The Guy Under the Sheets

October 22, 2012
Comedian and author Elliot's fictionalized comic autobiography tells the story of simple-minded misfit who somehow manages to end up a celebrity. In real-life the son of legendary comedian Bob Eliott, Chris presents his alter-ego as the product of a marriage between caricatured versions of actors Bette Davis and Sam Elliott. The adventures of make-believe Chris include a shipwreck, a stint on a desert island, and run-ins with the Mafia. Woven into the fantasy are fragments of the real-life Elliot's career, from his days doing comedy improv to his appearances on Late Night with David Letterman. With its relentless scatology and show-biz-insider mockery, the book isn't for everyone. It's hard to know what to make of this relentless exercise in bad taste: on the screen, Elliot certainly displays talent and imagination, but very little of either is evident here.

August 15, 2012
Comedian and actor Elliott (Into Hot Air, 2007, etc.) spoofs his own life, mixing fact and fiction in this "unauthorized biography." The author begins with an account of his 1984 appearance on Late Night with David Letterman, when Elliott's name first became known. Working back in time from that event, he poses questions about his life and career--e.g., was he just a pampered child of celebrities seeking attention? "In order to attempt to answer these questions, we must go through his life chronologically and in excruciating detail, at least for long enough to fill about two hundred pages, most of which will have to be padded with a lot of childhood anecdotes and pop psych speculation," he writes. Readers learn how, as a young boy, Elliott absorbed the local characters surrounding him on Manhattan's Upper East Side, "squirreling them away for later retrieval." Including a bout with hysterical blindness, an encounter with Jackie Kennedy at the infamous East Hampton Grey Gardens, surviving a shipwreck and washing up on Marlon Brando's private island (where Brando passed on the arts of acting and lovemaking), Elliott continues to spin his tale to greater lengths of absurdity. The author bumps up against mobsters like John Gotti, who secured Elliott a gig as a tour guide at Rockefeller Center. Interwoven with the fictional events are a few facts concerning the author's career, but it becomes a tiresome chore sorting the fictional fluff from the real-life episodes. Fans of Elliott's work will welcome this wacky, fictionalized narrative; others should steer clear.

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May 15, 2012

Um, hot affairs with Lee Radziwill and Kathie Lee Gifford? Time spent dismembering bodies for the Mob? I think it's safe to say that this book is not meant as a wholly accurate reminiscence. Expect entertainment from out-there comic Elliott, currently starring in Adult Swim's Eagleheart.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2012
Elliott, the comedian, actor, and writer, here blows the lid off one of the great untold Hollywood stories: the true life of Chris Elliott. The son of film legend Bette Davis and noted mustachioed actor Sam Elliott, Chris got his first big break on Late Night with David Letterman, where he dazzled audiences with his many running characters, including a Marlon Brando parody that had its genesis in Elliott's traumatizing encounter with the Oscar-winning actor on his French Polynesian island. Torrid affairs with Shelley Winters and Lee Radziwill, among other women, scarred Elliott emotionally and psychologically, but he didn't let that stop him from turning out classic film and television works like Cabin Boy and Get a Life. Sadly, Elliott's own life was cut short by his untimely death at the hands of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, another spurned lover. This hugely entertaining pack of lies reads like a Woody Allen essay from the New Yorker, but, buried among the silliness, there is a nugget or two of legitimate autobiography. Wildly weird and hugely entertaining.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)