Pimps, Hos, Playa Hatas, and All the Rest of My Hollywood Friends: My Life

Book Description

John Leguizamo defies easy categorization. Fans of his smash-hit one-man shows (Mambo Mouth, Spic-O-Rama, Freak, and Sexaholic) have gotten a glimpse into his life, but this book tells the whole story, taking readers on a journey from his childhood in Queens ("my father was a strict autocrat-totalitarian-despot-dictator-disciplinarian") to his current home at the top of the Hollywood pyramid—actor, director, producer, one of the highest-paid Latin actors in the world, with the clout to shape every aspect of his own career.

Beginning on the classic New York comedy club circuit, where he made the rounds with Ray Romano, Mario Cantone, and Chris Rock, through his disastrous one-night run as Puck in Joseph Papp's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, to his brief go at Method acting with Lee Strasberg (who died the next day; "I have that effect on people") and his hit Broadway debut with Freak, the protean performer shares the stories behind his many roles—what inspired them and what transpired as he created them. Never shy, he dishes on his personal relationships with his family, friends, and colleagues, including Spike Lee, Steven Seagal, Bruce Willis, Sean Penn, Harrison Ford, Brian De Palma, Al Pacino, Baz Luhrmann, and Nicole Kidman.

Keenly intelligent and insanely funny, this book offers a unique behind-the-scenes look at the magic and chaos of stardom, as well as an intimate portrait of John Leguizamo's greatest achievement—to grow up Latino in America and to succeed on his terms.

Customer Reviews:

Very Entertaining.......2007-08-31

This book is very much like John Leguizamo's show's - introspective and intersting. While I didn't think it was too hard-hitting against his fellow thespians, I enjoyed an inside perspective into the real lives of Hollywood actors. I also really enjoyed that Leguizamo shared his failures and weaknesses. It was clever, funny, and sad all at once. A true John Leguizamo experience.

Great!!.......2007-03-09

I can't complain at all about this book. John Leguizamo is hilarious. I felt like I was sitting front row at one of his stand up comedies. He talks about his struggles and some 'beefs' he has with actors I certainly never knew about. I also admired the way he was completely honest about every role he played and every person he worked with.

Great read...lousy title ):.......2007-03-04

I am a huge John Leguizamo fan. My son introduced me to him because of his love for Leguizamo's short lived TV show House of Buggin. In addition to his films, we have seen him perform Freak on Broadway and John Leguizam Live before it was renamed Sexaholic. With a background like that, I found this autobiography to be very revealing and entertaining. However, as a long time librarian I am very familiar with how people react to book titles when they are unfamiliar with the author or the subject matter. And just as Leguizamo acknowledges bad career choices and mistakes that he has made in his career to date, I am afraid that he will have to eventually accept the fact that his unfortunate title choice has repelled rather than attracted many potential readers. By doing so, he has missed a golden opportunity to use this entertaining vehicle to expand his fan base.

PIMP, HOS, PLAYA HATAS, AND ALL THE REST OF MY HOLLYWOOD FRIENDS: MY LIFE JOHN LEGUIZAMO.......2007-01-16

THIS BOOK WAS NOT AS JUICY AS I WAS ECPECTING.... IT WAS FUNNY AND READ WITH ENJOYMENT BUT IT WAS EASY TO PUT DOWN AND FORGET ABOUT! IT WAS OK

Pimps, Hos, Playa Hatas, and All the Rest of My Hollywood Friends: My Life.......2007-01-10

I bought this book for my husband for his birthday -He is not much of a reader -We really like John Leguizamo as an actor and saw him on David Letterman promoting the book -It sounded so interesting and my husband was like -I want to read that -I was kind of surprised because he rarely ever reads. He loves the book -He's even got me reading it -John did a great job -If you like John and movies -You will love this book -It's got a lot of dirt on celebrities -But done in a playful way -Even some of the names have been changed -I would recommend this book -Excellent work John!

Reading Race: Hollywood and the Cinema of Racial Violence (Published in association with Theory, Culture & Society)

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Reading Race: Hollywood and the Cinema of Racial Violence (Published in association with Theory, Culture & Society)
Norman K. Denzin
Manufacturer: Sage Publications Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0803975457

Book Description

In this insightful book, one of America's leading commentators on culture and society turns his gaze upon cinematic race relations, examining the relationship between film, race and culture.

Norman K Denzin argues that the cinema, like society, treats all persons as equal but struggles to define and implement diversity, pluralism and multiculturalism. He goes on to argue that the cinema needs to honour racial and ethnic differences, in defining race in terms of both an opposition to, and acceptance of, the media's interpretations and representations of the American racial order.

Acute, richly illustrated and timely, the book deepens our understanding of the politics of race and the symbolic complexity of segregation and discrimination.

Ramon Novarro: The Life and Films of the First Latino Hollywood Superstar

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What a Disappointment

Ramon Novarro: The Life and Films of the First Latino Hollywood Superstar
Frank Javier Garcia Berumen
Manufacturer: Vantage Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0533133963

Customer Reviews:

What a Disappointment.......2001-12-20

The angle of sometimes neglected history, i.e Latino or minority history vs Anglo or majority history could have made this book very interesting. Also, Ramon Novarro, a mega-star of the silent and early talkies has only had one other biography written about him by A. Ellenberger. However, this book is a great disappointment. First of all, you have to wonder how much a biographer knows of his subject when he gets the date of his subject's death wrong (Oct 31 1968, NOT Nov 1 as stated in this book)
Secondly, the biographer states he is not going to talk about rumors, i.e. Ramon Novarro by repute was gay, and then goes on to try to suggest Ramon Novarro as having had affairs with some of his female stars. Almost as bad as the old movie studio publicity when, MGM tried in 1934 to publicise a 'romance' between Myrna Loy one of his co-stars. Apparently, this author had never read her reaction at the time as recorded in her autobiography in the 1980's, which states 'it was ridiculous, Ramon didn't even like the girls'.
It's nice to see another book on Ramon Novarro, a really great movie star, but this one is just plain disappointing.

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Ethnicities Celebrated

Hispanics in Hollywood
Luis Reyes , and Peter Rubie
Manufacturer: Lone Eagle
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1580650252

Book Description

From the early passions of the Latin lover of the silver screen' to the adventures of modern day keroes such as Antonio Banderas, Hispanics in Hollywood is an illuminating voyage into the careers and contributions of some of film history's most legendary performers.

Customer Reviews:

Ethnicities Celebrated.......2000-10-05

By JONATHAN KIRSCH, Special to The LA Times "...An illuminating and entertaining survey of films and television programs in which Latino actors, settings or themes figure prominently, "Hispanics in Hollywood" is full of such surprises. Anthony Quinn, perhaps best known as Zorba the Greek, is only one of many actors whose Mexican origins were once concealed, and there are many others whose Latino roots have only recently come to public attention, ranging from Rita Hayworth (born Margarita Cansino) to John Gavin (born John Anthony Golenar) to Raquel Welch (born Raquel Tejada). And it was a young Emilio Estevez who boldly reclaimed his own Latino family history and thus revealed to the world that the real name of his father, Charlie Sheen, is Ramon More often Latino actors found themselves in an awkward dilemma in Hollywood, as the authors of "Hispanics in Hollywood" point out--if their Latino identities were not concealed, they were put to use in depicting stereotyped Latino characters: "maids, slum dwellers, drug addicts and gang members," co-author Luis Reyes reminds us, or "cruel dictators, mustachioed bandits and beautiful señoritas." Only in the last couple of decades have Latino actors and directors enjoyed the opportunity to tell stories about their own heritage in a more open, honest and affirming voice in movies such as "Zoot Suit," "La Bamba," "Stand and Deliver," "Selena" and "A Walk in the Clouds." Reyes, a movie publicist who is also a chronicler of Hollywood's Latin American heritage, describes the book as "an attempt to show the way Hollywood has depicted Hispanic Americans and Latin America, while also pointing out the contributions to Hollywood movies and television made by unsung Hispanic Americans as well as those more famous." Thus, his book can be approached as a serious effort to ponder the issues of race and ethnicity in American pop culture and, at the same time, as one of those useful reference works that can be pulled down from the shelf when puzzling over some old and obscure movie on cable.

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A wonderful book
Timeless and Authentic
A Remarkable Book with an Unforgettable Voice
Richie's Picks: SAMMY & JULIANA IN HOLLYWOOD
Couldn't put it down

Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood
Benjamin Alire Saenz
Manufacturer: Rayo
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060843748
Release Date: 2006-08-01

Book Description

The Hollywood where Sammy Santos lives is not one of glitz and glitter, but a barrio at the edge of a small New Mexico town. In the summer before his senior year, Sammy falls in love with the beautiful, independent, and intensely vulnerable Juliana. Sammy's chronicle of his senior year is both a love story and a litany of loss, the tale of his love not only for Juliana but for their friends, a generation from a barrio: tough, innocent, humorous, and determined to survive.

Customer Reviews:

A wonderful book.......2006-01-05

I really enjoyed this book, but I think its a shame that they are marketing it as Young Adult. This is a book that deserves a wider audience than just teens, as many adults will be able to relate due to the era.

Timeless and Authentic.......2005-08-02

"We have plans. Then something happens." Sammy has plans: to go to college, to get out of the barrio, to love Juliana. Although Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood takes place in the Hollywood barrio of Las Cruces, New Mexico, in 1968/69, it is a timeless story of teen hopes and fears, love and loss, and what it is like to grow up poor and of color. Sammy, called The Librarian by his friends for his scholarly ways, falls in love with Juliana the summer before his senior year. By summer's end, she has died tragically and senselessly, and Sammy "[doesn't] care. Not about anything. Not anymore." But despite his anger and the pain of his loss, the demands of his friends and his family only increase in his senior year and Sammy is pulled into their lives. These are real teenagers, who drink, party, take drugs, have sex, swear, push the limits of school administrations and the law. Sammy agrees to be campaign manager for Gigi who is running for student body president on a platform of "shakin' up the school." Some of his friends face the draft and service in Vietnam, and everyone knows that poor Hispanic boys of Hollywood come back in pine boxes. Two friends are brutally beaten for being gay. One friend dies of heroin addiction. His father is injured in an automobile accident. Things happen.
Sammy maneuvers through the minefields of student elections, drugs, protests, racism homophobia, and loss and finds a resiliency he doesn't know he has. Like all teenagers, he thinks his life will start when he gets to college. But he is deeply involved in the life of Hollywood. Saenz has found an authentic voice in Sammy who is full of the angst and confusion of all teenagers but is also perceptive, sensitive and compassionate. This is a beautifully realized story of what it meant in 1968 to grow up in the barrio. Today, teens growing up in the ghettos face the same problems Sammy and his friends faced.

A Remarkable Book with an Unforgettable Voice.......2005-01-08

This novel covers a year in the life of a Hispanic teenager living in a Florida barrio in the late sixties. The voice of Sammy, the main character, is authentic and his personality is vivid and lovable. I was rooting for him from page one through the end.

The author also captures the flavor of the barrio and Sammy's high school through wonderful portrayals of Sammy's girlfriend Juliana, his Hispanic and Jewish friends, his caring family, and his next door neighbor. They practically step off the page.

Finally, the book, through portrayals of Vietnam soldiers, school protests, and diminishing hemlines, makes the late sixties come alive.

Sammy and Juliana is a wonderful novel.

Richie's Picks: SAMMY & JULIANA IN HOLLYWOOD.......2004-12-04

In 1968, during the summer preceding his senior year at Las Cruces High School in southern New Mexico, seventeen-year-old Sammy Santos hooks up with Juliana Rios. The powerful and achingly tragic story Sammy recounts of Juliana and that summer is but a mere preface in this stunning ode to growing up in the barrio--a neighborhood that some joker has named Hollywood. I alternately laughed, cheered, and cried as Sammy and his Hollywood friends encounter the prejudices, the Church, the hormones, the War, the drugs, the violence, the music, the aspirations, and the dress code, while making their way through that year both inside and outside of the barrio. If I had to choose a single "top" book from the 200+ new books for teens that I've read in 2004, SAMMY & JULIANA IN HOLLYWOOD would be the one.

Couldn't put it down.......2004-09-28

This is a book I highly recommend. I got it in the mail on Sat and finished it by the next day.
It can be at times very depressing to read, in that Catcher in the Rye type of way. The difference is that Sammy isn't born into a life of privelege, and his obstacles extend beyond his own wonderings. His immidiate world is filled with economic and social harship.
Sammy goes through so much that you can't even imagine what else could possibly happen, but you want to be there with him when it does. It is very honest, vivid and well-written. My only negative criticism: there's a part that seems to be chronologically out of order...I was a lit major in college, so I am very picky.

Brown Celluloid: Latino/a Film Icons and Images in the Hollywood Film Industry

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Brown Celluloid: Latino/a Film Icons and Images in the Hollywood Film Industry
Frank Javier Garcia Berumen
Manufacturer: Vantage Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0533143055

Heroes, Lovers, and Others: The Story of Latinos in Hollywood

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A great read AND a wonderful gift
The Best Of Its Kind

Heroes, Lovers, and Others: The Story of Latinos in Hollywood
Clara E. RodrÃguez
Manufacturer: Smithsonian
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1588341119

Book Description

A book for everyone interested in Hollywood and especially the history of Latinos in American film.

Heroes, Lovers, and Others tells the fascinating history of Latinos in film, from the birth of the movies to the present, through a series of stories about Hollywood's most famous and enduring stars. The book features such Latino legends as Dolores del Rio, Rita Hayworth, Ramon Navarro, Desi Arnaz, Anthony Quinn, Raquel Welch, Selma Hayek, and Antonio Banderas. But this is much more than a just collection of celebrity stories. Clara E. Rodríguez shows how the careers of these stars were shaped by the temper of the times in which they lived and how they managed their own sense of personal and screen identities. The sparkling parade of Latino film stars presented against the backdrop of American social and cultural history changes the way we think of race and ethnicity in Hollywood and challenges us to reexamine conventional ways of viewing our past. Not least of all, Heroes, Lovers, and Others will inspire readers to watch old and new movies with a sharpened sense of the personal, artistic, and social dynamics underlying their history and, by telling the stories of several long-forgotten stars, make readers wish these stories themselves would be made into movies. 57 b/w photographs.

Customer Reviews:

A great read AND a wonderful gift.......2006-01-25

It was that gorgeous sepia cover of Rita Hayworth that first drew me to this book. I'm not a movie buff, but that classic pose captivated me, and when I saw the numerous dramatic stills of famous screen icons from across the entire history of film, I immediately purchased four copies-for my mother, my two aunts and my niece.
Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino, I quickly learned, and she had begun her career as a a Latin dancer and actor. Her's is only one of a flood of stories of Latinos stars throughout Hollywood's first century. The book is an easy and quick read, but I ended up learning a lot about how the history of Hollywood and America are intertwined. I felt that the historical context deepened and enriched the stories and provided them with a greater meaning.
One of my favorite stories is about an Austrian actor named Jacob Krantz, whose acting career was going nowhere until he changed his name to Ricardo Cortez and immediately became a big star. His brother Stanley followed him to Hollywood, also changed his name to Cortez, and won several awards as a cinematographer. And did you know that Anthony Quinn came to the US illegally, and picked crops, preached on street corners and boxed before becoming a major star?
The author writes with an accessible style and great insight. The pictures are wonderful. I'm neither Latino nor a big movie-goer, but I still loved "Heroes, Lovers and Others" because it is such a lively collage of wonderful stories about America and the rich variety of people who populate it.

The Best Of Its Kind.......2004-11-30

Rodriguez gets us thinking about the place of Latinos in US feature film from the very beginning to the present and in a sense, it's a book with a happy ending, because after decades of near-invisibility, Latinos and Latinas are becoming highly visible and indeed stars with huge followings. I mean, like it or not, Jennifer Lopez has millions of fans, as does Christina Aguillera. Intriguing are her portraits of Hollywood's Latin stars of days gone by, from the dashing Gilbert Roland to the gay superstar Ramon Novarro, and the answers to trivia questions like Olga San Juan. But she has some facts wrong, and it makes me wonder if even I, a non-Latino, can pick up some mistakes she has made, who knows maybe there are even more I don't know about! In her article on raquel Welch, first of all she deplores the fact that Jo Raquel Tejada was forced to change her name to Welch. She says that "Welch was another name in her family." Every fan of Raquel's in fact knows that "Welch" is the name of Raquel's first husband, and she didn't "steal" it or anything from some other member of her own family. Rodriguez also claims that Raquel made her screen debut in the call-girl melodrama A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME, when most historians credit her in appearing in the Elvis programmer ROUSTABOUT way before AHINAH. But, all in all you can't go wrong with Rodriguez (except when she goes wrong), and I love her description of Anthony Quinn as having the greatest gift of a screen actor, the ability to make audiences think they have known the character he is playing in any particular picture, that they have known him for a long time. It's a quirky observation, but a valid one, and a valuable one to boot.

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Hollywood Hispano (Spanish Format)
George Hadley-Garcia
Manufacturer: Carol Publishing Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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A Latina in the Land of Hollywood and Other Essays on Media Culture

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I'm very critical, but it's still great.

A Latina in the Land of Hollywood and Other Essays on Media Culture
Angharad N. Valdivia
Manufacturer: University of Arizona Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Living in Spanglish: The Search for Latino Identity in America

ASIN: 0816519331

Customer Reviews:

I'm very critical, but it's still great........2002-09-01

I encourage many to read this book, but I feel compelled to give my criticisms first.

Valdivia is trying to write Latinas into media studies and cultural criticism, a very noble project. But like bell hooks, a scholar by whom Valdivia is strongly influenced, the author pats herself on the back too frequently about her interdisciplinary discussions of "race, class, and gender." Also like hooks, though non-homophobic, there is an unfortunate way in which "race, class, and gender" are written in capital letters but sexual orientation is written in the lower-case. Like many Latina/o scholars, Valdivia gripes about how racial discussions overly focus on white vs. black, yet she has to use a lot of African-American scholarship to make her points. While the last half of the book is clearly about Latinas, the first have is just about women in general; this book is much more likely to be in a women's studies syllabus than an ethnic studies one (which is unfortunate). As much info as I learned about the media here, the author gets many facts wrong. She says "Set It Off" is directed by a woman; it's directed by F. Gary Gray, a man. She calls Madonna "self-named"; actually Madonna is her birth name. She says "You Can't Do That on Television" was inspired by the Xuxa Show and that can't be because the former came on before Xuxa worked on Brazilian TV in 1984. Speaking of Xuxa, the author is way too forgiving. In a minority-heavy nation like Brazil they may worship the rare blonde like Xuxa. In the white-majority US, there are plenty of blondes and Xuxa would be nothing special, yet Valdivia inadequately addresses this. The author includes this silly chapter involving her daughter. All parents think their children are little miracles. Valdivia can't be critical here. For example, she states her daughter's school has Mexican-American students, yet the mother doesn't find it problematic in the slightest that all her daughter's friends are white. Finally, her descriptions go on too long; whole sections describing Victoria's Secrets catalogues and Xuxa's success had to be skipped because they were so exhaustive.

Book Description

Between 1936 and 1955, Hollywood significantly changed its portrayal of Hispanics in motion pictures. This change resulted from the demands of the Production Code Administration, which required film makers to eliminate the more offensive stereotypical Hispanic images. This filmography chronicles all of the Hispanic-related films released during this period. The volume includes entries for nearly four thousand films. The entries are arranged in chapters, with each chapter devoted to a single year. Within the chapters, the entries are listed alphabetically by film title. Each entry includes production information, an annotation detailing the film's Hispanic significance, and references to additional materials. The volume concludes with an alphabetical index of film titles, an index of actors and actresses, an index of place names, a general subject index, and an index of songs. Film historians and scholars of Hispanic culture will find this work to be an indispensable reference tool.

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