- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins; illustrated edition edition (3 Nov 1997)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0006530176
- ISBN-13: 978-0006530176
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,192,678 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
The first revelationary biography of broadcaster Chris Evans, widely acclaimed as the most original and gifted broadcaster of his generation, a man whose very name precipitates fierce debate. From his youth in Warrington to super stardom in London, no stone is left unturned.
Freak Or Unique? The Chris Evans Story charts the life and times of Chris Evans, from lowly beginnings in the north of England to the big time on British Radio 1 and presenting and producing his own unique brand of television comedy on shows like The Big Breakfast, Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush and TFI Friday. To his millions of followers, Evans is the last word in irreverent, off-the-cuff humour, a folk hero who pulls no punches. Consequently, Evans’s detractors see him in a dim light. In their view his arrogance, lewdness and contempt for authority are dangerously subversive.
So how has this carrot-haired, geeky 30-year-old risen to a position of enormous popularity and influence? What lies behind the facade which varies perplexingly from zany to truculent? By examining his formative years, then charting his later development – both personal and professional – this biography provides some compelling and poignant answers. The real Chris Evans, it emerges, is far more enigmatic than his audience might imagine. Cruelly bullied as a boy, he now bullies those around him; deeply devoted to his mother and late father, he has chosen to freeze his own daughter out of his life; capable of great generosity, loyalty, spontaneous acts of kindness and warmth, he can also be mean-spirited, self-seeking, callous and cold hearted.
David Jones talks to people who have known Evans personally and professionally, including his former PA and the mother of his child.
From the Back Cover
DANGEROUS SUBVERSIVE, OR THE VOICE OF THE 90s?
SEX ICON, OR CONTENDER FOR 'TFI Friday''s INFAMOUS UGLY BLOKE COMPETITION?
Channel 4's 'The Big Breakfast' brought Chris Evans stardom, which he has since sealed with the success of his own TV shows, 'Don't Forget Your Toothbrush' and 'TFI Friday'. To his millions of fans he is a comic genius, the essence of popular culture. His trademark off-the-cuff humour and shocking irreverence have established him as the most gifted broadcaster of his day, but to his detractors he is a lewd, arrogant egotist.
How did the bullied child become a notorious bully? How did the devoted son become the father who never sees his own daughter? Full of contradictions, but endlessly fascinating, the name of Chris Evans never fails to spark fierce debate. 'Freak or Unique? The Chris Evans Story' talks to the people who have loved and hated him over the years and tells you everything you want to know about the man behind the glasses.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
While it's very true that this book performs a certain "hatchet job" on Evans, revealing things that perhaps he'd rather other people didn't know about, read from end to end it does provide a fascinating insight into the man and his motives. Amateur Psychology aside, I finished the book with perhaps the opposite feeling which the author intended - I think I respected Evans more.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Freak or Unique is quite simply the nastiest hatchet job ever committed on a public figure. Even Adolf Hitler's biographers referred to the fact he was kind to animals. It's fairly transparent that Evans can be a bully and has been single minded in his pursuit of success, but Jones' amateur psychology and his smug sense of righting wrongs simply reads as a stitch up cheered on by the bitter people Evans may have hurt on his way. This is particularly overdone through the passages charting, in appalling detail, some of the ordeals endured by the bullied childhood Evans, and the unhappiness caused by the break up of his first marriage. Apparently his second wife felt the book was so uncompromising it would 'destroy him'. It clearly hasn't, and as Evans has taken his wealth into new levels, you can't help wondering whether Jones has actually completely missed the point. Either way, there's a more sober and deferential biog waiting to be written.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
An Accurate Portrayal Of Britain's Maverick Media Mogul?
9 May 1998
Format:Paperback
The meteoric rise of Chris Evans has mainly been chronicled in tabloid reports of excess, erratic behaviour and the nastiest temper in show business. Is Freak or Unique, the title itself suggesting an analysis of character, anything diferent, would it show a different side to Evans? Sadly it has not, the author himself a tabloid journalist, has interviewed a biased selection of characters from Evans' life and attempted to fool the reader into thinking he'd interviewed more worthy names by piecing together old interviews. With very little revolutionary material, Freak or Unique fails to achieve an in depth analysis of Chris Evans.
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