist. Go, Joe!

I rarely want to read a memoir more than once. But this one is so rich and full I know I'll be referring to it often. A great treat, easy going down but good for you too. Bravo!

Every life is intrinsically interesting; every life has its tremendous highs and abysmal lows. But very few people can tell their own story. First of all you need a photographic memory, and Joe Eszterhas has it. Next you need an ability not to write chronologically, because nothing is as deadly as "the next day I did something different." Eszterhas has the utterly brilliant ability to write in intellectual sequence: one idea comes up, it is dealt with fully, from all autobiographical angles, and then we segue into the next idea. Each idea is a topper. I thought by page 100 that I had already read a tremendous book; what could possibly be left? Well, each new 100 pages topped the previous ones. But the trick is not to get ahead of your autobiographical story. In other words, life's ordinary sequences must not skip around, in the sense that what you find out now can take away from any surprise in finding it out later. This is incredibly hard to mesh with intellectual sequencing. Thus, although Eszterhas skips around in periods through his life, nevertheless he preserves a rough chronological order that is more satisfying than real chronology because it is artistic. Finally, if you have all these attributes, you still have to write good prose. Eszterhas is no Nabokov, he is no Christopher Hitchens. In short, you don't see his words, you see through them. He is a master of the unobtrusive word, the unobtrusive sentence. It's like looking at a film; no one seems to be "explaining" it to you. Eszterhas uses performatives with ease. Of course, he's one of the most successful screenwriters of all time. Actually, the theatre lost a great playwright when he went to Hollywood. There isn't a word in his book about any desire to write for the living theatre, and yet that's the kind of writing he does. He gains his laughs by skillful echoing of previous remarks, the way that is so effective in live theatre and so unappreciated in film. As I read this amazing book, I paid the author what perhaps is a reader's best compliment: I went and replayed his films as he discussed them. What an amazing treat! "Jagged Edge" was better than when I first saw it, although now I knew with great regret that Jane Fonda had turned down the role eventually played by Glen Close; how much superior Fonda would have been! "Music Box" was the biggest revelation, given the eerie, creepy, and unintentional parallel to Joe Eszterhas' own life. I hadn't previously seen "Flashdance," but oh, how marvelous! And "Basic Instinct"? A movie that, if Hitchcock had directed it, would have been at the top of his oeuvre. I even liked "Showgirls," which I think will get an underground following as soon as people get over the idea that it's supposed to be sexy. As for all the reviewers who have "reviewed" this book without reading it, and who have nothing but contempt for a great author, I hope you spill coffee on your keyboards. I'm afraid Eszterhas hurt himself with his brutally self-deprecating title; he sort of invited the sleaziest reviewers to review his book just because they already knew what they were going to say before they skimmed it. Finally, if you're going to be a great autobiographer, you have to give the reader her money's worth. You can't skimp because the reader has paid good money to read about you. Eszterhas doesn't skimp; he has never skimped on his writing in his life. What you get is solid gold. If to some people it looks tawdry, it's their own fault.

I've read quite a bit about the book, but was surprised to learn after reading it that it's more like a tutorial on screenwriting and moviemaking in general. The Hollywood insights, anectdotes and hard cold facts are something anyone in the entertainment business should read if they want to survive or, hell, even thrive. Joe's entertaining style and no-nonsense approach makes this book a must read!!!

I have listened to the CD of this book, all the comments pertain to that edition.

I picked up this CD from the public library before a long road trip. I had no idea who this man was or who most of the other "larger than life" stars were. The story, I found out, is fascinating, well-written and Scott Brick's delivery helps to bring out Eszterhas' personality. The author himself ... I can't stand. Or can I?

This is a story of transformation and redemption and the trick is - as another reviewer has commented - indeed, for the writer not to get ahead of himself, but leave things to be discovered, let the complexity of his personality peel away like layers of an onion.

In a series of flashbacks that show Joe as a Hungarian boy and ones that show him as an American man, we witness how a scared, geeky, immigrant boy with quite a temper becomes first a successful millionaire Hollywood screenwriter who learns to play the Hollywood game of power, then gains some perspective via the experience of throat cancer, finding God and learning to value less glamorous things such as being able to breathe while walking. Obvious things apparently take a long time to understand if there is a lot of money, drugs and pussy on the other side.

Honesty and integrity are at the core of his tale in Hollywood (defending his script from changes, incursions into his creative freedom even when the odds are against him) and I rooted for him as a screenwriter right through his fight with Ovitz where he puts his career on the line.

Honesty and integrity are missing from most his private life, where he cheats on his wife every chance he gets and identifies "strains" in his marriage as he is working to hack it apart. By contrast, Bill MacDonald, his would-be wife's former husband, is not into cheating, for which he labels him a "prude" and attributes this strange attitude to his "Catholic upbringing."

Eszterhas' twenty years fit well into a Hollywood that uses up starstruck, ambitious young women hoping to make it and spits them out half-destroyed, but too stoned to notice. I am not sure which is worse: the women who would do "anything and everything" - in the book's returning phrase - to make it or the men who know they can and therefore will do whatever with them. Eszterhas happily assists, honesty and integrity do not play here. The lifelong liberal democrat, who abhors atrocities toward the weak and the poor is caught in a strange blindspot here.

In defending his ambiguous scripts Eszterhas is right that the audience can handle and even like ambiguity. He has written a book that reads in part like a soap opera, that gives enough clues to alternative readings to that you are tempted to sort out where you stand with regard to this man, someone you have never met and most likely never will.

Well done.

While Mr. Eszterhas does give insight into behind-the-scenes goings on and the way Hollywood really works by telling the kind of stories we'll never hear on Leno or Letterman, much of the material here has appeared elsewhere, and much of the material has nothing to do with screenwriting.

Joe talks at great length about his love for his wife and family, but it is apparent that they are a distant second for his true love -- himself.

Mr. Eszterhas seems obsessed with every event in his entire life, down to, and including, the most trivial.

The biggest problem, however, is that he talks about all his screenplays -- each and every one, as if each is a brilliant work of art.

Mr. Eszterhas wrote or co-wrote three films that are considered noteworthy -- "Flashdance," "Basic Instinct," and "Jagged Edge" -- but he wrote dozens of others, including some that never became movies and some that did and are considered among the worst films ever made (always the director's fault, never Joe's)but nonetheless gives the impression that he genuinely believes each is on a Shakespearean level.

Like a successful politician who eventually fails, Mr. Eszterhas is very much concerned about his legacy -- which is an odd thing for a screenwriter -- since screenwriters normally toil behind-the-scenes and mostly in quiet.

Joe sounds unusually bitter when he describes most of his Hollywood colleagues as trash. The book could have been much better had Mr. Eszterhas kept his personal life out and talked more about how deals are put together and how most movies -- not just his -- get made.

Eszterhas is the big-name Hollywood screenwriter who wrote films like Basic Instinct, Jagged Edge, Jade, Showgirls and Flashdance, among many others.

He's notorious for his bullish temperament, personally colourful life, and his huge earnings. Said to be the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood, I thought his life would be an interesting insight into the workings of the movie biz. What I didn't expect was a book that was more exciting and thrilling to read than any of Eszterhas's films!

Hollywood Animal more than lives up to its name.

It's the biography of a man who lived (and by all accounts, still lives) a larger-than-life life in the world's most sadistic, masochistic, brutal creative enclave. Well, technically, he doesn't live in Hollywood, he only works there, but you get my point: The book exposes more sordid stories of drugs, sex, money-grabbing deals, and other shenanigans in Hollywood than any dozen biographies of movie stars or directors.

Eszterhas grabs his life story, as well as the story of the hundreds of big-name directors, producers, stars, studio heads, agents, and other people he interacted with over a thirty-year career, and throws it at you in small bite-sized portions, short paragraphs set off by white space, like little sound-bites.

The shocks keep coming at you so fast you just can't put the book down. I started to read a page or two and ended up with half the book done, at 3 in the morning, and I still had to force myself to put it down.

I won't spell out any of the incidents and anecdotes mentioned in the book, there are just too many to even count, but let me tell you, if you want a book that shows you Hollywood with no holds barred, this is the one.

Be warned: it's very explicit in its language, contents, details. Which is partly why it's hugely fun to read. Probably the best 'Hollywood Insiders' story I've read since Julia Phillips' You'll Never Eat Lunch and William Goldman's Adventures In The Screen Trade.

In the end, though, it's a tragic, heartbreaking book. Because it bares the ugliest part of the American dream... or should I say, American nightmare? It left me puzzling, why would anyone want to work in such a terrible place? For the money? Surely no amount of money is worth such humiliation? As a sometime screenwriter myself, I thought the Indian film industry was pretty awful. I know better now. If Eszterhas's experience (and the experiences of other screenwriters, directors, actors, producers, etc) I've read about in books like this one are any indication, then I wouldn't work in the movie biz no matter how much it paid.

Perhaps that's the payoff you get after finishing a book like this: An immense sense of relief that we don't have to live lives as horrible as that of Joe Eszterhas among people as awful as those Hollywood beasts he describes. That we can stay home with our family and our trivial domestic cares, and not have to participate in the kind of million-dollar madness that keeps those coke-fuelled maniacs doing whatever it is they do.

It also brings home a twinge of guilty satisfaction: Hey, for all their money, for all their glamour, for all their show-biz razzmatazz, they live pretty sordid lives, these people. Whew. There but for the grace of God...

On the other hand, if you're an aspiring screenwriter, then you might derive more than just satisfaction and relief from this book. You might actually get some insights.

For instance, the fact that someone like Eszterhas not only survived, but thrived, is itself a lesson worth learning-it takes a shark to swim with the sharks. And from his own bio, it's evident that Eszterhas is the Great White of Hollywood screenwriters. Which makes his biography something like what the biography of Jaws would be to other sharks! It's a Must Read, if you have even the slightest interest in Hollywood films, lifestyles, or in how insane Americans can be in general, and movie people in particular.

Check it out. And I can guarantee that after you finish reading it, you'll never want to eat lunch in that town again!

You won't put this book down! If you ever wanted to know the juicy little secrets about the famous and infamous in Hollywood, read this. A uniquely written tell tale book that's gonna make Hollywood squirm. And oh, how we like to see them squirm. From the highest paid writer in the biz, he trashes everyone from stars to studio heads and even himself, in this rag to riches story about a kid from Cleveland with a talent for words and a flair for controversy. Sharp! Witty! Brutally honest writing!!!

Love him or hate him, at the very least you have to tip your hat for such a raw and honest biography. I admit when I first bought this it was for the titilation factor; I wanted to read all the dirt on Sharon Stone and Michael Ovitz, and all the other Hollywood heavyweights he's worked with. What I didn't expect/didn't know is how much of the book would be about his young life, growing up a Hungarian immigrant in Ohio, and the struggles his family had. Nor did I expect the deep and complicated relationship with his father, or the heartbreaking recounting of the end of his first marriage. It's an epic biography. Frankly I'm surprised he's not dead after all that's happened to him. The stress alone would knock out most people.

I've worked in the film industry for over a decade and have a masochistic tendency to read most of the Hollywood insider type books. This one takes the cake for self-aggrandizement and self-delusion, which is no mean feat considering the genre we're talking about. To me, Joe Eszterhas represents everything that is dysfuntional and perverse about the way movies get made. Ego trumps quality; money transcends talent; cliches trample ideas. After slogging through this unwieldly and dreadfully edited memoir (can you imagine being Joe's editor???), I noticed that not once did the author comment on his own passion for writing. Even though he reminds us every 20 or 30 pages that he is the greatest screenwriter in history, the only screenwriter to ever become a superstar (which is overstating it a bit), his only justification for assuming the title of "greatest ever" is because he was the highest paid. No mention of winning any awards (because he was never even nominated), no mention of pouring his heart and soul into a script (he proudly remembers that it only took him 4 hours to write a treatment for which he received $4 mil), no talk of his craft or how he approaches a new script. No mention of where he gets his ideas, or whether he ever drew on his own experiences for a movie, or if he has any sort of ethic that determines how a character will unfold. Odd that a screenwriter could write 700+ pages and barely mention writing. Of course, what he does write about is other people. And if you are mentioned in his book (and you're not Joe Eszterhas or his perfect, wonderful, sexy, smart second wife Naomi), then you are probably a lying, cheating, drug-addled, overpaid, incompetent, talent-free, nepotistic, stupid, sex-crazed, unfaithful sociopath. Doesn't matter if you were his studio exec, agent, director, best friend, producing partner, or ex-wife -- Joe Eszterhas never worked with anyone who didn't screw him over, screw up his project, or screw up their own career by disagreeing with him. Indeed, everyone in Hollywood EXCEPT Joe is a mendacious moron who wouldn't know a brillaint script if it bit them in the ass. He starts the book off by mentioning his own flaws, and offers the mea culpa that, well, he's moved away from Hollywood and moved back to the real world (represented by Cleveland, of all places). Yet you don't have to read very far to realize that his world-view is still as deluded and dishonest as ever. I wanted to take a shower after I finished reading his book.

This is a great book for anyone who loves frank tales about Hollywood and its creatures. It's 736 pages long but a very fast read, full of anecdotes and interwoven story lines.

One thing that I look for in an autobiography is the personality of the author pulsing through the words on the page. Sometimes this means that the author doesn't come off too well --read Joan Rivers' autobiography for a particularly unpleasant example -- but it makes for a much more involving read. Joe's personality roars off the page.

Joe Eszterhas' book paints a vivid, searingly honest portrait of a man who is smart, tough, talented, rude, brave, harsh, perceptive and surprisingly principled. He is a big family man who cruelly betrayed his first wife and paid a big price for that (literally and emotionally), only to start a new family with "the love of his life" -- Naomi (his wife's friend) who was dumped by her husband Bill (Joe's friend) for Sharon Stone. Yes, Bill is the guy that Sharon promised to marry and then dumped following all the Basic Instinct madness.

Joe has written some great stuff and some sleazy stuff. He poured his guts into his stories and yet managed to not have his heart broken (he claims) when some of what he wrote was mangled by others. Of course, sometimes he did the mangling -- anybody see "Burn Hollywood Burn"? Jeez! I felt bad for Joe when after writing the wonderful "Music Box" script, Joe learned late in life and most ironically that his own father was an anti-Jewish hate monger in WWII. How could a father who was so supportive and loving to his own family turn out to be so heartless toward his Jewish neighbors?

As a writer, I most appreciated Joe's insights into the writing and marketing aspects of his career. He's right about the unfair way that Hollywood treats most screenwriters. Not many writers (myself included) have the balls to fight for their due as Joe has done.

Joe's battle with cancer, and the way it changed his life, is something I will not forget. As somebody who has lost a lot of loved ones to the effects of smoking (two of them Hollywood natives), I most appreciated his decision to speak out against the glamorizing of smoking through movies. One of the things that writers do is convey character through "plastic expressions" -- behaviorisms or actions that imply personality. Joe points out that smoking is easy shorthand to convey sophistication, and is the refuge of lazy, uncreative writers.

Overall, this book is well worth the price because it is the kind of rich storytelling that you will want to read again at least once in your life.