Billy

Rating:
Summary: Great subject, lousy execution
Review: I am an American with only a little exposure to Billy Connolly (from his sitcom and HBO appearances), but what I saw some years ago was funny. I borrowed this book hoping to learn a little more about him. Unfortunately, I came to the conclusion that Ms. Stephenson (brilliant though she may be) can't write.

As a few other reviewers noted, this book seems to be an endless series of name-dropping and/or testimonials about "how funny Billy is" (the word "roaring" as a synonym for "laughing hard" was so overused that I almost cringed upon each further reading). Anecdotes begin each chapter, often with little relevance to the chapter contents or the prior chapter's anecdote. Often they go nowhere at all - other than the ubiquitous "(insert famous person's name) told me he couldn't talk because he was laughing so hard at Billy!"

Actually, that is symptomatic of the book. Interesting facets of Mr. Connolly's life appear, only to spark our interest and then give us nothing more. An example: Billy was (sexually?) abused by his father, but we don't learn exactly what was going on. The only clue seems to be that it wasn't particularly violent. Just enough to pique interest, then it is dropped. If it is that difficult to detail, don't write about it at all!

Another: Billy may/may not have abused (physically/mentally?) his wive(s). Ms. Stephenson seems to spend a few sentences saying how "when Billy was drinking he was hell to be with" (or words to that effect), and then immediately apologizes for it with something along the lines of "it was understandable given everything he had been through". Yet later, she suddenly drops in a time she almost walked out on him for his drinking (and abuse?). This, after plenty more anectodotes (of which almost none are funny) but no real descriptions of what Connolly was doing wrong.

Finally, and easily the most grevious oversight, is a total lack of his ACT. We know he played the banjo, and sang some humorous songs in a Folk style. We also get one or two song snippets, but the humor completely fails to translate to the page. Furthermore, we get NO idea of what makes his stand-up show so mesmerizing. Oh, we get a lot of him pacing and worrying before a performance (with Ms. Stephenson the doting wife cheering him on), and then EVERY TIME "But once he was on stage, everything was OK and the audience roared for 2 hours!" What she discusses, if it were the sum total of his act, couldn't have supported a career for 20 minutes.

From what I read, there is a FANTASTIC story in Mr. Connolly's life. And I'd really like to read it. Unfortunately, I haven't. I would warn people to stay far away from this book.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent from cover to cover.
Review: I have just finished reading this book after picking it up little more than a day ago. From cover to cover I laughing out loud and thouroughly enjoyed the read.

It is well known that Billy Connoly is a keen observer of the human condition and society, but in this book his wife reveals her ability as well. Ms. Stephenson cleverly weaves present day Billy with his past, revealing her true psychological training.

The book is extremely funny in many places, but does not shy away from posting Billy's darker moments, both those inflicted upon him by others and those self-inflicted. As a result the book is all the better for it.

My only critisism is that it was too good a read, like any good book when you put it down, you wish it kept on going........

Rating:
Summary: Excellent from cover to cover.
Review: I have just finished reading this book after picking it up little more than a day ago. From cover to cover I laughing out loud and thouroughly enjoyed the read.

It is well known that Billy Connoly is a keen observer of the human condition and society, but in this book his wife reveals her ability as well. Ms. Stephenson cleverly weaves present day Billy with his past, revealing her true psychological training.

The book is extremely funny in many places, but does not shy away from posting Billy's darker moments, both those inflicted upon him by others and those self-inflicted. As a result the book is all the better for it.

My only critisism is that it was too good a read, like any good book when you put it down, you wish it kept on going........

Rating:
Summary: Billy's interesting, but Pamela can't write
Review: I love Billy Connolly, as so many people do. He's funny, irreverent, with an air of both danger and vulnerability. I used to like Pamela back when she was a comedienne, and as a psychologist, I'm sure she's terrific.

But please, stick to your day job, Pamela!

As a writer, she's dull. Sentences plod by:
"Bill was very happy."
"Billy still struggled with his academic work, but the atmosphere at St Gerards' was much more supportive..."
"The idea of doing the unexpected always had great appeal for Billy."

You get the idea.

I can sense she loves Billy, but she can't tell a story for peanuts. The book only occasionally has the flavour of Billy Connolly, and I missed him. The real Billy was just out of the frame, his head peeking around the corner, ready to tell the tale in his own inimitable style, but Pamela was in front, blocking the way, saying dolefully "Oh, poor Billy."

Having said that, it was an interesting story. Billy's tenement childhood has had a huge impact on his life, and there are plenty of anecdotes. Just don't expect it to be all that entertaining.

Rating:
Summary: Billy's interesting, but Pamela can't write
Review: I love Billy Connolly, as so many people do. He's funny, irreverent, with an air of both danger and vulnerability. I used to like Pamela back when she was a comedienne, and as a psychologist, I'm sure she's terrific.

But please, stick to your day job, Pamela!

As a writer, she's dull. Sentences plod by:
"Bill was very happy."
"Billy still struggled with his academic work, but the atmosphere at St Gerards' was much more supportive..."
"The idea of doing the unexpected always had great appeal for Billy."

You get the idea.

I can sense she loves Billy, but she can't tell a story for peanuts. The book only occasionally has the flavour of Billy Connolly, and I missed him. The real Billy was just out of the frame, his head peeking around the corner, ready to tell the tale in his own inimitable style, but Pamela was in front, blocking the way, saying dolefully "Oh, poor Billy."

Having said that, it was an interesting story. Billy's tenement childhood has had a huge impact on his life, and there are plenty of anecdotes. Just don't expect it to be all that entertaining.

Rating:
Summary: Could be an inspirational story
Review: I think that the story of someone who was a shipyard apprentice in Glasgow, Scotland at the age of 16 who rose to be a successful stand up comic and actor, with little or no training could be seen as an inspirational story.
The book is written by his wife, Pamela Stephenson, who is a trained psychologist. I found her writing style to be a little dull and I got tired of the endless name dropping as she and Billy went to various functions.
Overall Billy's life story deserves to be read and he should be admired for his achievement.

Rating:
Summary: silly about billy
Review: Never has so little been made of so much. As a psychological profile of a complex man who has reached great heights depsite awful childhood abuse, the book is worthless. As a biography, it is sketchy and hardly to be taken seriously. Moreover, it is not always accurate, which is amazing given his wife being the author; for example, in the film "The Impostors," Billy Connolly played a wrestler on a cruise ship not a tennis player on a train, as stated in the book. That is not even the worst of the book; most grating is the constant, very often unnecessary name dropping -- we are obviously supposed to be impressed with the list of Billy and Pamsy's friends. It's too bad, I have followed and enjoyed Billy Connolly's work since the 1970's and he is a marvellous and unique talent and would make a wonderful subject for a true biographer and someone who could write. What a waste.

Rating:
Summary: A lovingly written biography with little widespread appeal
Review: Scottish comedian Billy Connolly is hugely popular in the U.K. He sells out venues usually played by rock stars and rates splashy national television specials.

But don't feel bad if you can't quite picture who he is. Despite touring in the U.S., appearing often as a guest on American television shows, and playing character roles in a string of movies, Connolly hasn't cracked the ranks of top comedians on this side of the Atlantic. He may be most recognizable to U.S. audiences for his one-year run on the late '80s sitcom "Head of the Class."

And that's a problem for BILLY, the biography written by his wife, Pamela Stephenson. While the writing is solid, even at times graceful and insightful, this is primarily a book for Connolly fans hungering after a peek into the comedian's psyche. In the U.K., Connolly's popularity has already made BILLY one of the biggest-selling books of the year. But the biography may hold meager appeal for non-fans.

To be sure, Connolly's life story is dramatic. He spent his first few years in a cramped Glasgow tenement with his mother and slightly older sister. At the age of four he was abandoned by his mother and flung into the care of a violent, sadistic aunt. His father returned from the war, but was as unsuited to child nurturing as the other adults in the young boy's life. What little attention Connolly got from his father came in the dark, in the sofa bed they shared.

"Late one night, when Billy was ten, he woke to find his father 'interfering' with him, as he puts it," Stephenson writes. "Then, and for the next four or five years, his father's frequent sexual abuse was a mystery to him, like being in an accident."

Stephenson, a former comedian turned clinical psychologist, returns often to the obvious connection between Connolly's harrowing childhood and the angry energy infusing his humor. It's not a bad point. It's just that the story of childhood hurt reaping comic genius has lost its intrigue through too many tellings. Show us a brilliant, edgy comedian raised in a happy family --- now that would be news.

That heard-it-all-before feeling intensifies as the book progresses to Connolly's adulthood. Talent, ambition, and pure creative joy propel him forward, but not fast enough to elude the insecurities that torture him. A first marriage turns ugly. He soaks his pain in copious amounts of alcohol. The drinking causes more pain. The love of a good, strong woman helps him stop drinking and subdue, if not banish, his demons. He marries the woman and becomes a devoted father. He achieves domestic tranquility, and more career success.

Add a manager who steals his money and you've got an episode of VH1's "Behind the Music."

The book also suffers from two unfortunate tendencies in Stephenson's writing. The first is her incessant name-dropping. One anecdote in the book seems to function solely as an excuse to cram the names Kevin Spacey, Geena Davis, Freddie Mercury, Bill Maher and Patrick Stewart into the space of a single page.

Stephenson compounds the first bad tendency with the habit of enthusing over how much famous people admire her husband's work. This passage, describing a day of filming on Robert Redford's movie Indecent Proposal, is typical: "When Billy performed his bit part as the auctioneer, he improvised to keep the audience interested through the many takes. One of the retakes occurred because Redford had failed to leave the scene as early as he should have. 'But it was so funny!' he protested. 'I didn't want to stop listening to Billy!"

Three paragraphs later, Stephenson reveals that David Hockney sometimes phoned to ask her and Connolly to come by the studio to see his just completed paintings before the rest of the public. A few sentences later, the reader is treated to this encounter with Frank Zappa's widow: "After Frank died, Billy was walking the dogs past Frank's house when Mrs. Zappa came out. 'Are you Billy Connolly,' she asked. 'Frank was your biggest fan.'"

For readers who aren't already Connolly fans, the book would have been more compelling if Stephenson had managed to adopt a less gushing tone. Stephenson too often comes across as a combination groupie/doting wife. Connolly fans --- on both sides of the ocean --- tend to be an ardent bunch, so they're likely not to mind the fawning.

--- Reviewed by Karen Jenkins Holt

Rating:
Summary: Good Subject, Lousy Book
Review: The problem is that the author is the subject's wife. It really ought to be titled, "My husband is wonderful and we have lots of very famous friends". The book has neither the insight or observation of a third party biography nor the intimacy of an autobiography. Recounting things that her husband has told her just makes the reader want to push the author out of the way and let Billy tell the story himself. The great shame is that Billy is undoubtedly a fascinating subject and has a great story to tell. Unfortunately, this isn't it. A opportunity squandered.

Rating:
Summary: Good Subject, Lousy Book
Review: The problem is that the author is the subject's wife. It really ought to be titled, "My husband is wonderful and we have lots of very famous friends". The book has neither the insight or observation of a third party biography nor the intimacy of an autobiography. Recounting things that her husband has told her just makes the reader want to push the author out of the way and let Billy tell the story himself. The great shame is that Billy is undoubtedly a fascinating subject and has a great story to tell. Unfortunately, this isn't it. A opportunity squandered.