Where I share my love of books with reviews, features, giveaways and memes. Family and needlepoint are thrown in from time to time.
Showing posts with label Patrick Swayze. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Patrick Swayze. Show all posts

Sunday, November 22, 2009

The Time of My LIfe by Patrick Swayze & Lisa Niemi (Book Review)

Title: The Time of My Life - audiobook
Author: Patrick Swayze & Lisa Niemi

Read by: Patrick Swayze & Lisa Niemi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster audio

(I checked this one out from the library.)

Listening to this, it was hard for me to believe that he was actually gone. I loved the movies Red Dawn, Dirty Dancing and Ghost - and can actually remember where I saw them and who I was with. Red Dawn was the summer after I graduated high school and I saw it with my best friend Pam in Des Moines. Dirty Dancing was the fall after I got married the first time and we were living in San Diego. My husband and I were young and stupid and actually walked downtown to see the midnight showing of this one. We were so lucky that nothing happened to us! Ghost I also saw in San Diego, but it was while my husband was deployed during the Gulf War and I saw it with another Navy wife, Polly, who was living with me while our husbands were gone. So was I, am I, a fan of Patrick Swayze? Absolutely.

This narrative starts right after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and then takes us back to the beginning, when he was a football player in high school. His football career ended when he took a hit from two opposing players and tore all the ligaments in his knee. When that dream ended, he pursued gymnastics and was set to go to the junior Olympics. That also fell through when he landed wrong during warm ups on the low rings and blew his knee out again.

Since he had danced from a young age at his mom's studio, he started to concentrate on ballet. He was able to get a scholarship to go to New York to study ballet for Harkness. He had met Lisa when she was 15 and she came in to his mom's studio for dance lessons. She was one of the few girls who wasn't affected by Patrick's looks and charms. Somehow the two of them became friends, and one thing led to another. They married in the mid 1970's after Lisa had also moved to New York on a scholarship to Harkness also. Even though ballet continued to make his knee swell, he refused to give up on this career. After a near mishap on a motorcycle, he realized that his previous dreams had ended when something had happened physically to him making him unable to pursue them. He felt he was setting himself up for the same failure in ballet and that maybe he should expand his horizons. He turned down an offer to dance with Mikhail Baryshnikov and they moved to L.A.

Patrick suffered from low self-esteem throughout his entire life and career. He never felt he was good enough, which pushed him to work harder and longer to get roles that he wanted. He had to convince the directors of both Dirty Dancing and Ghost to cast him, as neither one saw him in the role. Can any of you picture someone different as Johnny Castle or Sam Wheat? I know I can't.

He goes on to tell about his different roles in his movies, some of which I had forgotten (City of Joy), some of which I had not heard of (Letters from a Killer, Green Dragon) and some that I did not know he was in (To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar)- but hope to see them now. He tells a hilarious story about his transformation into a woman for To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. He learns too late not to let his costars, Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo dress him in tight pantsuits for his role as Vida Boheme.

I probably listened to this audio book quicker than any other, and remembered it better when it was done. I am not sure if it would have impacted me as much had I read the book. It made a difference to me to actually hear about his life in his own voice, and in Lisa's. I highly recommend the audio version of this book.



Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Teaser Tuesday: 11-2-2009


TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:
Grab your current read.
Let the book fall open to a random page.
Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
Please avoid spoilers!


He was a classic barroom-brawler type, a huge man with a fleshy nose that lay flat against his face, supposedly because he'd had the cartilage removed so he could take more punches. The beating Tex had taken in his fight with Holmes had been so severe, Howard Cosell had retired from calling boxing matches in protest that the fight wasn't stopped sooner. (p95, The Time of My Life by Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi)






Teaser Tuesday is hosted at Should be Reading. Come on over and share your teaser, too!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Waiting on Wednesday: The Time of My Life

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

The Time of My Life by Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi

Publisher/Publication Date: Atria, Sept 29, 2009

In a career spanning more than thirty years, Patrick Swayze has made a name for himself on the stage, the screen, and television. Known for his versatility, passion and fearlessness, he's become one of our most beloved actors.

But in February 2008, Patrick announced he had been diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. Always a fighter, he refused to let the disease bring him to his knees, and his bravery has inspired both his legion of fans and cancer patients everywhere. Yet this memoir, written with wisdom and heart, recounts much more than his bout with cancer. In vivid detail, Patrick describes his Texas upbringing, his personal struggles, his rise to fame with North and South, his commercial breakthroughs in Dirty Dancing and Ghost, and the soul mate who's stood by his side through it all: his wife, writer and director Lisa Niemi.

A behind-the-scenes look at a Hollywood life and a remarkable love, this memoir is both entertainment and inspiration. Patrick and Lisa's marriage is a journey of two lives intertwined and lived as one--throughout their years in Hollywood and at home on their working ranch outside Los Angeles, and culminating in the hope and wisdom they've imparted to all who know them. This book will open the door for families, individuals, and husbands and wives to grow, bond and discover entirely new levels of love and sharing, proving that life shouldn't be lived as a series of endings, but rather as the beginning of greater strength and love.(Amazon)

Who didn't love Patrick Swayze?


What are you waiting for? Waiting on Wednesdays is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.



LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...