About the Author

Richard E. Grant was born and brought up in Mbabane, Swaziland. He went to London in 1982, waitered, repped, toured, and fringed until getting a role in a television satire about advertising, Honest, Decent and True. This led to being cast in Bruce Robinson's Withnail and I in 1986. His films include Hidden City, Warlock, How to Get Ahead in Advertising, Mountains of the Moon, Killing Dad, L.A. Story, Hudson Hawk, The Player, Dracula, The Age of Innocence, Pret a Porter, Jack and Sarah, The Portrait of a Lady, Twelfth Night, The Serpent's Kiss, Spice World, The Corpse Bride, and Penelope. He has written articles for Vanity Fair and Premiere. Richard E. Grant lives in London with his family.

Reviews

"I have often felt that movies operate along the lines of a medieval court, with despots, divas and duckbrains," observes actor Grant, offering up his diaries to prove his own adage. The star of the cult classic Withnail and I (his first film role), Grant allows readers to experience the idiosyncratic working methods of directors Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, among others, while taking them on a tour through his films from L.A. Story and The Player to The Age of Innocence and Bram Stoker's Dracula, concluding with the movie that made him a real star with his small daughter: Spice World, starring the Spice Girls. In what may be the book's most hilarious and horrifying depiction of a movie run amok, Grant describes in detail the experience of working on the megabomb Hudson Hawk. Everything comes under Grant's withering gazeÄfrom star Bruce Willis to egomaniacal producer Joel Silver to a revolving door of leading ladies. He also recounts an uneasy evening with actress-comedienne Sandra Bernhard and Madonna, first at the superstar's mansion (with boy toy in background), then on the town. Unlike many performers who put out ghost-written, ego-driven autobiographies, Grant is a skilled and entertaining writer on his own. His book is a biting and wonderfully funny look at the movie business by an actor who is as clear-eyed and observant about himself as he is about the craziness surrounding him. 14 b&w photos. (June).