Globecord - Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins -Rupert Everett (2006)

When I first told my husband that I was reading the autobiography of Rupert Everett the first thing he said to me was…

Who?

From the extent that Rupert ‘gets around’ (the book is a plethora of who knows who) he would most likely be aghast to find out that there’s someone, anyone, who doesn’t know who he is. For all you left-over nobodies, he’s an actor most famous for his gay role in the 1997 hit My Best Friend’s Wedding.

So why, you wonder, would I want to read his autobiography? Well, it was cheap ($3 book sale), unknown and vastly different from the Kite Runner books I’ve been depressing myself with lately. Or so I thought. In fact, Red Carpet and Other Banana Skins turned out to be pretty much the same story told from the point of view of a privileged prostitute turned actor than a one legged Indian child begging on the street.

Both stories are not particularly enviable and after page 200, compassion one has for the characters tends to turn sour from all the whining. In any event, Rupert can write. He writes about British boarding schools, acting in Scotland, philandering in France and schmoozing in L.A. He mentions, readily, all the famous and not so famous people he’s met, from Andy Warhol to Madonna. In fact the book reads less about himself and more about his fascination with other people. This is a shame as I found the most interesting part to be about the year he spent filming in Russia before the fall of the Berlin Wall. To his credit he’s able to describe events and people with an astounding degree of clarity but this can also simulate insatiable interest in moments he chooses to be particularly vague. Aware of the effect writing an autobiography can have when still on the market, he’s clearly more open and honest about those people who are dead then those alive and kicking. Nevertheless small moments of honesty peek through. He has the habit as describing people as being rather disagreeable but then follows up his rare affront with a redeeming statement…..’and I just adored him’.

I can’t say I adored the book. It’s well written but I wouldn’t say it’s funny. I kind of thought it would be.