You Never Know
A Memoir
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $3.99
Publisher Description
A Waterstones Best Book of 2024
There are many miles from the business school and basketball court at the University of Southern California to 50 million viewers for the final episode of a TV show called Magnum P.I. Tom Selleck has lived every one of those miles in his own iconoclastic and joyful way.
Frank, funny and open-hearted, You Never Know is an intimate memoir from a beloved actor, the story of a remarkable life and thoroughly accidental career. Journey to the top in Hollywood, learn of his mistakes and his well-earned success. Selleck clears up an armload of misconceptions and shares never-told stories. His rambunctious California childhood. His clueless arrival as a good-looking college jock in Hollywood (from the Dating Game to the Fox New Talent Program to co-starring with Mae West). What it was like to emerge as a mega-star in his mid-thirties and remain so for decades to come, an actor whose ease on screen connected with audiences worldwide, while redefining the clichés of manhood.
In You Never Know, Selleck recounts his personal friendships with a vivid army of A-listers, everyone from Frank Sinatra to Carol Burnett to Sam Elliott, paying special tribute to his mentor James Garner of The Rockford Files, who believed, like Selleck, that TV protagonists are far more interesting when they have rough edges. He tips his hat to the American western and the scruffy band of actors, directors and other ruffians who helped define that classic genre, where Selleck has repeatedly found a happy home. Magnum fans will be fascinated to learn how Selleck put his career on the line to make Thomas Magnum a more imperfect hero and explains why he walked away from a show that could easily have gone on for years longer.
Hollywood is never easy, even for stars who make it look that way. Selleck explains how he’s struggled to balance his personal and professional lives, frequently adjusting his career to protect his family’s privacy and normalcy. His journey offers a truly fresh perspective on a changing industry and a changing world. Beneath all the charm, talent, and self-deprecating humor, this memoir reveals an American icon who reached remarkable heights through authenticity.
About the author
Tom Selleck is an award-winning actor and producer best known for his iconic role as Thomas Magnum in the original Magnum P.I. television series. Among the many unforgettable roles he has played are PI Lance White on the Rockford Files, Peter Mitchell in Three Men and A Baby, Matthew Quigley in Quigley Down Under, and Peter Malloy in In & Out. He was beloved as Dr. Richard Burke, Monica’s older boyfriend on Friends, and is currently starring as NYPD Commissioner Frank Reagan on the hit crime drama Blue Bloods, now in its 14th season.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Magnum, PI actor Selleck delivers a breezy autobiography that covers his path from college basketball player to Hollywood heartthrob. While warming the bench for the USC Trojans in the early 1960s, Selleck harnessed his good looks to book a handful of appearances on The Dating Game. His agent then landed Selleck a meeting with Universal head Darryl Zanuck, who was so starstruck by Selleck's position on the Trojans that he offered him a slot in the studio's training program. There, Selleck befriended Sam Elliott and Lyle Waggoner, and fell in love with acting, stopping only briefly to serve in an Army reserve unit during Vietnam. With a gleeful propensity for name-dropping, Selleck describes his guest roles on shows including The Rockford Files and The Sacketts; his breakthrough on Magnum, PI; and his run-ins with showbiz royalty including Mae West and Frank Sinatra. The memoir's opening chapter, which recounts a bone-crunching Mulholland Drive car accident Selleck was in at 17, is a bit of a bait and switch: there's little gravity here, mostly glitzy recollections from a Hollywood stalwart. For the actor's fans, it's an ideal beach read.
