Casual notes on show-biz books, memoirs and studies, dust gatherers, and hot off the presses.
Book Review by Samuel L. Leiter . . . .
Bryan Cranston, A Life in Parts (New York: Scribner’s, 2016). 274pp.
10th Edition
Although Bryan Cranston had been around for many years, including a seven-year stint as the father on TV’s “Malcolm in the Middle,” which I never watched, I wasn’t aware of him until his enormously successful work as chemistry teacher turned meth manufacturer/drug dealer Walter White on “Breaking Bad,” one of the most admired TV series of the current century. When that series ended, the middle-aged actor made a huge impression on Broadway playing Lyndon B. Johnson in All the Way and Howard Beale in Network.
In his superbly readable 2016 memoir, A Life in Parts, he recounts the journey that got him to this point, one filled with family trauma, economic striving, and personal adventure that reveals him as a decent everyman, not shy about taking you into either the private corners of his existence or the nitty gritty of his job as an actor. Because of the latter, during which he tells wonderful stories of his experiences studying acting, auditioning, and performing not only in commercials but in those two successful series and All the Way (where the book stops), A Life in Parts is the kind of book that not only aspiring and established actors will enjoy reading; it will also appeal to anyone curious about the day-to-day life and work of a well-known actor, and how their private life bleeds into their artistic work.
There is some really good stuff here, for example, about what it’s like to become the kind of recognizable celebrity who is perpetually swarmed by fans and autograph seekers. For fans of “Breaking Bad,” especially, the anecdotes will prove especially valuable as insights into Cranston’s working methods as an actor who’s at his best when he can collaborate with his directors and writers, rather than being subject to their dictates.
The product of a struggling, lower-middle-class family from Los Angeles—his father a failed wannabe movie star, his pretty mother a man-chasing drunk—he went through some tough times, which he tells in one revealing episode after the other, including the various jobs he held in his youth (one as a chicken slaughterer). For some time, he prepared for a career in law enforcement. His love life, marriages (one brief, the other lasting), his siblings, a nationwide motorcycle trip he and his older brother took when they were young, and so on, all provide material that helps us get to know and appreciate him.
Cranston’s emphasis on his emotional reactions to his experiences is more important to him than a recounting of everything on his resume, but enough is provided to give us a clear sense of the road he’s taken to become a respected artist. I can’t wait to see his next project, whatever it may be.
Next Up: Marshall W Mason, The Transcendent Years: Circle Repertory Company & the 1960s.
Leiter Looks at Books welcomes inquiries from publishers and authors interested in having their theater/show business-related books reviewed.
