Me Cheeta: My Life in Hollywood |  | Author: Cheeta
Publisher: Ecco
Category: Book
List Price: $24.99
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Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 354633
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First Edition
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.5
ISBN: 006164742X
Dewey Decimal Number: 791.436620929
EAN: 9780061647420
ASIN: 006164742X
Publication Date: March 1, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9780061647420 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
For the first time, the granddaddy of all Hollywood animals tells his remarkable story, from the golden age of the silver screen to the lounge chairs of palm springs. Cheeta the Chimp, star of the Tarzan films, bares all—as only a primate can. In 1984 Johnny Weissmuller, Hollywood's true Tarzan, passed away. His coffin was lowered into the ground to the recorded sounds of his famous jungle call. Maureen O'Sullivan, his Jane, followed him in 1998. But their co-star, Cheeta the chimpanzee, the greatest animal actor in the history of the silver screen, lives on. At seventy-six, he is by some distance the oldest chimp ever recorded. Now, in his own words, Cheeta finally tells his extra-ordinary story. Plucked from millions of swinging hopefuls in the jungles of Liberia, Cheeta became an international screen icon from the moment of his debut in 1934's Tarzan and His Mate. He went on to star in a further nine Tarzan pictures and later in Doctor Dolittle, with the supercilious Rex Harrison, until finally his battles with substance abuse forced him into early retirement. But back in the day, this magnificent star cavorted (and occasionally snorted) with all the Hollywood greats. We are privileged, indeed, that such a legendary entertainer should grant us intimate access to the lives of the most glittering stars. Well aware that no animal has ever been successfully sued for libel, Cheeta shares fascinating revelations about a lost Hollywood. Funny, moving, and searingly honest, this is unquestionably the greatest celebrity autobiography of our time.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 13
 Too Clever by Half October 16, 2009
David T. Lohrey
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Spoof is an art-form of the highly intelligent; it is a refined genre, requiring familiarity with the subject and love of the material. "Me Cheeta" is the perfect embodiment of the spoof, a near-classic take-off on celebrity autobiographies, Hollywood-style. It was brilliant of the author to come up with his subject, a grand entrance into the dark hollywood jungle. The book is written and executed with flair, but I thought it a a great bore. For one thing, Hollywood is dead. The glamorous world of David Niven and Lassie is as far in the past as Weimar, Germany. One can read the odd autobiography of a favorite star, but as much as one was once amused by Cheeta, his inner life is not of great interest. It is brilliantly conceived, don't get me wrong. It's wicked humor reminded me of "The Loved One" by Evelyn Waugh. Still, the world through the eyes of a horny, foul-mouthed chimp just doesn't carry the weight imagined by the author. Although meant to be lurid, I imagine, the enterprise comes over as oddly silly. This might, of course, have been the author's real intention.
 Hollywood laid hairy October 12, 2009
James-philip Harries (france)
This is a brilliant parody of a Hollywood memoir. Some critics (Ha! Critics, what do they know?) have complained that it is done by a ghost writer after only half an hour of face time with the star and a few afternoons of googling. So what? So normal Hollywood memoirs are different? Get real. This has the real gamey flavour of authentic chimpanzee.
Cheeta the chimpanzee (or Cheater, or Jiggs as also known) was a star in the golden age of Tarzan, and hung out with everyone that mattered, Sure, we've forgotten most of them, but they're still on daytime TV, and at Christmas. OK, Cheeta did not know the real alpha males, the studio bosses who controlled the stars, but he was privy to some entertaining stuff and some real stars whose name I've forgotten. Maybe he drank a bit, maybe he smoked a bit, maybe he bit a bit (I particularly liked the story about how he bit the ass of the adulterous wife of his star-hero and blamed it on the dog) but hey... that's Hollywood.
The critics should lighten up, and light up a stogie for Cheets (now in his record-breaking 78th year and dying for a smoke). And just because the ghost is a Brit (and he can get some grammatical French in: "Le tout Hollywood was..." Ya what?) some critics have suggested it's not true. Well, it's been checked by the lawyers, and the absence of chapter 8 proves... well nothing much. But cheer up, after this memoir, which dishes the dirt in bucket loads (and that's the selling point, isn't it?) who needs another celebrity autobiography ever again?
I look forward to the author's new projects on... what Checkers thought of being dragged into a TV studio (all that panting under the lights, all those ice cubes) what the asp thought about Cleopatra ("I was going for her nose, not her tits, I swear") and a guide to Crete by the Minotaur.
GREAT CHIMP'S VIEW OF INSIDE HOLLYWOOD! October 3, 2009
Bill W. Dodge (Astoria, Or.)
I was (honest to God born in a movie studio) and thought I had an insider view of Tinsel Town growing up. Boy, did I learn shocking new things from Cheeta's experiences away from the camera! Had he had time during Hollywood's hey days he could have been another Hedda or Louella (but, of course, censorship existed in those ancient days) and he wouldn't have been able to tell us what Clark did to.....oopps, there are other sites which could better describe the kind of activity Cheeta was exposed to.
This mad monkey's adventures will have you laughing, churn up your nostalgia factor to a straspheric level and you'll want to immediately add the early Tarzan films on your Netflix list (which I did - and they were really damned good flicks - not Saturday matinee fodder).
Yes, Cheeta reveals his true feelings about Jane (and they rhyme with the word itch) and asks the questions, "Am I not Tarzan's real son - not that snotty little Johnny Shefield?"
This funny little book will please anybody who always wanted Cheeta as their personal pet (he could have been an X-Rated one on occasion when your Aunt Ida was visiting). Great for movie buffs or National Inquirer readers who wants the low down on the real monkey business that went on in Hollywood way back then.
What DID happen with Dolores del Rio? September 15, 2009
M. Feldman (Bowdoin, Maine, USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Hmm, what to make of this memoir "written" by Cheeta the chimpanzee, sidekick to Johnny Weissmuller in the Tarzan movies and purportedly the world's oldest chimp? (The real author is British writer James Lever.) Well, it's a spoof, of course, a profane, funny send-up of those tell-all biographies and autobiographies of thirties Hollywood stars. And the stars are all in "Me, Cheeta: My Life in Hollywood"; most of what Cheeta has to say about each of them is delectably wicked. On a more serious note, Cheeta's love for his co-star Weissmuller, the handsome, much-married Olympic swimmer, is a kind of meditation on the relationship between humans and the intelligent animals that serve them---and abandon them, often enough. Cheeta's voice, as you read along, has a kind of Doctor Doolittle effect; it seems he IS talking to you. Occasionally I'd glance over at my Labrador retriever and wonder what HE was thinking about ME.
Okay, okay, I admit that the effect of this novel is a bit strange. It's too long by a third, too, and I found that I couldn't read more than thirty pages at a time before I had to take a break. The voice of a nicotine-addicted, tequila (and etc.)-swilling chimpanzee can only be taken in small doses, like reading "People" magazine in the dentist's waiting room. Oh, and the whole premise of the novel--that Cheeta arrived here from Africa in the thirties, starred in all the Tarzan films, and now lives in Palm Springs, retired and having exceeded the usual chimpanzee lifespan by 25 years--is evidently completely bogus. (See the writer R.D. Rosen in "The Washington Post" on this.) It doesn't matter. Enjoy Cheeta's gossip and his perspective on the "omnicidal" humans he adores, when he's not revealing all their secrets. It all got him onto the 2009 Man Booker long list.
Immensely Entertaining Satire on Hollywood August 6, 2009
bookish mom (new jersey)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have no interest in chimps nor a particular love of Tarzan, but I am a fan of vintage Hollywood and picked this up on a friend's recommendation. It's the first book I've read in ages that made me laugh out loud. Those looking for a 'true' biography of this animal will be disappointed, but the average reader will be overjoyed by the creative license taken by the author. He has turned Cheetah into an outrageously behaved, sardonic and outspoken Hollywood 'actor' with some serious personal issues. The writer has a truly unique turn of phrase. I've done a bit of digging and found out the author is named novelist James Lever, who himself was parodied in a novel last year 'Choking on Marlon Brando' by his then girlfriend author Antonia Quirke. I followed up on this book (also a funny read) and it seems there's a lot of similarity between the man and chimp....
Showing reviews 1-5 of 13
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