Customer Reviews

Things I've Said, But Probably Shouldn't Have: An Unrepentant Memoir

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Bruce Dern tells the story of his 45-year career in Hollywood in his own unique and very funny style. Reading this book feels like sitting down with Bruce over a few beers and listening to him tell stories of working with almost every famous actor and director of the era. He names names and holds nothing back! This book will appeal to all fans of Bruce and his remarkable body of work, such as The Cowboys (in which he shot John Wayne in the back!), Silent Running, Coming Home (for which he was nominated for an Oscar), The Great Gatsby, Family Plot (the last film made by Alfred Hitchcock), Black Sunday, Smile, Last Man Standing and Monster. Readers with an interest in the production of movies will appreciate the inside peek at how films are cast and why actors choose to accept or pass on a film. This is a passionate and wacky memoir by one of Hollywood's most respected actors and a true "good guy". I recommend it.

At last a tell all memoir from the last remaining hold out of the famous Actors Studio in New York, the man who worked with Gadg and Robert Lewis and Lee Strasberg and Joseph Lewis and Stella Adler and all the rest of them. I didn't realize Bruce Dern was such a plutocrat and that the upper class snob character he portrays in THE GREAT GATSBY was a perfect fit for him, but in this book he comes out as a trust fund kid in a big way and he never loses that expansive country club manner. He was from a wealthy family in Lake Forest, went to New Trier High, and his family owned a huge department store chain. An uncle was the poet Archibald MacLeish with whom Bob Dylan once wrote a musical--and later on, much later, Dern himself was to co-star with Dylan in the famous flop MASKED AND ANONYMOUS. Some reviews say that this book suffers because of Dern's enormous ego, but I rathe enjoyed it. He's so old school it's laughable, but hasn't he earned it?

He says that when he watched his best friend, Jack Nicholson, on screen in THE MISSOURI BREAKS, he could tell that Jack had made his co-star, Kathleen Lloyd, his mistress and what's more he divined right away she would never make another picture. He calls Carrie Fisher "damaged goods," and berates Robert Downey Jr. and Keifer Sutherland for being so chemically enhanced on the set of 1969 that they managed to injure him to such an extent that he still walks in pain every day. He's frank about paychecks as few stars are, and admits that never did he make a million dollars a movie; the highest he got was half a mil, for the flop sex cult picture TATTOO. By the way, he confirms the scuttlebutt of the time that when you see him and Maud Adams have sex in TATTOO, they were really having sex and what you see is what you get. But, he says, it was only because his private parts would fit nowhere else--what a defense! He names names and takes no prisoners. Robin Williams is talented, but not a genius. Jonathan Winters is a genius, but cuckoo. Ann-Margret insisted that he peel off his undershorts when it came time to do their nude bed scene together, and he didn't know if springing a boner or not springing one would be more insulting. "I'm just trying to be polite," he told her, as he manipulated himself under the covers.

Ryan O'Neal could have been a contender, yet frittered away his talent, and yet all the best actors of today, like Matt Damon and Leo and Brad, imitate Ryan's acting. Never heard that one before!

Hal Ashby's funeral was a disgrace and Jack Nicholson, Jane Fonda, and Jon Voight should be ashamed of themselves for not attending when they owed their best performances to Ashby. Bud Cort, who did show up, made an awful fool of himself with a self-serving eulogy.

Florence Henderson is a fox. Well, everyone knows that. Nat King Cole's daughter (not Natalie, another one) was so trying on the set of COMING HOME that Ashby fired her. Mickey Rooney carried a picture in his wallet of the 18 year old Judy Garland nude and pleasuring herself. Gregory Peck was a gentle, dignified man who lost access to his own feelings when his son killed himself at 30. Dern could have fallen in love with Marthe Keller on the set of BLACK SUNDAY, but kept it in his pants in order to better intensify his explosive performance that people still talk about years later.

Much of the last half of the book is young stars coming up to him and saying, "Wow, I can't believe I'm actually acting with the legend Bruce Dern." One or two such encounters are amusing, but after you hear dozens of renditions of the same old tune, you get tired a wee bit. He turned down many roles, including Donald Sutherland's part in Bertolucci's 1900, because the script had him acting like a monster. Michael Ritchie, who directed Dern in SMILE, was discovered by Barbara Stanwyck, who called him "Pablum" because he was so boyish.

Mia Farrow accepted the part of Daisy Buchanan knowing she was 4 months pregnant and knowing that this would hobble the movie because there were so few ways to photograph her as she got further along. What happened to her with Woody Allen was like Nature's Revenge.

Best of all in the book is Dern's account of the making of THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS. Now that we've read Ellen Burstyn's equally eye opening version of the filming of TKOMG, I wonder if Jack Nicholson will ever tell his side of the story.

The ugliest part of the book, besides Dern's vanity which as I say is rather cute, is that James Lipton appears to have some kinf o vendetta against Bruce Dern and has never featured him on INSIDE THE ACTOR'S STUDIO even though he is a true Actor's Studio legend. What's going on, Mr. Lipton? Jealous much?

What a whirlwind of a life... Bruce Dern, one of my favorite actors of all time, so generously shares his many decades of experience pounding the LA streets in this page turner. It is touching, hilarious, and all together everything you would expect, good and bad, from the man that shot John Wayne. Thanks for the dirt! I highly recommend it.

I have always collected character actors that I really admire, Bruce was one of my first, he could creep me out like no one else. I learned he was actually from a prominent Chicago family and was amazed. I've always kind of wanted to know what made him tick. This book is answering that in spades. It sounds just like what I thought he might and it is fascinating so far. I'm not quite finished but the stories are wonderful. He knows all the great ones. I didn't expect to love him, and I don't, but he'd be a lot of fun to know. He's earned more acclaim than he has actually received. I hope this book gives more people the chance to discover his work and the true Bruce Dern.

I really like Bruce Dern as an actor though I have certainly not seen all of his films. But the ones that I have seen I liked him in. He always seems to draw your eye and make you watch him. His performances in Coming Home, Silent Running, Cowboys, Smile and a few others were great.

However this is a book and even with a couple of writers helping out it is not a good read, an easy read but not a good one. He rambles a lot and is a horrible name dropper but after reading this book I don't think I know Bruce Dern unless he is a total narcissist who likes to run his mouth and thinks he is one of the only great actors in the world.

If you just have to read this book wait until you find it at a garage sale for .25 cents so you don't feel stupid for buying it at full price.

I loved this book! It was like a trip to Hollywood and a movie set with one of the best! It is a look at the movie business the way I always thought it would be. And it sure makes me want to find the movie "Tattoo!" Thanks, Bruce, for a great read! You got it and Bud, you got game!
Jeanette

Even though I haven't seen most of the films he talks about, his stories and comments about his films and the people he worked with make for a very lively book. I have now ordered a few of the films he talks about.

I've heard the expression ....once I started reading I couldn't put it down till I was finished but this is the first book that worked that way for me. I found the style that Mr Dern used to describe his history and the movies he was a part of to be very conversational and quite an easy read for me. Of course growing up watching him in the movies made a big difference as I knew all the pictures he was talking about and the people.

Bruce Dern didnt have high visibility for me as an actor, but he can dish with the best. He knew and worked with a lot of people in the movie industry and they are all here in his book. I enjoyed it quite a lot. Mr. Dern is quite a character, and not a boring one. To read this book is to gain insight into just how egocentric actors can be.