Denis Meikle is the author of A History of Horrors: The Rise and Fall of the House of Hammer, Jack the Ripper: The Murders and the Movies and Vincent Price: The Art of Fear.
Who knew that Johnny Depp's first role was as teen fodder for Freddy Kreuger in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)? Or that he started out as a rock star? These and other little-known facts emerge in this biography of the genre-hopping Hollywood star. Raised in an unhappy Kentucky home, Depp went to California to pursue his music. There he met Nicholas Cage, which led to the Kreuger film and finally the television show 21 Jump Street, which made Depp a teen idol; it wasn't until Edward Scissorhands that he emerged as a serious actor. British author Meikle, who has written biographies of Jack the Ripper and Vincent Price, paints a rather cynical portrait of Depp and employs an annoying device of using script directions to introduce and end chapters (fade out, dissolve, etc.). The text is also padded with ephemera, which makes the book overlong for a life only half lived. Unless your patrons are clamoring for a quick-and-dirty biography-and they may be, given the forthcoming release of Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-it's probably best to hold off for one of the other books on Depp coming down the pike.-Rosellen Brewer, Edmonds, WA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
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