Endless Highway - Hardcover

Carradine, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1885203209 ISBN 13: 9781885203205

Publisher: Journey Editions, 1995

Synopsis

The actor shares his memories of childhood and career, from his difficulties as son of the world-renowned Shakespearean actor to his devotion to the practice of kung fu and Shaolin philosphy

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Reviews

David is the Carradine brother who played Woody Guthrie in the movies, not to be confused with another one, Keith, who played Will Rogers on Broadway. Their father was character actor John Carradine, and David Carradine says they were once considered princes of Hollywood. His autobiography is breezy and anecdotal and so good-natured?even when blaming everyone else for all its author's failures?that only toward the end does it come through as the dreary catalogue of human disaster it actually is. Carradine tried to kill himself when he was five. Later, his drunken mother, confusing him with his long-departed father, tried to seduce him. Schooling consisted of one expulsion after another. The high point of his acting career came in the early 1970s with Kung Fu, a popular TV series. As recorded here, the rest of his adult life is remembered in terms of LSD, pot, peyote, cocaine, alcohol, unsuccessful films, cars, horses, wives and wandering children. And always there are blithely belabored excuses for everything. The book ends with a long journal of the first seven months of 1995, with Carradine attending A.A. meetings and shooting a new Kung Fu series on the cheap in Canada. Photos.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Admirers of the popular Kung Fu television series may be disappointed that Carradine, who starred as the introspective, ascetic Kwai Chang Caine, reveals himself in this autobiography as a fairly stereotypical, thrice-married Hollywood actor fond of fast cars, women, drugs, and tequila. While a narrative along these lines has some entertainment potential, Carradine's unexciting prose is rather trite and at times simply crass, making the reader wish he had collaborated with a professional writer to edit the overlong text and more eloquently express his innermost feelings. Most interesting is Carradine's recollections of his famous father, John Carradine, whose friend John Barrymore made a lasting impression on David and influenced his acting style. His poignant description of his father's death in Milan is one of the few moments when genuinely sensitive emotion seems to come across. Considerably more engrossing is David's book Spirit of Shaolin (LJ 12/91), in which he discusses the making of Kung Fu and his involvement with Eastern philosophy and martial arts. Recommended only for comprehensive film/television collections.?Richard W. Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Everyone's time eventually comes--twice, if you hang around long enough, which might explain the career of David Carradine, who brought martial-arts choreography and mystically tinged philosophy to prime-time TV in Kung-Fu, then, in a recent return to series TV, did it again. His autobiography is exhaustive and intensely personal. It deals with the obvious subjects in simple, sometimes lyrical language that makes Carradine sound like a man at home with himself. Being exhaustive, it also covers the other notables who have peopled his life. Carradine was a Hollywood kid, a son of veteran character actor John Carradine, and he endured the strange childhood, full of child-custodial ping-pong and a parade of parental partners, that is the stuff of Hollywood lore. He takes the long view of things, however, rather than the more common vindictive approach. Excellent as a resource on, besides its author-subject, old Hollywood (truly another world), the 1960s, Barbara Hershey, and dozens of other pop-culture topics, this is 600-plus pages of good reading. Mike Tribby

Edition details

• Publisher: Journey Editions
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1885203209
• ISBN 13: 9781885203205
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 647