Customer Reviews

Leading With My Chin

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Comedy is difficult to rate because personal taste accounts for a large degree of one's perception of the material. I have always been a fan of Jay Leno and appreciate his sense of humor, hence Leading With my Chin was very enjoyable. It falls right in line with the sense of humor you anticipate from watching the Tonight Show or any of his stand-up routines; however it is not merely a series of jokes as Leno presents an account of his life growing up in Massachusetts. If you appreciate Leno's wit and have interest in discovering the life that helped developed his sense of humor, you will enjoy this book.

I may only be a sophomore in college, but I have loved Jay Leno for years now. :o) I read his book and when I finished it I wanted to cry, simply because there weren't any more wonderful stories left to read. I didn't cry though--I just flipped it back to the beginning and read it again. This book really lets people into his life. He doesn't back-stab anybody or put anybody down, and his stories aren't "And that's why I'm perfect" He shows us the more human side of him, and his style of writing makes you feel as if you were actually having a conversation with him, and these were the stories he was telling you. These are stories that nobody will ever get tired of reading. They are no doubt stories that, if Jay were a father, his children would beg him to tell over and over again. This is my new favorite book! Way to go Jay!!! :o

Jay Leno either is a very nice man or he's a total liar. I don't believe that it's the latter. LEADING WITH MY CHIN is his autobiography, and it certainly confirms his niceness.

This is the brief, "official" version of his childhood and early years, in which he gives what seems to be an honest appraisal of his failures every bit as much as his successes. Many of the anecdotes, hardly unexpectedly for a person of Leno's skill, are hilarious. A few are oddly touching. Over and over, he proves himself to be caring and observant.

It would be impossible to read such an autobiography without learning something about the making of a star comedian, and about the hard work it requires. Certainly, the determination to get as far as Leno and that handful of others have gotten must be fierce. It says a great deal about Leno's humanity that he has managed to keep intact his decency while he climbed to the very top of his industry.

Heard the taped version of LEADING WITH MY CHIN,
written and read by Jay Leno . . . it is his autobiography, but
told only as he could tell it; i.e., with large doses of humor and without being too offensive . . . so if you're looking for the "dirt" on any famous personalities, you won't find it here.

Instead, you'll laugh at the stories of his childhood, as well as his attempts to get into the comedy business . . . as he tells it, he wasn't that funny in the beginning; in fact, what he often did in the beginning to get a laugh was raise his voice
and repeat back what he had just heard . . . or he
would ask something to the following effect: You hear about the
new men's personal hygiene produce? Umpire--for guys
with foul balls. (Hey, I thought it was funny!)

As his career progressed, I found myself cheering for his
successes . . . what I especially liked was how he spoke
of his parents and their role in making him the person he
is now.

I like that Jay wrote this book himself. It doesn't have any boring parts. I've read this thing a million times since I actually am an aspiring commedian. Even though he's a generation behind me, he was similar to me when he was my age. His first trys to be funny at school were cool to hear about, since I did similar stuff. I swear to god, when I was 13, a teacher wrote something similar his teacher wrote, "If Jay studied as hard as does being funny, he'd be a good comedian." The stories and troubles with his parents are easy to identify with as a kid. He also gives a long look into his life on the road, such as playing at a college with geeks who wanted to study and not hear a comedian. (A--holes!) The book also has some sentimental and dirty parts, making it interesting all around. It's all pretty humorous and it's like he's actually telling you the stories, the way it's written sounds like the way he'd say it, well it's cause he DID. A good read if you've got a sense of humor.

I have read this book at least THREE times. I've given it to almost everyone I know. I gave it to my nephew when he was 14. One day, we saw him shaking and crying on his bed. When I asked what was wrong, he rolled over and handed me this book!!!! He couldn't even speak, he just pointed to the part he wanted me to read. It is soooo funny. Whenever my mother feels down, she just opens it up to any page and it cheers her up. If I ever met Jay, I'd tell him this is my favorite book. I made the mistake of taking it when I was waiting to see if I would be picked for jury duty. I kept laughing out loud and everyone kept looking at me. It really is funny. I don't know if his life was this funny, or if he left out most of the bad stuff, but if you have ANY sense of humor at all, GET THIS BOOK!

I love Jay Leno. I've always found Letterman a bit too smug and self-consciously hip--except for moments with his mom and the Top Ten Lists. And for critics who derided Jay Leno's championing of Schwarzenegger, Jay, a dyslexic, has a tendency to promote the guy everyone else laughs at (and who Jay laughs at too, but never mean-spirited).

There's plenty of comedy here but what I find most touching is Jay's courtship with his wife Mavis, his relationship with his Italian father and Scottish mother, and the loving way he chronicles his parents' eccentricities. This is the same spirit in which he memorialized his father and mother on-air. Jay Leno truly is Mr. Nice Guy.

Jay Leno has been entertaining the world as host of The Tonight Show every weeknight for over 13 years. His monologues covering current events are consistently funny. But his rise to this pinnacle did not come overnight. In fact, all the way up to his surprise crowning (over David Letterman) as the replacement for the retiring Johnny Carson in 1992, he was still known for little more than being a respected stand-up comedy veteran who had gained an extra reputation as a solid guest host for the show when Johnny was on vacation, as well as for his funny visits to (former) good friend Letterman's Late Night program that followed Carson.

This autobiography tells in hilarious detail, through a series of anecdotal episodes, how he struggled for years to make it in show business. From humble beginnings as the son of Italian/Scottish immigrants in Boston, through experiences with various shady characters on the mean streets of Boston, New York, LA and other places- agents, club owners, hippies, mobsters, strippers, prostitutes, johns, hustlers, rednecks and con men of every stripe- as well as discrimination in LA-LA land against his trademark chin-strong image- Leno shows how perseverence and hard work can succeed in the end, and how his desire to make people laugh kept him driven to make it, despite the odds and endless obstacles.

There is also a bit of a stand-up comedy history interwoven in the narrative, describing the rise of comedy clubs like The Comedy Store and The Improv during the 70s and the concurrent rise (and sometimes fall) of Jay's contemporaries like Letterman, Richard Lewis, Freddie Prinze, Jimmie Walker, Andy Kaufman and others.

The book winds down with the story of how he met and bonded with his wife Mavis, his ascension to the peak of the late night talk show mountain, and a touching dedication to his deceased parents. The laughs don't come quite as often, but it is a good way to finish off the tale.

Whether or not all of these occasionally hard-to-believe stories are the whole truth is moot- it's all a riot, and will have you rolling.

Since buying this book I re-read it almost every other week, and I still laugh hard at all those stories. A collection of incredibly hilarious stories of Jay Leno's life. Many of them hardly believable and probably exaggerated, but still hilarious as hell.

The book also provides a great opportunity for learning about other comedians of his age that younger generation may not heave heard about, such as Andy Kaufman and Freddy Prinze, not to mention legends such as Johnny Carson and Merv Grifin.

I learned from this book that contrary to popular belief, most of the successes in the entertainment field have been achieved through hard work, not pur chance-of-a-life-time or being-at-right-time-at-right-moment. But Seinfeld and Leno are proofs that just "being funny" is not sufficient to become a successful comedian. Boy, how hard working Jay Leno was in all those years.

Strongly Recommended.

I am a Jay Leno fan since his Tonight
Show started on May of 1992. I went out
and bought his autobiography "Leading
with my chin" and I have to tell ya
its worth every penny of your money.
He is hilarious in every page and I
enjoy reading over and over again
several dozen times already. Anyway,
I strongly recommend this book, Jay
also gave the money for this book to
charity. WAY TO GO JAY !