When I read nonfiction, I tend to delve into stories about people going through extreme ordeals (Into Thin Air, Unbroken, a couple books about the Donner Party, etc.), OR autobiographies of current-day celebrities who are people I think I might like. Below are my reactions to 8, I mean, 7 1/4, celebrity autobiographies I've read.
I was thinking of ranking these, but they're just too completely different to rank, SO, get ready for my insane rambling about the time I spent with people I will never actually meet.
Ellen DeGeneres: Please Take Away Her Computer
I think the book I checked out from the library was actually Ellen's third memoir. Maybe she'd gotten all the good material ... I mean ... all the material ... out by then, and this was what was left.
Disclaimer: this was back when Ellen was the person who made my grandmother happy with the dance she did on her show, not the Ellen following the revelation she didn't treat her employees very well.
This is the only book on the list I could not finish. I stopped 2 or 3 chapters in and returned it to the library. To give you an idea of what Ellen's book was like, please watch the following Bob's Burgers clip.
I wish I were kidding, but I'm not that far off. If someone with ADD were put in a recording booth, given some shrooms, and told they needed to talk a certain number of words every minute or their head would explode, that would be what Ellen's audiobook sounded like.
"The other day, I saw a bird. Heh, bird. That's a funny word. Word and bird rhyme. Here are some other words I think are funny. Herd. Like, is it I'm listening to something, or is it sheep? Are sheep really good at listening to things? Maybe someone herd that about sheep and that's where sheep herds come from. Sheep herds. Shepherds. Hmm. What was I talking about? Portia and I had some good wine last night. I saw a bird when I was buying it."
That was my dramatic re-enactment of my memories of Ellen's book, but I don't think it's too far off.
Portia de Rossi: Still a Mystery
When I checked out Ellen's book on the Libby app, Portia de Rossi's was recommended.
I'd always been kind of curious about this woman. She has a made up name (I believe her given first and middle name were the same as mine are) (don't ever call me that), and everything I've seen her in (Arrested Development, Better Off Ted, Santa Clarita Diet), she's been emotionless, deadpan, coming off pretty cold. She was a mystery. It's an argument I've had with male friends (most of my friends are male I guess): Can Portia de Rossi act? Can she be funny? Or is it just the characters she's been handed; is this what she's going for? My friends were like, "What are you talking about, she's funny."
I would argue Lyndsey Bluth is the least funny character on Arrested Development, one of the funniest shows formerly on television. It's possible that they just needed a female so they could have the insanely quirky son-in-law portrayed by David Cross on the show, and didn't really know how to write for women. Lyndsey is stupid, but not in an over-the-top ditzy way, but just in a passive, goes-through-the-paces-her-family-dictates way. Her mother fat shames her and tells her to stay out of the way, her daughter literally pimps her out, she just goes along with whatever.
I kind of wanted to hear Portia talk. I didn't, really, because I checked this out as an eBook rather than an audiobook. But she was pretty guarded in her autobiography. Most of what she described was during her Ally McBeal years, and I've never seen that show. And the main impressions I got were that celebrity life isn't all it's cracked up to be, and that Portia wasn't really happy.
While on Ally McBeal, she was constantly compared to her thinner costars Calista Flockhart and Lucy Liu to the point that she developed an eating disorder. She describes this time in kind of a detached tone, and what struck me is that she seemed to be going through all of this on her own. I'd think she'd have an assistant to talk to, a personal trainer, someone to help her be OK while going through this.
Arrested Development went on a long hiatus, and when it returned for season 4, Portia was back but she had changed, looks-wise, more than anyone in the cast. She had a different face. Not just any face. She looked a lot like Calista Flockhart.
I actually googled this to make sure I wasn't crazy. A lot of people had been thrown by how different she looked, and had taken to the internet to see if this was still Portia de Rossi.
She's still kind of a mystery to me, and kind of a sad one, as her memoir made it sound like fame was more of a chore than a joy. It did end on a somewhat hopeful note, and not surprisingly, she retired from acting not too long after, leading to some stilted "Well, we don't know where Lyndsey is" writing in Arrested Development season 5.
Amy Schumer: Standup Act + Autobiography = Entertaining but Somewhat Self-Congratulatory Bookbaby
Andrew Rannells: It's OK to Be Happy
The Andrew Rannells autobiography was a breath of fresh air. I listened to the audiobook version that he narrated, and the whole thing was just as friendly, funny, sometimes self-deprecating as he comes across in interviews. My favorite thing about this book is that he wasn't afraid to say he was actually happy doing what he was doing. Before he got his Broadway break in Hairspray, he was in an off-off-off Broadway musical based on The Karate Kid called "It's Karate, Kid!" He admitted it was not the greatest play in the world but he had so much fun doing it.
Rannells wrote his autobiography kind of young, just shy of 40, and didn't go on to describe his Broadway and TV stardom, but he felt like his origin story was important to tell. While overall lighthearted, the book deals with some tough stuff. You would have to live under a rock not to know he is gay, but I hadn't known previously that he grew up in a Catholic home in the Midwest. The most serious chapter of the book describes his first relationship with an older man who manipulated him and turned in to a stalker. He was still a teenager at the time, and felt like he couldn't ask his parents for help, because that would mean coming out to them. He stresses that he would hate to think anyone else is in a similar situation and feeling they have nowhere to turn.
Anyway, I might be biased toward this one because I fell asleep listening to it and I half lived Andrew Rannells' life. I was dreaming that I was in all these musicals, what's up with that, but it was an enjoyable read. If I ever meet this guy I'll give him a hug.
Jessica Simpson: Probably Better Off than Britney
Why did I read Jessica Simpson's autobiography, you may or may not ask.
I found out she had an autobiography from an episode of the podcast "Imagined Life" (which was a great podcast and I miss it). I thought this would have some hot goss on late 90's pop stars and ALSO have some insight into what it's like to be on a reality show, as she was on the then-revolutionary "Newlyweds."
This might be something weird about me, but I have always been really curious about how much of reality shows is scripted and how much is real. How deprived are the people on Survivor really. How much of Catfish is staged. Is any of Kardashians unscripted? Etc. Etc.
I hate to admit it, but this book fits the description of an autobiography better than ANY of the others on this list, and even inspired me it might be fun to write my own, even if just for myself. Mostly, but not completely, linear, it tells her story from her first memories until the births of her children.
(Side note: Jessica, like Andrew, wrote her autobiography just shy of age 40, and I was shocked to find out that when she gave birth to her third child at age 38, they called it a "geriatric pregnancy." Yikes!)
Jessica, like Amy, does seem to include a good deal of content for the purpose of telling HER side of the story. While neither she nor Amy have stooped to the level that Jessica's younger sister Ashlee did after the lip-syncing on SNL fiasco by first blaming it on her band, then on acid reflux, then on a one-day-only vocal node injury that did not impact her speaking voice for some reason (seriously, watch the video of Ashlee on SNL, it's a trainwreck), she does seem to have a lot of things she feels like she needs to stand up for herself about. I guess you can kind of understand that, given that during her run on "Newlyweds" she was being marketed as the dumbest person on earth.
For example, Jessica apologizes for and explains away some of the dumb things she said, claiming they were honest and not her playing a role. She really did think buffalo wings were made out of buffalo, and here's why. She claims she nailed the singing audition for Mickey Mouse Club as a child but did a misstep in the dance part or something and that's why Britney and Christina got in and she did not, though if they could cast one more person it would have been her, and that Britney and Christina continued to sign on with record labels just before she would have been able to. But, that may have been the case, and she doesn't really throw any shade at them; she saves that for her exes Nick Lachey and John Mayer.
Regarding the reality show stuff. she doesn't go into explicit detail, but it's somewhat as I expected. It wasn't completely scripted, but they'd come up beforehand with what the premise of this show and the conflict, if any, would be. I still really want to know more about how reality TV works. Anyone out there been on reality TV? Can we talk?
Overall, I enjoyed her autobiography. It came off as honest and was never boring. I also found out a lot about her I didn't know. Her "savin' it" claim was not a publicity stunt; she was raised religious and religion is still important to her. She talks candidly about some childhood trauma she endured, the ups and downs of her relationships, and always having to feel like a poor man's Britney. I would read Britney's autobiography, but given the last thing I've seen that Britney wrote was an Instagram post that was something like, "GUYS SHOULD I BUY A HORSE????? LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I'm not sure how good that would be.
Elliot Page: All the Trigger Warnings, This Book Should Have Been Called Trigger Warning
This was the most harrowing of the autobiographies I read, so I won't say too much about it.
If Portia described her rise to fame as somewhat joyless, Elliot's was even more so. I did learn some interesting things about other celebrities and about the industry from reading this book, but I forget all of it because it was overshadowed by how bad I felt for Elliot.
He does not talk too much about the filming process for most of his movies; the one he lingers on longest is "An American Crime," which I had never heard of (neither the movie, nor the true story it was based on). Already battling anorexia and self-harm, he threw himself into the role of a teenage girl who was beaten and starved to death to the point where it was detrimental to his health. His life was possibly saved by the fact he fell in love with the title role in "Juno" and was told he would need to gain weight and take better care of himself in order to land the part.
My partner had heard of the true story behind "An American Crime" and we watched the movie while I was reading Elliot's autobiography, then watched "Juno" right after to feel better.
Unlike Portia's autobiography, Elliot's doesn't really end on a positive note, but more of an ambiguous one. Although, he wrote this autobiography pretty young, so I guess the whole "halfway there" vibe makes sense.
Jerry Seinfeld: Standup Act + Autobiography = Entertaining but Somewhat Misogynist Bookbaby
What is there to say about Seinfeld. I'd argue it was the most iconic sitcom of the 90's. Some might argue "Friends," but I think way more people will get "yada yada yada" or "no soup for you" or "master of your domain" than whatever Friends had, "we were on a break" or "Joey doesn't share food" or whatever. This book is what was described as the memoir of the man behind the show, but it's made up mostly of his 2-minute standup bits that were in the intro to old Seinfeld episodes and also in the bathroom book (what do you actually call a book you keep in the bathroom? Crapper Gazette? idk) that my parents had when I was little.
When I started reading (well, listening to), this book, it was like being wrapped in a loving, distracting blanket. I won't go into details, but I was going through a very hard time, and anything I looked at was triggering panic and self-hatred. This book required no attention span, as each portion was just a couple minutes long, and a lot of it was the standup that I remembered watching at my parents' dinner table and/or reading on my parents' crapper. It was just what I needed.
Granted, some of it doesn't age too well. Like, the one where he says he hates the people who travel around the airport in motorized carts and says that if they're so fat or lazy or disabled that they need motorized carts, maybe air travel is not for them. Or, there are the countless bits about how women are different from men, and all women are like this, trust him, he'd know. Like, you ever notice how women are obsessed with Q-tips? He goes on about this for a while. I am not obsessed with Q-tips and have never met any woman who is. Was he blanking out on his next set while he was at a Walgreens and just picked something random on the shelf or
When I was in high school, a socially awkward schoolmate once tried to use one of Jerry's bits and pass it off as his own. I think it was prompted by someone mentioning that girls pluck their eyebrows. "Man, women don't make any sense. Like, they'll pour hot wax on themselves, rip off all the hair on their legs, but then they'll be terrified of a spider."
Someone called him out on the bizarre thing he'd just said. "Dude, that was incredibly sexist."
I recognized he'd gotten this from Seinfeld, since my parents had the book by the crapper. But I kept quiet about that, and he basically pulled his head back into his shirt like a turtle and didn't say anything else.
As Jerry's memoir goes on, we transition from 30-something Jerry to 60-something Jerry. At this point, it loses the sense of nostalgia from the Seinfeld bits we remember and, while still sometimes funny, it comes across way more "OK Boomer" and way more misogynist than the older stuff does.
PARAPHRASED EXAMPLES OF NEWER SEINFELD HUMOR
"The thing with setting up your friends is, you just have to know how to describe them to the other gender. Because no men can think about anything except sex and no women can think about anything except money. So you just describe them using the same words except insert 'boobs' to the guy and 'bank accounts' to the girl."
"The thing with women is, they expect you to remember every single word that they say. But it's alright. You don't actually have to memorize the names of all of their cousins. You can just sit there and nod and think about cartoons while they talk. This will trigger something in women that is called 'anger,' but it will pass. You can usually distract them by showing them something pink."
"Sometimes, you'll get cornered into getting married and you can't get out of it. Don't worry. It's all going to be the woman's show. She will turn into a monster and the bridesmaids will be her minions and they'll figure it all out; you just have to show up."
"What's the deal with cell phones? Like, you don't have room in your house for a cord? You really need people calling you all the time? These damn weiner kids need to save up some money to buy a cord."
Jenny Lawson: Also Still a Mystery
My first introduction to Jenny Lawson was about a decade ago when I was sent a link to her story about how her husband Victor had forbidden her to spend any more money on frivolous things and in response she bought a five-foot-tall metal chicken and called it his "anniversary present."
Jenny is a writer, blogger, and motivational speaker, and a lot of her earlier shtick was based on her doing things exactly like that and Victor being the eternal straight man. I could summarize their relationship with this clip of Family Guy making fun of Dharma and Greg (a show I have never seen).
I read one of Jenny's books, "Furiously Happy," as part of a book club years ago. It was a pretty poignant book, dealing with the need to find happiness and how hard it can be to do so. I can relate. One constant was that when she had a depressive episode that rendered her nonfunctional for a while, or when she decided to do something like have a "dead raccoon rodeo" by putting a taxidermied raccoon on top of the cat and seeing how long it could stay on there, her husband was always there for her. He'd be ready to deal with whatever she was going to throw at him, and while she was doing all kinds of crazy stuff like Dharma getting up on that table or whatever, he would shake his head but he wasn't going anywhere.
When I read "Furiously Happy," I was dealing with intermittent depression, but I was with someone who had no patience for it.
When I met with my book club on this book, the only thing I think I said was, "Her husband is a saint."
But I wondered if I could possibly broach a subject like this with my partner. I tentatively told him, at some point, "I wish I could feel like it's okay to break down when I need to."
I went years without returning to Jenny Lawson, but I recently read her autobiography "Let's Pretend This Never Happened." All her books are somewhat autobiographical, but this one told the story of her childhood, meeting and marrying her husband, the challenges of young marriage, and some medical issues she faced, including multiple miscarriages.
I still don't know what to make of Jenny. When she first met her husband, he was from a richer family and she didn't feel like she was good enough, so I wonder if some of her bizarre behavior is a way of putting up walls to pre-emptively push him away. While I liked this book and was sad to finish it, like my funny friend was going away, it did start to seem like "Dharma get off the table" over and over again; much like my fascination with how much of reality shows is real, I didn't know how much of this was an act. The thing is, she has photographic proof of a lot of this stuff.
PARAPHRASED EXAMPLES OF STUFF VICTOR SAID
"What? I can't believe you're making me drive out in the rain to pick up a taxidermied mouse dressed as Hamlet that you bought at 3 a.m."
"What? I can't believe you called the police because you were stuck in the bathroom and thought the cat shoving things under the door was a rapist"
"What? I can't believe you found out right after I left for my work trip that you think there's a chupacabra in our yard and also you're afraid the dog buried in our yard will come back from the dead"
"What? You cannot buy a plane ticket for your taxidermied alligator with a pirate outfit on it, even if you made up a persona for it, I'm spending my miles on this"
I would love to sit down with Jenny and have some real talk someday, because she seems simultaneously like she would be my best friend and like she would be looking into my eyes, seeing all and knowing all, and planning how she would harvest my soul. That actually sounds like something she would say.
Her book did end on a somewhat serious note, describing how she was grateful for the experience she had where she threw herself in front of an attacking dog to save her young daughter. When she told her sister, "I got attacked by a dog," her sister didn't believe her, because she was prone to exaggeration. But then she showed pictures from her hospital stay. She said that she was glad to know she would sacrifice herself for someone she loved, and that when all's said and done, she's grateful for her life experiences because they've brought her here.
It was a great ending. Then there was an epilogue. Where she went on a rant of Ellen DeGeneres esque proportions. Someone should have taken her computer away before she did that.
