Leading with My Chin (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author) "Biologically speaking, I came late to the party..." (more)
Key Phrases: seventy bucks, union guy, New York, The Tonight Show, Jay Leno (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

So what do you expect from a celebrity autobiography? Tales of an impoverished childhood and an unappreciated early career? Angst-ridden revelation? In Jay Leno's take on the genre, tales have only one purpose--laughs. This is a book of jokey anecdotes and humorous stories marking the comedian's progress to the top. The persona of the young Leno is not so different and just as likable as the one appearing nightly on television. Whether it is his mother's advice, his teachers' complaints, or the awkward situations he finds himself in (for example, standing before an Orthodox Jewish audience who have been mistakenly led to expect a Yiddish storyteller) Leno always sees the funny side. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

An amiable, mildly funny pastiche of anecdotes, most interesting for what it unfortunately avoids about the talk-show host's career. -- Entertainment Weekly

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: HarperTorch (September 10, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061094927
• ISBN-13: 978-0061094927
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #438,026 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a nice man!, January 28, 2001

By	HeyJudy "heyjudy" (East Hampton, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FUNNIEST BOOK IN THE UNIVERSE!, June 7, 2006

By	Gayle L. Edmond "Diverse Music Lover" (New York State) - See all my reviews

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!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars His personal stand-up comes through, November 22, 2004

By	Kristin J. Johnson "Three-time published author" (Palm Desert, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.