Reading a biography written ten years ago conveys quite a different perspective on the person in question from the ones you get from recent works. In Randi Reisfeld's "Johnny Depp", published in 1989, the focus is obviously far more on Johnny's early years, especially his childhood. That, however, makes it interesting reading, especially for those of us who have followed him through his astonishingly "un-Hollywood" movie career rather than through his Jump Street period.
Details from his early and later years at school, the "frequent" moving of his family (which, according to Reisfeld, boils down to not more than three times between Owensboro, Kentucky and Miramar, Florida) fill in pieces of a puzzle that cannot, ever, be fully completed by anyone other than himself. The Jump Street audience is the readership this book was aimed at, though, and they, of course, would not be disappointed by it either. Nine out of 17 (short) chapters focus on this period, which, at the time the book was written, had not yet come to an end. (Seemingly, Johnny had not yet started to degrade this part of his career as he later tended to do, although he is already shown to be aiming at a more serious (movie) career.)
Those nine chapters contain lots of information on him as well as on the other members of the Jump Street 'gang', and on the serious efforts of the show and its stars to get young people out of trouble or keep them from getting there in the first place. The other chapters focus on various aspects of his everyday life, his first movies, or the women in his life.
Another interesting aspect for the present-day reader is that Johnny really hasn't changed at all in his attitudes, neither towards the "business" he is (forced to be) part of, nor in his views on his own personal life and style.
How good to see that ten years and so many movies later he has succeeeded in staying true to himself and not given in to the forces that would have him become a "true" Hollywood movie star.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
THE WONDER YEARS
JOHNNY'S TURBULENT TEENS
ROCK'N'ROLL REBEL
WATCH OUT, HOLLYWOOD "THE KIDS" IS HERE!
A NIGHTMARE BECOMES A DREAM
PRIVATE RESORT
PLATOON
21 JUMP STREET
JOHNNY JUMPS IN
THE RELUCTANT SUPERSTAR
JUMP STREET REACHES OUT
MEET THE JUMP STREET GANG!
THE WOMEN IN HIS LIFE
BEHIND THE JUMP STREET SCENES
A DAY IN THE PRIVATE LIFE
JOHNNY'S STYLE
JUMPING AHEAD
JOHNNY'S VITAL STATISTICS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Johnny Depp
by Randi Reisfeld
Original Price $5.95 - 166 page paperback book
14 photos
ISBN 0-312-91629-9
St. Martin's Press, 1989
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