Book Review: There Are Worse Things I Could Do, Adrienne Barbeau (2006)

THERE ARE WORSE THINGS I COULD DO, Adrienne Barbeau, trade paperback, 2006, 345pp, $15.95

The star of TV's "All in the Family" spin-off, "Maude," of The Fog, Escape From New York, Swamp Thing. and Creepshow, half-Armenian California girl Adrienne Barbeau worked her way to New York, from local theater where she became a go-go girl at a mob-run nightclub before they had go-go girls, spending her days looking for acting jobs until she finally got a break.

A role as one of the daughters in Fiddler on the Roof with fellow-daughter Bette Midler who was still in her salad days, put her on Broadway, then she got a bigger break, creating the role of tough-girl Rizzo in the musical Grease on stage.  (The title of the book is taken from a song by Rizzo.)

Rizzo led directly to a successful reading for Carol, Maude's daughter. Her stage and television roles both established her Hollywood presence.  Her career took her in a number of different directions, not the least of which included noted B-movie horror films and a superhero film where she costarred with a guy dying from terminal chafing inside a rubber suit

In her autobiography, Barbeau talks about her personal life including the problems her insecurities posed, her having twins at age 51, her singing career, her marriages which included her first to director John Carpenter, and some of her experiences with romance, including one with Burt Reynolds who dropped her after awhile but still asked her to join the cast of Cannonball Run which she doesn't have much good to say except she got to meet Roger Moore.

She comes across as a normal lady, charmingly naive about big city ways, not realizing that the nightclub she dances at is run by hoods, that some of the dancers are hooking on the side, or failing to recognize that cast and crew on one movie are going off to snort coke.  On the other hand, she seems to have a very well deveoped sensibility and anyone can identify with her insecurities that have beset her throughout her career as well as her love for her family. 

Currently, she is co-writing a series of vampire novels.

A quick, entertaining read nevertheless.