I'll Never Write My Memoirs
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- € 15,99
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- € 15,99
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Iconic music and film legend Grace Jones gives an in-depth account of her stellar career, professional and personal life, and the signature look that catapulted her into the stardom stratosphere.
Grace Jones, a veritable “triple-threat” as acclaimed actress, singer, and model, has dominated the entertainment industry since her emergence as a model in New York City in 1968. Quickly discovered for her obvious talent and cutting-edge style, Grace signed her first record deal in 1977 and became one of the more unforgettable characters to emerge from the Studio 54 disco scene, releasing the all-time favorite hits, “Pull Up to the Bumper,” “Slave to the Rhythm,” and “I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Perfect for You).” And with her sexually charged, outrageous live shows in the New York City nightclub circuit, Grace soon earned the title of “Queen of the Gay Discos.”
But with the dawn of the ’80s came a massive anti-disco movement across the US, leading Grace to focus on experimental-based work and put her two-and-a-half-octave voice to good use. It was also around this time that she changed her look to suit the times with a detached, androgynous image. In this first-ever memoir, Grace gives an exclusive look into the transformation to her signature style and discusses how she expanded her musical triumph to success in the acting world, beginning in the 1984 fantasy-action film Conan the Destroyer alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger, then the James Bond movie A View to a Kill, and later in Eddie Murphy’s Boomerang.
Featuring sixteen pages of stunning full-color photographs, Miss Grace Jones takes us on a journey from Grace’s religious upbringing in Jamaica to her heyday in Paris and New York in the ’70s and ’80s, all the way to present-day London, in what promises to be a no holds barred tell-all for the ages.
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Jones's outrageous influence endures to the present day, so it is disappointing that her memoir, promising blood and thunder, instead turns into a litany of experiences, lacking the spark that would keep the reader interested. Jones was a 1970s runway model turned disco recording star, whose classics include the lasting "La Vie en Rose." She narrates her journey beginning with a painful childhood in Jamaica, where she was regularly beaten, and her rejection of how religion was practiced there. She writes that she felt "nothing" upon leaving Jamaica for America. Later she embraced her native country, letting Jamaica into her music. Jones plods from event to event, recounting bare facts of her life that could be easily found elsewhere. She gets more personal when talking about her love of hats and hoods, and in her discussion of her theatrical performances, channeling her androgynous persona into finding "a different way to be black, lesbian, male, female, animal." At the end, she is alone, but writes that she is not lonely. After a duet performance with Pavarotti, she feels afraid of being abandoned. She is disappointed with the singers who came after her because they don't stay true to themselves. And she writes about the sex, drink, drugs, and arrests that may come with fame. But all these anecdotes are unfortunately detached from emotion and insight.