I Blame Dennis Hopper: And Other Stories from a Life Lived In and Out of the Movies

A must read

Highly entertaining, honest and hilarious

witty book for anyone who likes movies very insightfull

From the caption at the beginning of Chapter 1 of a picture of young Illeana Douglas standing in a storefront, stating "We were poor, but we were unhappy" , I knew this would be a book I would love. Being of a similar age, I felt a total affinity for Illeana's stories of her childhood dealing with a father whose manifesto was Easy Rider, as it was a film I suffered through with a dad who felt much the same about the film and its lead actor, Dennis Hopper, as hers. However, it's a triumphant story in the end, as Illeana relates that the horrors she dealt with brought her to a place of being able to become a successful working actress in movies with such luminaries as... Dennis Hopper! The book is full of wonderful, usually hilarious anecdotes from a professional life lived at various levels of the business, from dinner theatre to her star turns in the films To Die For and Grace Of My Heart. Illeana's stories of other actors and directors she's encountered throughout her life, from grandfather Melvyn Douglas (whose film career began in the early '30s and later era work in The Candidate in '72 and Being There in '79 is genius; her visit as a teenager to the film set of Being There is one of the best stories in the book) to Martin Scorsese, Robert DeNiro and scores of others are all brilliantly told in a disarming, self-deprecating manner. One of the best showbiz tomes I've had the pleasure to read... thanks Illeana and let's have some more soon, please!

've always admired actress Illeana Doulas at the movies. Some may not know she is Melvin Douglas' granddaughter, so she is from Hollywood royalty.She was in my very home in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, at a New Year's Eve party to which I was invited but could not attend. This was well before I moved here from Manhattan. She was a guest of our friend, Marcus and the party was in my friend Kevin's apartment.I was especially smitten with Ms Douglas, at the movies, in the 1996 film directed by Allison Anders, Grace of My Heart. So I was as pleased as punch to read her recent memoir, I Blame Dennis Hopper: and a Life I Lived in and out of the Movies, now in hardcover from Deckle Edge and -- of course -- on Kindle. Available at Barnes & Noble and other fine bookstores, and on Amazon.com and audio cd.Douglas devotes an entire chapter, gratefully, to her starring role in Grace of My Heart. This Allison Anders film is one of my favorites from the 1990s. Douglas has only positive things to say about Ms Anders, though she speaks candidly throughout her book -- really a collection of personal essays -- about others, so there's no shortage of gossip in these pages.I Blame Dennis Hopper was released in November and takes its title from the fact that Illeana's parents were inspired to move to a hippie commune from their comfortable upper-middle class home, and that's where Illeana was raised. She talks about her longtime romantic relationship with Martin Scorsese and about working with Robert DeNiro. She is a wonderful name-dropper, discussing her meetings with other celebrities, like Marlon Brando and Peter Sellers.I highly recommend this tell-all, probably the best book of its kind since Grace Jones' memoirs.