Tom Sizemore: Drugs, immaturity, arrogance are among the failings that led to actor Tom Sizemore's downfall. He details his career arc in "By Some Miracle I Made It Out of There."
The cover photo of Tom Sizemore's autobiography, "By Some Miracle I Made It Out of There," is a perfect introduction for what's to come.
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The 51-year-old actor stands looking up at the camera, instantly recognizable because of his work portraying tough-guy characters in such memorable 1990s films as "Saving Private Ryan," ''Heat" and "Natural Born Killers."
His face, though, looks worn, and his eyes are those of a man who's been to hell and back.
And that's exactly what his book details ? Sizemore's ascent to the height of cinema, working for the Steven Spielbergs and with the Robert De Niros of the world ? and his drug-fueled descent that left him imprisoned and out of options.
"I was a guy who'd come from very little and risen to the top," writes Sizemore, who was born and raised in hardscrabble Detroit. "I'd had the multimillion-dollar house, the Porsche, the restaurant I partially owned with Robert De Niro.
"And now I had absolutely nothing."
"By Some Miracle" ? the title is taken from a line uttered by his "Saving Private Ryan" character, Sgt. Mike Horvath ? is a painfully honest look at a man, who, by his own admission, had become a "spoiled movie star" and an "arrogant fool" who at his lowest point was "a hope-to-die addict."
Sizemore recounts his friendships with Hollywood's elite ? Sean Penn, Robert Downey Jr. and De Niro among them ? and his dalliances with actresses Edie Falco, Elizabeth Hurley and Juliette Lewis.
It was during Sizemore's tabloid romance with former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss that his life truly fell apart. He was convicted in 2003 of harassing, annoying and physically abusing Fleiss. While Sizemore admits in the book to being "immature" and says he regrets may of his actions, he denies striking Fleiss.
Readers interested in a behind-the-scenes look at Hollywood's machinations will love Sizemore's book, but it's not for everyone.
It's written in a plain, sometimes coarse prose befitting some of the hard-boiled characters Sizemore brought to life on screen. And the subject matter can at times be difficult to stomach ? sex tapes, copious amounts of drug taking, etc.
But in many ways, it's a story of redemption ? of a man who now is trying to regain a small measure of what he squandered.
"I've led an interesting life, but I can't tell you what I'd give to be the guy you didn't know anything about," Sizemore writes.
Tom, readers who get through your book will know just about everything about you.
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Mike Householder can be reached at mhouseholder(at)ap.org and http://twitter.com/mikehouseholder
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.
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Stanley Green knows about resilience. Do you? How do you react when you?ve had a really bad day? What do you do when you mess up the big sale, or get in a fight with your spouse or your boss? What would you do if ?you lost your job to someone less skilled or knowledgeable? When things go wrong, do you sulk in a corner or come out stronger than ever, ready to take on new challenges? Why is it that given the same situation and circumstances one person will give up and quit and another will learn, grow and triumph? Do you deflate or bounce back? Stan Green will talk about this ?bounce back? factor called ?resilience? and tell us about an online course designed to help you assess your own level of? resilience and develop the skills to deal with life?s stresses and setbacks with greater equanimity. Don?t we all need this? To learn more go to http://www.powerthinkingcorp.com.
At the end of last year, Google announced that it would start testing a number of changes to Chrome’s New Tab page. The changes that were currently percolating through the development channels were anything but popular. Instead of the usual eight links to your most-visited sites, the Chrome beta channel currently features a large Google Search box and just your four most-visited links. Now, it looks like Google is giving up on these changes. The other major change that was massively annoying (and made me switch back to the stable channel, too), was that Google added an “Apps” tab to the bookmarks bar and removed the usual shortcuts to web apps from the Chrome Web Store from the second page of the New Tab page. The latest beta version of Chrome has now reverted back to the old New Tab page. As intrepid Google watcher (and now Google employee) Francois Beaufort noticed last week, the offline version of Chrome now renders two rows with four tiles each again, with the Google Search box still sitting above these, though). Chances are this design will now make its way through the release channels. It’s not clear what will happen to the “Apps” icon in the bookmarks bar, though. You can still see what the experience would have looked like by switching the “Enable Instant extended API” to “enabled” in the latest Chrome beta.
