Bourdain anthony biography examples
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Middle-Aged, Desperate and Broke as a Joke: How Anthony Bourdain Became an Instant Sensation
For Anthony Bourdain, success came late in life — he was 43, ancient by celebrity standards — but when it did come it came suddenly and surely. One morning — it was April 12, — he woke up as he usually did, a man with no credit kort or health insurance, three months behind on the rent, nervous about years of unfiled taxes and assorted other overdue bills. And that same night he went to bed as the New Yorker writer whom everyone was talking about. His newsmaking article would beget a book contract and then the book, &#;Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly,&#; would beget a TV career that lasted 17 years. It was wonderful and it was awful.
This excerpt from the new biography &#;Down and Out in Paradise: The Life of Anthony Bourdain&#; by Charles Leerhsen reveals the very beginning of the Bourdain story most people think they know, an un • Can you talk a bit about how you decided to organize the book? Obviously chronology was the overarching organizing principle with, sort of, the five acts of Tony’s life. Then as inom did more and more interviews, I would start to hear emerging themes. It was really interesting to talk to people who may or may not have known each other or known Tony at the same time and hear similar narratives and observations come to the surface. I let that be an organic process of hearing and collating the things that came up again and igen and used them to organize chapters or to point out different themes throughout Tony’s life. Unlike a lot of biographies, this one felt very balanced. For example, some of Tony’s earliest friends talk about how he disappeared from their lives when he got famous, and many people mentioned his challenging personality traits alongside their adoration and praise. Can you speak to that? There are plenty of people with a platform that are only sharing the great, p • Why are family members of the late chef, writer, and TV personality Anthony Bourdain angry about a new unauthorized Bourdain biography, Down and Out in Paradise, written by Charles Leerhsen? Perhaps you’ve heard that the book includes texts that Bourdain exchanged with his girlfriend, Italian actor Asia Argento, shortly before he died by suicide in Leerhsen does print those texts, which conclude with Argento telling Bourdain to “stop busting my balls” and Bourdain responding, in his last communication sent to anyone, with “Ok.” But that’s not the focus of the complaints. It’s Anthony Bourdain’s brother, Christopher, who sent the publisher angry emails before the book’s publication, and what Christopher seems peeved about is how Leerhsen depicts the Bourdains’ childhood in a New Jersey suburb. (Leerhsen describes the two brothers as taking opposite sides in their parents’ broken marriage and quotes an anonymous “relative” who confirms this.) No one i
The Chef Who Became a Brand