Customer Reviews

There Are Worse Things I Could Do

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Adrienne Barbeau's "There are Worst Things I Could Do" is not your standard kiss-and-tell Hollywood memoir. Although she writes wittily about her affair with Burt Reynolds, her marriage to cult filmmaker John Carpenter, her liaisons with various Hollywood personalities, and behind the scenes mayhem during the filming of "The Fog", "The Swamp Thing", "The Cannonball Run", and her hit television sitcom "Maude", her memoir is more about her personal journey as a wounded woman who ached for peace and joy in her relationships with men.

Her candor is refreshing. She does not flinch from sharing with the reader intimate details about sex, psychics, gurus, and her quest to heal the trauma of being abandoned by her father when she was still a child. The forty or so chapters around which she has arranged her material reveal a vibrant woman who wanted to experience life fully, to learn from her experiences, to heal her wounds, and to grow as an actress and woman.

Though she deals candidly with "heavy" subjects, her style is never maudlin or judgmental or self-pitying. She is able to find humor and farce even in the most intense situations of life.

So read this book as a Hollywood memoir full of juicy revelations if you wish. But the pleasure I got from it was not reading about her career arc but her personal journey as a woman through the rapidly shifting zeitgeist of the past five decades.

In time, her well-rounded memoir will grow in stature.

Adrienne Barbeau has written a completely delightful autobiography. I loved it, and only put it down when I had no choice. Her life is fascinating, and her writing style is funny, touching, and endearing. The description of her wedding had me laughing uncontrollably, while parts about losses in her life had me almost in tears. I have been busy since I finished this book recommending it to everyone I know who reads! I sincerely hope Adrienne Barbeau will not stop now, but will write, and write, and write.

Sally Fallis

Adrienne Barbeau's first book is a wonderful testament to a life lived. Good, bad or indifferent she propels her readers to LIVE.

Memoirs are always tough, and Barbeau nailed it! Even if I did not know her voice, from the many films, plays and TV shows she has been a part of, her written voice comes through so clearly. It is simultaneously kind, comic and sad without ever being maudlin.

Barbeau has a wonderful ability to take the reader in as if writing each reader a note about the day to day, and then she turns things that note around. You are reading a note from a friend and then realize that: Yes she was married to one of the most notable directors of horror in the U.S, yes she had an affair with Burt Reynolds. And yes she has had many loves in her time. Wow! But rather than delivering a tell all revealing the warts of others - although we do read a bit about those warts - Barbeau manages to undauntingly keep the focus on herself. While laughing at herself, and her foibles as a person with loves gained and lost, she takes the comic and imbues it with such heart the reader can visualize how double sided comedy is within each us; as when we laugh at ourselves, there tends to be some sadness lurking - conversely she explores her own tragedies such as the passing of her mother and her best friend, and reveals hope.

When reading this book, I was reminded of being lost on occasion. In THERE ARE WORSE THINGS I COULD DO, the reader, along with Adrienne, takes a journey. Barbeau reminds us that when we are lost we seek acceptance, regardless of what that acceptance might mean. But as we lose ourselves amidst gaining acceptance, we discover how within that losing, we can all find ourselves anew.

What is so fantastic about this read is Barbeau's refusal to be consumed by circumstance.
She keeps on going, keeps living, and keeps growing. For me as a woman, what is so particularly compelling about this book, is that she lets all women know that age truly, does not matter. And she does this simply by revealing her life, not by being pedantic. This is a message to all of us, to keep on keeping on. Ultimately she finds the love she so deserves, and rediscovers her muses: her children. Still, Barbeau reminds us that each day is a blank slate. and although Adrienne has found her muses, she keeps working at her life - understanding that with each day, ones life may need some reconfiguring. And that reconfiguring is a good thing...

I was lucky enough to hear Barbeau read passages from the book, and the reading added a wonderful dimension to my understanding of her experiences. Her timing is impeccable, and I hope her publisher will push extensively for a nationwide tour with the author.

WOW!!!! What an amazing, well written. fast paced book, from first page to last. I could not put it down. It takes you on an incredible journey and lets you into the life, love, hopes, dreams, family, friends ,inspirations of a very talented, classy LADY, on so many levels.
Highly recommend it!!!!

Ms. Barbeau writes a breezy memoir with wit and candor. Plus, she's lived an exciting and fascinating life. I loved it!

+++++

"I went from being a musical comedy performer to a sitcom actress to a scream queen to a mother and a TV talk-show host and a book reviewer and a voice-over performer, and then back to the stage and back to musical comedy and back to television and concert halls and more films, and even into the recording studio for a CD and into my office to write this book."

This is an excerpt from this page-turning autobiography by Adrienne Barbeau, a candid, funny, and self-deprecating autobiography that covers sixty years of her life. It is based on the journals she kept which she "began in 1955." She "wrote every day for the next forty years."

The above excerpt tells you generally what the book is about. Along the way, Barbeau tells us about "relationships and love affairs, emotional highs and lows, friendships and loss."

Highlights of this book include talking about her two hit TV shows ("Maude" and "Carnivale"), her major movies ("The Fog," "Escape from New York," "Swamp Thing," and "Creepshow"), her relationship with 1970's superstar Burt Reynolds, and her two marriages (the first to horror and science fiction director John Carpenter).

The title of this book is the title of a major song Barbeau sung in the original Broadway production of "Grease" which was "a major turning point in [her] life."

This autobiography is well written. What I especially liked was Barbeau's directness and the fact that you could easily follow the timeline of her life story.

Included in the book's approximate center are over forty black and white photographs. My favorite is the one that has her character in the movie "The Convent" gunning down nuns (or as she says "blowing away nuns").

Barbeau throughout her book doesn't come off as self-absorbed or an airhead. Instead she comes off as a smart, witty, loving, and giving person who, as this book chronicles, is a survivor.

Finally, I did find a few problems:

(1) I felt that Barbeau was holding back on certain details of her life story. For example, we are not told anything about the book's provocative cover photograph (shown above by Amazon). I learned that this is Barbeau's 1978 pin-up poster that actually rivaled Farrah Fawcett's poster of the same decade. Why are we not told anything about this?
(2) Many of the stories in her book are not followed up and this might be frustrating for some readers.
(3) She tends to sometimes flip-flop back and forth between present and past tense.

In conclusion, this is a good, solid, witty, and revealing autobiography about an actor who has been in the "biz" for more than four decades. It is definitely better than the standard actor autobiography!!

(first published 2006; introduction {entitled "The Journals"}; 40 chapters; main narrative 335 pages; acknowledgements {entitled "Thank You"})

+++++

It is both a brave and generous act for Adrienne Barbeau to share her remarkable journey, and she does so with great grace, honesty and humor. I found myself alternately laughing and crying at her self-effacing, wry and insightful observations of her own very colorful life. Whether mixing with Hollywood's heavyweights or acting with vermin in Moscow (check out the chapter where her costars are dead rats) Ms. Barbeau is a class act who has always remained true to herself. You will love Adrienne and you will love this book!

"Wow!!! Adrienne, like Mame, has LIVED!!!! And like Candide, she
emerges unscathed, as dear as she was when she began. But what a wild ride!!!"

- Bette Midler

This is a wonderful book by an under rated actress. She takes you through her interesting life in an entertaining yet thorough manner. Her style is an easy read.

Yes, she's under rated as an actress but if she keeps writing like this she won't be under rated as a writer. Pretty face, great body, fine actress, entertainer and singer, sure-- but she's much more and once you've read the book you'll be an even bigger fan of Ms. Barbeau.

With outrageous tales rivaling the absurdities found in Agusten Burroughs' memoirs (trying to perform in a 300-year old gown drenched in fish juice and live rats, in Russia, in winter, on a set that's just caught fire), all recounted with a David Sedaris-like tone, one might think Adrienne Barbeau is a gay man. Alas, she is very much a woman, an actress and singer, who, among her many roles, has played no small part as a feminist icon redefining what we think women can do on camera and off. But don't presume you must be a fan, or even familiar with her work to enjoy this book, this memoir stands on it's own. Reading "There are Worse Things I Could Do" is a charming and casual delight, almost as if Adrienne were sitting on your lap, telling you the stories herself.