What's Eating
Johnny Depp
With or without his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, interestingly enough, just two places up from Winona's, Johnny Depp has already proven that he can rise above the profit margin, and in so doing, has risen above the coins in the box- office coffers, and the stars as well...
- From the Introduction
Champion of oddballs, teenage heartthrob and hero of some of the best and most unconventional American films in recent history, Johnny Depp has been a source of media fascination since the early nineties.
His film roles have always been idiosyncratic, from a debut in Nightmare on Elm Street, through to Edward Scissorhands and the swashbuckling Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, and have earned him global respect and adoration. His dashing good looks and a series of high-profile love affairs and an Oscar nomination have made him an international superstar.
This in depth, candid biography reveals the truth about his stormy relationships with Winona Ryder and Kate Moss as well as charting Johnny's awesome rise to universal fame and his relationship with the beautiful Vanessa Paradis, with whom he now has two children.
From his early days as a rock musician in his band the Kids to one of the biggest Hollywood names, Nigel Goodall, author of the bestselling Winona Ryder biography, examines how a troubled and gifted child became the actor that he is today.
The tale of Johnny's life also includes the story of his bad-boy image: his drug use as a young man and his role as the co-owner of "The Viper Room" - the LA club where River Phoenix died of a drug overdose.
With 16 pages of candid photos and movie stills, What's Eating Johnny Depp is the definitive and intimate look at the chequered life and career of Hollywood most famous outsider.
Reviews
"Nigel Goodall does it again! He was the author of an estimable book about Kylie Minogue, one of the only books about the Australian pop princess to try to dig behind the myth and to get the facts right. Try to get it if you possibly can, it's called Kylie Naked. With his life of Johnny Depp we can see Goodall once again hovering over the glamour stars of US cinema (he has written previously on one of Depp's leading ladies, the also diminutive trouble magnet Winona Ryder) and coming up with an intriguing portrait of a very talented man whose only trouble is corralling in all his passions. He was a teen star in Jump Street and a horror franchise, and then the director John Waters took a chance on him and cast him in his hillbilly epic Cry Baby. Depp had enough smarts to say hell yes to this offer and before the movie had ended audiences fell in love with his goofy charm and of course, the shot where his pants fall off and he's left to wander in his jockey shorts. Depp showed great depth in a variety of independent and studio movies, including Donnie Brasco, but it wasn't until recently that he was thought of in terms of being able to "open" a movie. Throughout this checkered career (which includes a directorial debut of his own, apparently dire enough to doom a lesser man) Goodall keeps up as best as he can, and both of them end up on the same page. I'm looking forward to a remake of A Star Is Born with Depp and Minogue, it would be utterly of the present moment..."
- Kevin Killan, amazon.com