The road to stardom

My initial reaction on discovering that Rupert Everett had an autobiography out was to wonder whether an actor (and not an exceptionally high-profile actor at that) should be publishing a memoir of his life at just age 47. But Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins becomes easier to assimilate once you've read the first couple of chapters. Everett, it turns out, is a talented writer (he's already produced two moderately well-received novels) and this book, written in a novelistic style, is as much a record of an interesting era in British theatre and film as it is a personal life-history. The absence of an index of names at the end (a pre-requisite for most memoirs) is the first hint that this isn't a conventional autobiography; it can be read as a Bildungsroman featuring real-life personalities.

The story begins with a young Rupert fascinatedly watching his first film (Mary Poppins) and then takes us through his life: there's a vivid description of first day at boarding school; his first major stage performance (as Titania, Queen of the Fairies""an amusing bit of casting, given later developments in his life); blissful three months spent in Paris as an adolescent, where he mingled with the likes of Rudolph Nureyev and Andy Warhol; and his foray into serious theatre back in London.

To the average Indian moviegoer, better acquainted with Hollywood than with British cinema or theatre, Everett is probably best-known for roles he has played in American films in the last decade, notably the Julia Roberts-Cameron Diaz starrer My Best Friend's Wedding. However, his career goes back a long way, and this book is populated by anecdotes from stage and screen""such as the account of him and his fellow actors cracking up in front of a stiff upper-lipped audience when it was announced that Sir Laurence Olivier had died. There are many entertaining pen-portraits too""of Orson Welles ("He was a cobra, a Bond villain and a Buddha") and Bob Dylan ("On the odd occasions when he did talk, it sounded like a lyric. But he had a hard time remembering his lines and it was touching to be with him during a scene"), among others.

The most notable thing about the writing is Everett's talent for deconstructing the celebrity machinery. Starting with its title, one recognises that this book is going to be a caustic account of life in show-business; a commentary on the fleeting nature of fame and the foibles of public life, full of clever analogies and biting observations. But what one isn't so prepared for are the many moving passages, such as the one where he looks back on the pinnacle of his career, the theatrical success of Another Country, and reflects that "on the night a whole future seems to be sitting in the palm of your hand, but the further away in time you move from a moment of triumph, the hollower it becomes..." Or his tributes to the friends and lovers who died young, victims of AIDS, stardom or both. Or even the tenderness of his observations about life with a beloved animal (his dog Mo, a steadfast companion for 12 years).

As a young man coming to terms with his bisexuality, Everett was part of a growing gay underground in Thatcher's England, and privy to that community's fears about ostracism and the terror of a rapidly spreading cancer called AIDS. However, his stint as a male prostitute in the mid-1970s, which caused quite a stir when he first revealed it in a magazine interview a few years ago, is only briefly referred to here (wickedly, Everett quotes a letter from his bank manager of the time, informing him that his debts had been wiped off and encouraging him "to keep up the good work"!).

With a little luck, Everett might have become one of Britain's biggest stars. Though an actor of limited range, he did wonderfully well when given the right roles"" early film successes included Dance with a Stranger and the screen version of Another Country. "I should have died in a crash if I had been at all serious about my career," he writes, alluding to the James Dean story, "my first two movies were classics." Instead, his career went off track for a few years and it wasn't until the 1990s that he recovered ground. No loss. On the evidence of this book, his contribution as a chronicler of his times might prove to be nearly as valuable as his acting stints.

---

Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins

Rupert Everett
Little, Brown
Price: Rs 775; Pages: 406