From this week’s books section.
George Hamilton’s acting career doesn’t quite cry out for a memoir. The Blytheville native’s best-known roles came fairly late in his career: as Dracula in the 1979 spoof comedy “Love at First Bite” and as Robert Duvall’s replacement in 1990’s “The Godfather III.” Now 69, Hamilton’s remained in the spotlight in recent years as a pitchman for Nabisco Toasted Chips (his perma-tan starred) and by competing on “Dancing with the Stars.” His continued stardom seems almost tautological, as if he’s famous simply for being famous.
If “Don’t Mind if I Do” (Touchstone, $26, hardcover), co-written by William Stadiem, dispels that idea, it does so with only a slight deflection. The book is short on anecdotes on acting or the methodology of directors and long on jet setting and the beautiful people, even in its pre-fame first half. And thank goodness. Who wants to read a celebrity memoir without dishy details?
Hamilton’s pathology comes naturally. His father, George “Spike” Hamilton, led a swinging life and a nationally known orchestra, and divorced his mother for a young singer when George was a boy. (He was still a boy, at 12, when, he says, he lost his virginity to his stepmother.)