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Hollywood Animal: A Memoir
by Joe Eszterhas
Product Group: Book
ISBN: B000HDZ9O2
Hardcover: 752 pages
Edition: 1st
SKU: 41701
Condition: New
Comments: GIFT QUALITY! THE HARDBACK BOOK! KNOPF, 2004. THE UNABRIDGED 1ST EDITION, WITH TERRIFIC PHOTOGRAPHS! HARDCOVER W/GILT LETTERING, DUST JACKET AND PAGES ARE NEW! RAPID SHIPPING W/FREE TRACKING, GREAT PACKAGING. Air Mail. BL, RD..
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
He spent his earliest years in post WWII–refugee camps. He came to America and grew up in Cleveland—stealing cars, rolling drunks, battling priests, nearly going to jail. He became the screenwriter of the worldwide hits Basic Instinct, Jagged Edge, and Flashdance. He also wrote the legendary disasters Showgirls and Jade. The rebellion never ended, even as his films went on to gross more than a billion dollars at the box office and he became the most famous—or infamous—screenwriter in Hollywood.
Joe Eszterhas is a complex and paradoxical figure: part outlaw and outsider combined with equal parts romantic and moralist. More than one person has called him “the devil.” He has been referred to as “the most reviled man in America.” But Time asked, “If Shakespeare were alive today, would his name be Joe Eszterhas?” and he was the first screenwriter picked as one of the movie industry’s 100 Most Powerful People. Although he is often accused of sexism and misogyny, his wife is his best friend and equal partner. Considered an apostle of sex and violence, he is a churchgoer who believes in the power of prayer. For many years the ultimate symbol of Hollywood excess, he has moved his family to Ohio and immersed himself in the midwestern lifestyle he so values.
Controversial, fearless, extremely talented, and totally unpredictable, the author of the best-selling American Rhapsody and National Book Award nominee Charlie Simpson’s Apocalypse has surprised us yet again: he has written a memoir like no other.
On one level, Hollywood Animal is a shocking and often devastating look inside the movie business. It intimately explores the concept of fame and gives us a never-before-seen look at the famous. Eszterhas reveals the fights, the deals, the extortions, the backstabbing, and the sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll world that is Hollywood.
But there are many more levels to this extraordinary work. It is the story of a street kid who survives a life filled with obstacles and pain . . . a chronicle of a love affair that is sensual, glorious, and unending . . . an excruciatingly detailed look at a man facing down the greatest enemy he’s ever fought: the cancer inside him . . . and perhaps most important, Hollywood Animal is the heartbreaking story of a father and son that defines the concepts of love and betrayal.
This is a book that will shock you and make you laugh, anger you and move you to tears. It is pure Joe Eszterhas—a raw, spine-chilling celebration of the human spirit.
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Customer Reviews
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Long, but GOOOOOOD
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-05-16
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
Wow, this book took me a long time to get through, but it was worth it. It's a story of the excess and ego of Hollywood, but it's also the story of a man who rose and fell and rose and fell and finally found equal footing. I can see how one would dislike Joe Esterhaus, yet at the same time admire him.
The book is written such that he takes you back and forth in time. This seems like it would get confusing, but it actually makes his story more interesting as you get to see how his past is reflected in his future.
A really good book.
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Thank you, Joe
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-11-04
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
Ask yourself what is the greatest gift one man can offer another, having never met him, having no knowledge of his life or his existence.
Joe Eszterhas gives that gift, honestly, profoundly, beautifully.
Life is a gift. To share that gift with a stranger is rare. To share it honestly, profoundly, beautifully... having no clue what impact you might have on a stranger reading... a gift of inspiration. A gift of consolation. A gift of hope and of appreciation and of acceptance. Of finding meaning. Of finding love. Of making love count. Of having the courage to change your life and let it change you.
Best autobiography I've ever read. And if anyone got their feelings hurt by this, they need to understand that Joe Eszterhas didn't turn his whip on them... they merely got in the line of fire as he turned it on himself.
Hollywood Animal is a gift that "Thank you, Joe" doesn't begin to cover. Nevertheless:
Thank you, Joe.
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I must put in my 2 cents...
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-08-13
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I'm midway through the book - it's one of THE most compelling biographies I've ever read. Like hundreds of snapshots of a very interesting life. I'd read about the infamous screenwriter, so I was hesitant to read his book for fear it would be angry or crass, and although he DOES tell some raw stories, it's not offensive. It's a life, with it's sins and shortcomings, honestly told. His writing style is smooth and even though the timelines change, it's never confusing. There is humility and wisdom in his writing, things one doesn't learn from an easy life.
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Riveting and thought-provoking
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-07-20
5 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
I have listened to the CD of this book, all the comments pertain to that edition.
I picked up this CD from the public library before a long road trip. I had no idea who this man was or who most of the other "larger than life" stars were. The story, I found out, is fascinating, well-written and Scott Brick's delivery helps to bring out Eszterhas' personality. The author himself ... I can't stand. Or can I?
This is a story of transformation and redemption and the trick is - as another reviewer has commented - indeed, for the writer not to get ahead of himself, but leave things to be discovered, let the complexity of his personality peel away like layers of an onion.
In a series of flashbacks that show Joe as a Hungarian boy and ones that show him as an American man, we witness how a scared, geeky, immigrant boy with quite a temper becomes first a successful millionaire Hollywood screenwriter who learns to play the Hollywood game of power, then gains some perspective via the experience of throat cancer, finding God and learning to value less glamorous things such as being able to breathe while walking. Obvious things apparently take a long time to understand if there is a lot of money, drugs and pussy on the other side.
Honesty and integrity are at the core of his tale in Hollywood (defending his script from changes, incursions into his creative freedom even when the odds are against him) and I rooted for him as a screenwriter right through his fight with Ovitz where he puts his career on the line.
Honesty and integrity are missing from most his private life, where he cheats on his wife every chance he gets and identifies "strains" in his marriage as he is working to hack it apart. By contrast, Bill MacDonald, his would-be wife's former husband, is not into cheating, for which he labels him a "prude" and attributes this strange attitude to his "Catholic upbringing."
Eszterhas' twenty years fit well into a Hollywood that uses up starstruck, ambitious young women hoping to make it and spits them out half-destroyed, but too stoned to notice. I am not sure which is worse: the women who would do "anything and everything" - in the book's returning phrase - to make it or the men who know they can and therefore will do whatever with them. Eszterhas happily assists, honesty and integrity do not play here. The lifelong liberal democrat, who abhors atrocities toward the weak and the poor is caught in a strange blindspot here.
In defending his ambiguous scripts Eszterhas is right that the audience can handle and even like ambiguity. He has written a book that reads in part like a soap opera, that gives enough clues to alternative readings to that you are tempted to sort out where you stand with regard to this man, someone you have never met and most likely never will.
Well done.
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Absorbing and funny
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-07-17
2 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
I am not a huge fan of Eszterhas' movies, but I had heard some of the 'legendary' stories about him, Don Simpson et. al. from the 80s and so was interested in reading this purely for entertainment value.
I picked it up not expecting at all to be captivated by Ezsterhas' story. He has a very engaging style of writing - he definitely understands the value of keeping stories short and to the point - but he also has a raw honesty in his writing that is incredibly compelling. I could hardly put the book down once I picked it up.
Although Ezsterhas does some very schmucky things, he is so honest and forthright about his shortcomings it's impossible not to root for him. I actually found the "Hollywood excess" tales not nearly as compelling as Ezsterhas talking about his life - his relationship with his father, growing up in Cleveland, his relationship with his second wife - and wish there had been more biographical information in the book than there was. I would have particularly liked to hear stories from his days at the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Rolling Stone, interviewing celebrities and doing news reporting. Perhaps Ezsterhas is saving those stories for another book. The exposition about his relationship with his father, pre- and post- the OSI investigation into his father's war crimes, was just fascinating. Ezsterhas is so honest about his feelings and his struggles to forgive his father for unforgiveable acts that you can't help but feel for him.
Ultimately the book is about a man who admits he is deeply flawed and ruled by appetites, but seeks redemption anyway. It's honestly one of the most compelling personal stories I have ever read. People who read this expecting just Hollywood dish and glitz are probably going to be disappointed, because to me the best parts of the book are about Ezsterhas, his family, and his struggles to be a better man. Fascinating reading and highly recommended.
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