Sunday 18 April 2010

"Sean Penn has a biography...?!?"

Several kind friends mailed the other day to tell me that my Sean Book had made an unlikely, half-glimpsed cameo on Jon Stewart's Daily Show last week. (I'd never have known, as I've found the Show a pretty tiring watch just on the strength of a few past viewings.) All that happened (per the last 10-15 seconds of the clip below) is that some guesting actor mocked up a joke autobiography of himself by wrapping a homemade cover around the Canongate US hardback edition of Sean Penn: His Life and Times, and Stewart, unravelling said mock-up, seemed momentarily diverted by the contents of the actual book. His reaction - 'Sean Penn has a biography...?!?' is one that I could take as wounding proof of the book's utter anonymity in the US market, even though its subject is a sizeable public figure and double Oscar-winner, also a substantive humanitarian recently seen (as pictured) putting his money and his efforts where his mouth is on the crisis issue of the Haitian earthquake.
But, really, I can't complain. Some of Sean's most wonderful movies are productions that scarcely any Americans seem to have heard of either, and that neglect is rather more worthy of protest...

2 comments:

Molly said...

Just found this post from googling the book after recommending it to yet another friend - Americans may not be reading it but there's a whole bunch of us here in Cape Town who are big fans!

Richard T Kelly said...

Hey! God bless Cape Town! And thank you for posting. FYI the newly updated 'Sean Penn: His Life and Times' will be in stores late next year.