Rupert Everett has written a book about his expereience of being an openly gay man in a Hollywood that never lived up to his expectations. The people at yahoonews.com give us this: The British actor, whose screen hits include “Another Country,” “Shrek” and “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” says he’s sick of the movie industry’s hypocrisy and homophobia. He’s even tired of celebrity — the whole glittering illusion deliciously evoked and eviscerated in his candid new autobiography “Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins.”
The book is a sort of Rough Guide to late 20th-century highlife — and lowlife. There are walk-on parts for Andy Warhol, Elizabeth Taylor, Orson Welles, Bob Dylan, Donatella Versace and a host of other luminaries. Everett seems to know everyone, remember all and recount everything.
The book is a feast for gossip fans, and Everett is an articulate and charming raconteur with a knack for a memorable image. At one point, a swimming pool is described as “shaped like a Xanax.
“Everett was disappointed to find showbiz “as middle-class and provincial” as the private school world he’d left behind. “My imagination of show business was this red plush netherworld of drunks and sex maniacs and killers and freaks,” he said. “It’s not. My world is, because I’ve doggedly tried to create that world. But it’s not in general.” Movie stars are “blobs who don’t say anything, aren’t allowed to say anything. They are paid to shut up.”
I think it’s kind of funny that Rupert Evert’s imagination of Hollywood was “drunks sex maniacs, killers and freaks”. Not doing much for your image Rupert. Neither is telling all of the secrets and sexual experiences you’ve had with Hollywood’s elite.
I have to wonder about Everett’s intentions with this book. It could be said that since his last few movies have been flops and has been looked over for roles because of his open homosexuality he is getting his revenge. Or perhaps he is actively trying to open the eyes of people in Hollywood, to say “stop being fake, either be crazy and drunk or be somber and sane, don’t try and be one and show the other!” Either way this is from what I’ve heard it’s a pretty good read.
Good book or not this is definitely going to keep Everett from ever getting into a Hollywood party again.
But does he care? Rupert Everett is traveling the world on behalf of the Global Fund against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria and has declared showbiz “not very relevant”. So I’m guessing he’s not all that interested in being Paris Hilton’s new best friend.
