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Impostor: Or Whatever Happened To Richard Beymer?

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When you read "Impostor: or Whatever Happened to Richard Beymer? (an unauthorized autobiography)," the one thing you should not attempt to do is try to discern the autobiographical from the fantastical. The questions would drive you as crazy as he - or his literary representation at least - appears to be, in the book.

Did he or his mother spend time in a mental institution? Did he really have a brief dalliance as a young man that resulted in very eyebrow-raising results later in his life? Did he really rent that New York apartment, with its sinister connections to the apartment next door?

Did he really die by gunshot? Or on an operating table?

Is he really from another planet??

See what I mean?

The book takes the form of a movie script that attempts to chronicle the life of George (Beymer's alter ego) from his early teen years till the present. But the bizarre disconnects begin when we realize that George himself is actually writing and filming the script as it goes along. He is both a character inside the film and the observer who chronicles all the events, watching himself live (and die?). Add to this the time shifts, replaying of events with different characters and outcomes, and Spaceman George's desperate attempts to escape this planet once and for all, and the book is both confusing and exhilarating from beginning to end.

The format of a movie script is logical, given Beymer's line of work, but it might take some getting used to for those more accustomed to reading a linear narrative in prose form. But once the reader has made the mental shift from "prose" to "script," the story thrusts itself forward, with all its convolutions.

The premise of the book is that all Beymer's life has been an act, which is symbolized by George's obsession with filming absolutely everything that happens to him and the people around him. The inside cover of his book reads: "Who am I when not being who I think I am?" This encapsulates George's search for what is essentially an escape from Ego. And yet, even while he tries to escape from himself, he himself appears never to have fully participated in his own life. After all, he was supposedly filming it rather than experiencing it directly. The constant refrain in the book, especially from female characters, is that he never puts down the camera; he is always fretting about his life while not actually living it. So there is a contradiction in his own quest: he seeks to know who the "real George" is when all the acting stops, yet he also fights to escape from the "I."

The implications of the book, especially when it's assumed to contain some genuinely autobiographical elements, are disturbing. One senses that the dislocation Beymer suggests, between his actor persona and who he really is, is genuine. What is being chronicled here seems to be a very long struggle to discover his real identity, coupled with sadness that what began as a very promising career seemed to fizzle and never quite fulfill that promise. When one begins with a triumph like West Side Story, where does one go from there?

When you read the blurb on the back of the book, the impression of sadness is strengthened. "Richard Beymer is somewhat famous for acting in certain films and television shows bla bla bla..." The book itself is described as "a totally nonsensical contrivance that most likely will never get published." The blurb concludes, "In spite of evidence to the contrary, Beymer continues to think he exists...and so on and so forth bla bla bla..."

This resembles nothing so much as a tactic we all use at times, when trying to shrug something off as unimportant even though it would have been very important if only it had gone further, gotten noticed, been a success, etc. We play something down in this self-deprecating way because it really matters to us, and not because it doesn't. This blurb is humourous, but when you combine it with the contents of the story - the search for self, for success, for release - it comes across more wistful than amusing.

If you want to learn the straight, linear facts about Richard Beymer's life story, this is probably not the book you're looking for. But if you want an account of how things looked and felt from the inside - through the sex, drugs, failures and successes, all the seeking, and even the possible answers to Beymer's lifetime quest - then this crazy, careening, heart-wrenching movie script is exactly what you're looking for.

There are by now hundreds, if not thousands, of reviews of IMPOSTER, by Richard Beymer, but I find just cause to add yet another. I do not feel that my predecessors have taken the book seriously enough. It is not just "powerful and relevant to nothing." It is powerful and relevant to the core problems of living: "Who Am I? Why am I here? How do I decide what to do with my life? And one of the preposterous answers passed down through the schools of hidden wisdom through the ages is: live in the I AM. Now the reader can say the author in using his mock-heroic character, the immortal George Oops, who plays all the key roles in the book, is mocking the I AM too, but if so, he mocks it as he accepts it.

Once we get inside the book, we find it is a backwards history of George Oops, and it takes place in a mental hospital, nut ward---places I have come to know well myself---and the reader may choose to identify George Oops (certainly the best name in all of literature) with Richard Beymer if he chooses. George is the writer, the leading actor, a bit player, the center of his Scheherazade-load of memories, he's everyman. And he's an imposter. Because who he really is is I AM. Here, now, nameless, in the instant, Being. His goal: to get back to the Mothership---interpret that as you may: mother, nirvana, the Universe, God, Oneness, Home---but we don't need to interpret too much. He tells us where he so desperately wants to go: the Mothership. Where he came from and where he must return.

IMPOSTER is one of the funniest books I have ever read. Completely devoid of self-indulgence, loaded with irony and a refusal to take himself seriously in any way, the author spews out characters that are real, speak their own language, and impart bits of wisdom that our dear George Oops can only see later. The character George Oops, not the writer, always at his typewriter, wears a plastic grey (cheap, we get the impression) spacesuit at all times in constant preparation for his ascension to the Mothership. Isn't this how we should all live, rather than in our Armani's and fashionable clothes or cut off Levi shorts and polo shirts? Meaningful life is not happening in the insane asylum, and let's face it folks, that's where we hang our hats, in the loony bin.

In form, IMPOSTER once again is unique. It contains, within a loose novel form, chunks of screenplay, sideruns of short story, poetic rhapsodies. When I first picked it up and saw this, I thought, "I'm going to have trouble reading this." I've read almost no screenplays, very few plays (just the classics). So I thought I wouldn't be able to follow it. Au contraire, my sweet rabbits. It works like a charm. It must have taken years to get it all clicking together, but it does.

My main feeling at the end was admiration for the courage of George Oops. I started signing my letters George Oops. As I said, it's the best name I've encountered in all of literature. His craziness is his sanity; it leads him back through the muck of his life to the Mothership, and it doesn't seem farfetched to me that this is what the few of us must do who would reach whatever Mothership is for us. You can only stay in a rotting marriage for so long.

So, though this is one of the funniest books I've ever read, it is also one of the most serious. It is a great help to anyone on a spiritual quest, and a rare gem in the cluttered fields of literature. If the name Richard Beymer, who played down his movie career, is what brought you to this book, fine. But the fact that it's a great book is not that Richard Beymer wrote it. IMPOSTER is a great book on its own, and it would be even if the author were anonymous.

One last remark. We read books for many reasons, and the nice thing about this book is that it in itself can be read on different levels. It can be read as science fiction, or maybe a science fiction spoof, if you want to be picky. It can be read just to keep you laughing. It can be read as an expose on "reality." And it can be read as a spiritual guidebook by a man that's lived it. It is not much help as a "how to" book for setting up your Christmas tree, but hey, he never claimed it was. George Oops wanted to, but Richard had to put his foot down.

My hat is off to George Oops and Richard Beymer, for exploding out of karma, for escaping the insane asylum. No longer need George fear those husky dorks in white hospital coats, no longer need he fear the funny jackets with the extra ties and the extra-long sleeves, the asylum attendants who have chased him through life.

Whatever happened to Richard Beymer? Here you have it. And I bet there was a whole lot more. This is who he is when he's not who he thinks he is. In between the words there is the big I AM.

Footnote: My personal thanks to (Dr.) Pamela Paradowski who drew my interest to Richard's work years ago, kept my interest up, and helped me realize that my own life is a "creative joy."

Ambitious, outrageous, revealing, frustrating, repetitious, funny, no make that f***ng hilarious at times, playful, sad, annoying, 100 pages too long, poorly paced, self-indulgent, quirky, tricky, goofy, stupid, smart, silly, obvious, passionate, surprising, like a puppy wanting to go chase the ball over and over again--it will exhaust you.

Impostor (rather than "Imposter") is a flawed, everything-and two kitchen sinks semi-fictional-memoir self published by actor/celebrity Richard Beymer. Beymer starred in West Side Story and made himself famous again 20 or so years later in the Twin Peaks television series. But don't expect tales about famous directors or working on movies and bedding starlets. Some of that is within the prose... but in dream-like stream of consciousness bursts of writing that zig and zag through a myriad of come-ons and self indulgent fantasies and ideas that will wear out most readers pretty fast. Instead, consider this an experimental work of fiction and enjoy the fun-house ride.

It starts quick and reveals most of its bag of tricks too soon,meaning it feels repetitious by the time you are 50 pages into it. But then again.. so what... why trust the reader to keep going if you don't lay it out for them? It's full of goofy revelations, half-baked philosophies, and it begins to feel like Kurt Vonnegut's Kilgore Trout is now an actor and frustrated filmmaker named Richard Beymer whose not quite sure how honest and truthful he wants to be about his life and thoughts about life that he wraps it up inside a 70s movie that should have been directed by Monte Hellman and Bob Rafelson--except it's a period piece done in 2007 that tries too hard. Or maybe you'll think of Hunter S.Thompson's adventures on Acid with his lawyer. It's manic, off-the-wall, frustrating, repetitious, annoying but clever enough and often funny enough to overcome its flaws and reward the patient reader with interesting insights, attitudes and plenty of spicy entertainment. It dares you to keep up with it and then makes it nearly impossible to do so. Oh screw you and all this game playing and nonsense. No wait... you crafty son. . . of . . . a. . .I'm gonna hang in there and play this game.

Beymer invents or perhaps that's invests himself as George a split personality who believes he's an alien cast in a life-long movie where he plays a very flawed personality struggling artist and actor who is trying to film everything he does. Got that? Good. Beymer's a trickster who wants to pull the rug out from you constantly and believes if he keeps hopping around using various literary devices and tricks he'll create energy and excitement and wit. Sometimes he's right. At other times he tries way too hard and the milk starts to spoil and go sour. Then, just as you start to give up and get too frustrated, Beymer throws something at you that works or is revealing enough you give the book another chance, and then another. It's baaad, it's good, it's awful, it's entertaining. It's challenging and different.

So who cares. Buy it and try to read it. You'll get some laughs out of the book and if you stick with it, a little bit more than that.

For me, the self-obsessed monologue of Impostor was more a fascinating romp through fictive and cinematic space than a personal history of the author. Literary analogues might include Pirandello (Six Characters in Search of an Author, Beckett (Krapp's Last Tape), Hesse (Steppenwolfe), Pynchon (V) and various texts on Advaita. I don't know where to begin ennumerating the movies referenced since the text, crafted into a multifaceted script, is itself both original and allusive cinema, most appropriately leavened with slapstick. Brilliantly articulated throughout, this absurd, disorienting, and thereby enlightening evocation of a "Hollywood" persona in process of disintegration, detachment, and liberation is a huge artistic and spiritual achievement. Though the visuals may in fact be best through writing, Hollywood Impostor will make an arresting film.

Impostor is a confession of the author's true nature. The form of the confession is a screenplay that unfolds as do one's thoughts or dreams. Using videos and films and a fun house full of characters, layers of thought and experience slip into other layers, drop, blend, recycle, always washed by a witnessing of it all.

The author's true nature becomes known through a process of facing his nature as an impostor in life. Throughout this book, just as we get a feel that the main character has awakened to his true nature, we find that it is only another video, another false self, another impostor. There is a constant pushing forth into new layers of awareness without any real breaking through the mode of impostor until the very end.

By immersing oneself in the flow of this book, one may see how difficult it is to break out of impostor mode. At least we can be aware that we are in it! Then through a process of playing all the videos of our so-called life, and the videos within them, and videos within them, and the videos and films created to explain them, we can finally come to a true knowledge of what this existence is all about. Impostor is a wild, funny, tumultuous tour of an amusement park fun house. The amusement park is the world, the fun house is your life, and there is a way out.

Jerry Katz

I had no idea what Richard Beymer was up to. As a moviegoer, a musical lover and a film journalist, I first saw him in West Side Story. Then I was swept off my feet when, many years later, I saw him much handsomer and so devilishly intriguing as the Benjamin Horne of Twin Peaks. The fact that also Russ Tamblyn was there, was a tribute to the magic and mysteryous mind of David Lynch. So I fell in love with that unknown Beymer. And then he disappeared from my mind until these days, when, thanks to MySpace, I found him and I realized that mr. Beymer is a man of a thousand faces. I ordered his Impostor through Amazon, and was absorbed in the reading from page one. At first I was a bit confused by the interwoven narrative in the form of a screenplay with numerous flashbacks and flashforwards, but it took just a few minutes to get engrossed by it. This book is funny, intelligent, sexy, and made me want to know his writer better. I would also love to see a film based on it: I know it's impossibile in Hollywood, land of the predictable, but maybe some independent brave producer could take a look on it. But the most exciting thing is that Richard Beymer is alive and kicking, thing that can't be said about the majority of his colleagues.

As noted by previous reviewers, if you're looking for a traditional Hollywood autobiography, you'll probably be disappointed by this book. But in its manic, frenetic, inward journey, darting from A to Z by way of Q, you'll find an astonishing account of what Richard Beymer's life felt like from the inside. By taking a semi-fictional approach in the form of a dizzying screenplay, he makes the reader feel that life, down to the most intimate & ridiculous & dazzling details. For that alone, it's well worth reading!

But there's much more here ... look beneath the self-deprecating humor & you'll discover that Beymer is asking some Big Questions: who & what is The Real Me? Is there even such a thing? Is there some ultimate reality behind the social mask of ego? What is the point?!?

Is there anyone who hasn't wondered about those questions somewhere along the line? But most of us prefer not to delve too deeply into such a dark place. Richard Beymer has plunged in headfirst & given us a firsthand report of his experiences ... and in doing so, he enables the more hesitant among us to dip at least a toe or two into those unplumbed waters. You won't come away from these pages unmoved, and you'll have plenty of food for thought. Not for every taste, certainly, but recommended for those who care to venture outside the bounds of the Everyday.

You know that feeling you get when you take a nap in the afternoon only to wake up near dusk thinking it's the morning? Well, combine that with listening to Magical Mystery Tour under a blacklight and you might begin to get an inkling of what's in store for you with 'Impostor'! Like any great film or book, i would not dream of going into detail or spoiling any surprises contained in Mr Beymer's novel, however, i will point you in the direction of a rare recent interview with Richard that should persuade you to pick up this fascinating book! http://twinpeaksarchive.blogspot.com/2007/09/exclusive-richard-beymer-interview_14.html

Personally, I like George Richard Beymer. I met him a long time ago on a Hollywood sound stage. Also, he was poorly treated by the critics (so, what if he wasn't the next Lord Olivier?) at the time. Sure, he made a couple of stinkers ( "Hemingway's Adventures as a Young Man" comes to mind), but under the guise of a strong director (read George Stevens in "Diary of Anne Frank") he was quite effective.

But, this book!? Well, what can I say other than the fact that I found it incomprehensible, unfocussed, unfathomable, un-anything remotely resembling rhyme-or-reason.

Ah, come on Mr Beymer, you can do far better than this.

Now we know..., October 17, 2009


I have asked myself the question, whatever happened to Richard Beymer, for a long long time. I have had a crush on him since I was a kid. Now I know what happened to him. And I missed the trip he went on, but then again, I didn't know he was leaving. I was one of the first to get this book when it came out and realised he had signed into My Space. Trust me, I am not that big a fan of MS, but I got hooked for a moment cause I wanted to tell him, my connection went back way farther than Twin Peaks...

To the book...it might be hard to get into unless you were a fan of William Burroughs and you liked to read while you had a buzz. We all had a Spaceman, if you think about it. Mine went with me to Woodstock. Richard's went with him to a crumbling apartment, located in different cities on different coasts. But I have a feeling I have been in those apartments. I think Richard took advantage of a lot of different psychedelics and actually I am glad he took notes. His book has a familiar twang to it, so if you miss the good old days, not those "back in the day" days, but the good ol' days you will want to read this autobio, for the memories...

So thanks for the memories, Rick, it is great to know where you have been and where you are.

Read slowly...a great read!

T.Pettit, Massachusetts