Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
You already know Camryn Manheim can act. She won the Emmy Award as the don't-mess-with-me attorney Ellenor Frutt on The Practice. Manheim made the ceremony itself entertaining by hoisting her trophy and hollering, "This is for all the fat girls!"
But can she write? Yes. This memoir is by turns funny ("If Barbie were a real woman, she'd have to walk on all fours due to her proportions") and excruciating. It helps that the material was honed in a one-woman show that sold out at New York's big-deal Public Theater, but the subject matter was strange and interesting in the first place. Manheim could not possibly be a less likely candidate for artistic and commercial success on TV. Born Debi Manheim in Peoria, the very metaphor for mainstream culture, Manheim re-created herself as a dozen-earringed California biker chick, a Renaissance Faire wench, a protester who helped drive the Miss California Pageant out of Santa Cruz, and one of 28 actors in America accepted at NYU's exclusive graduate school. In her book, Manheim gets even with her cruel, fat-bashing teachers; credits the director who gave her her first ingenue lead role (Tony Kushner, who cast her in Fen); and tells how the same temper that got her booted from school and arrested also won her the TV role that made her name.
There's good gossip for drama buffs. Manheim ribs her famous boss David Kelley within an inch of her livelihood; rips into Celeste Holm for cattiness backstage in Clare Boothe Luce's The Women; and opines that Bridget Fonda, whom she got naked next to in a movie, "could use a sandwich." But it's the private-life stuff that sticks with you. Read her touching, hilarious account of a personal-ad date from hell, and how she got even by picking up the hunky model who plays the Marlboro Man. She is not making this up!
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Amazon.com Audiobook Review
Because this recording is based on a book that's based on a stage show that's based on her life, actress Camryn Manheim knows her material well enough to give an effortless and entertaining read. Although--as the title suggests--the subject of weight figures largely in this abridgement, it's really the story of how Manheim discovered her identity and niche (not to mention her name). The Emmy winner tells a good yarn and is funny without reducing her life to a stand-up routine. Whether it's relating her girlhood in Peoria, Illinois and Long Beach, California or her undergraduate radical feminism or her struggles with people's attitudes about weight in show business, she manages to keep the tone wry and the mood fun. (Running time: 3 hours, 2 cassettes) --Kimberly Heinrichs
--This text refers to the
Audio Cassette
edition.
Wake Up, I'm Fat!
Wake Up, I'm Fat!,Camryn Manheim,Broadway,0767903633,Actors,Biography,Biography / Autobiography,Entertainment & Performing Arts - Actors & Actresses,General,Historical - U.S.,Humor,Manheim, Camryn,United States,Women,Biography & Autobiography / Entertainment & Performing Arts
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