1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910972763203321

Autore

Guillaume Robert

Titolo

Guillaume : a life / / Robert Guillaume with David Ritz

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Columbia, : University of Missouri Press, c2002

ISBN

9780826263384

0826263380

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (236 p.)

Altri autori (Persone)

RitzDavid

Disciplina

792/.028/092

B

Soggetti

Actors - United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Filmography and discography: p. 207-211.

Nota di contenuto

Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Two Women -- Bedrock of My Rebellion -- Morning Glories and Pigs' Snouts -- "Boy, One of Us Has to Go " -- Jeannette Williams (1880-1951) -- Karin Berg -- Karamu -- The City -- Acting as Though -- Golden Opportunities -- Pilgrims' Progress -- "He Had Specters" -- The Primary Issue -- Faye Hauser -- Stone Love -- Dinner for Four -- Pat Carpenter -- Brother, Sister, Mother -- Intellectual Armor -- Donna Brown Guillaume -- Be Careful What You Wish For -- "He Was Broken for Me" -- "This Is the Moment" -- Stroke of Fate -- Filmography and Discography -- Index.

Sommario/riassunto

Guillaume: A Life is the autobiography of esteemed Broadway, Hollywood, and television star Robert Guillaume. Ten months after suffering a stroke, Guillaume-perhaps best known as television's Benson-began this autobiography with award-winning author and collaborator David Ritz.The book goes beyond the recounting of a long and successful career to examine the forces that shaped the man: family, religion, race, and class. Startlingly candid and disarmingly self-aware, Guillaume seeks to know and understand himself, his treatment of the women in his life, and the choices he made along the way. He pursues the truth, however painful it may be, says Ritz, guided by two questions, "Who the hell am I?" and "What made me do what I did?"    Born in St. Louis in 1927 to a young, abused, unstable mother, and reared by a strong, hardworking grandmother, Robert Guillaume



managed to move from the poverty and adversity of his youth to a rich, full career as an actor and a singer. Fierce determination and sharp focus enabled this man born to hardship and racial discrimination to study, learn, cultivate his natural talents, and succeed at the performance career he pursued with a vengeance. Guillaume first performed in the strict Catholic schools and churches to which his grandmother, who understood that education would be the key to any success he might achieve, sent him. There his love of classical music was nurtured, and he was encouraged to perform.From a child longing for his mother's love to a man unsure of the meaning of love for many of the women in his life, from a young performer struggling to succeed on Broadway and in Hollywood to a grief-stricken father watching his son die of AIDS, Robert Guillaume tells what it was like to realize celebrity and what he sacrificed in the process. Readers will savor the success story of this artist who achieved great recognition and fame, but who never lost sight of his beginnings. Appealing to all audiences, Guillaume is a revealing and poignant autobiography of an extraordinary and distinguished American thespian.