- Paperback: 284 pages
- Publisher: Libros International (24 Mar 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1905988192
- ISBN-13: 978-1905988198
- Product Dimensions: 20.2 x 12.2 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,382,697 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Willie the Actor
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Product Description
Product Description
Loosely based on a true story, 'Willie the Actor' is a novel about an ordinary man leading an extraordinary double-life of crime. His story, which has a theatrical touch to it, begins in New York in the Roaring Twenties and spans two and a half decades. Bill Sutton's career as a bank robber was unique: he never resorts to violence or fires a gun in his life. But it was believed that he was jinxed, and almost everyone he works with comes to a violent end. Married for only a year, he explains his sudden wealth to his wife by telling her it was an inheritance from a rich uncle. Soon after, police intrude on his domestic bliss with his new born baby. He is shopped by his accomplice's wife, enraged because of her husband's philandering. After serving a year in Sing Sing, he escapes. Now known to the newspapers as Willie the Actor, because of the modus operandi of his robberies, using a mythical drama school to hire uniforms at theatrical costumiers, he continues to rob banks. In 1932, his accomplices are chased and shot by the police, and Bill is himself caught and sentenced to between 25 and 50 years at Eastern State Penitentiary - one of the toughest jails in the country. After three unsuccessful escape attempts, each time being given a longer sentence added to the original, in 1947 he escapes again. He manages to go straight for five years, working in an old people's home, under a new identity, but he meets a former associate and passes on details of an easy bank to rob. The robbery carries Bill's hallmark, and he is caught and ironically given the biggest sentence of his career for the one bank job he hasn't done. During his first escape from Sing Sing, he had sent his daughter a Happy Birthday telegram. Visiting her father in jail, she shows him the telegram which she has kept all those years, because deep down she knows him to be a good man who loves her, and he is finally reconciled with the one person he most loves and trusts, and will stay loyal to him. Prior to his trial, Sutton becomes a popular figure, attaining a Robin Hood-like status. But the man who spotted him on the subway and informed the police, is shot in each eye, the traditional way of dealing with informers. Following this crime, although no one really believed that the gentle Sutton had anything to do with it, he loses public sympathy. At the age of 52, he is sentenced to 30 years to life. Everyone Sutton comes into contact with likes him. Even the prison warden tells him, 'You know, Bill, I think if you gave me your word not to escape, I could let you cut the grass on the outside.' Sutton smiles and replies: 'Ah, but you know, I'd never give you my word, Warden.' As well as a fictionalized story of crime and an escape drama, Willie the Actor is also a chronicle of the times, as Sutton makes his criminal ways surrounded by figures such as real life gangsters like the notorious Dutch Schultz, through prohibition and the Depression to the early Fifties.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Captures the times well,
By
This review is from: Willie the Actor (Paperback)
An excellent page-turning fictionalised account of the notorious bank robber Willie Sutton. Despite his amoral trade, Bill Sutton comes across as a sympathetic character. The ending is moving, too. A good debut novel that captures the times well - 1940s, 1950s America.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Roaring Twenties Fiction,
By
This review is from: Willie the Actor (Paperback)
Reviews - Books
David Barry follows up his autobiography with some classic Roaring Twenties fiction in this new novel ... David Barry, star of Please Sir and The Fenn Street Gang, has published Willie the Actor, a novel based on the life of New York bank robber, Willie Sutton. David's acting career began alongside Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. As Frankie Abbott in Please Sir!, alongside co-stars Deryck Guyler, John Alderton and Joan Sanderson he became a household name, with his character being a born coward who liked to think himself a tough guy with street smarts. The series spawned sequel The Fenn Street Gang, where Frankie Abbott was given license to extend his life of fantasy. In recent years David Barry has developed a career as a writer. He has published an autobiography, Flashback - An Actor's Life, and now with the novel Willie the Actor, based on the life of the New York gangster, William Sutton, he presents his credentials for what in years to come may well be known as "the book that inspired the film". This is a crime novel in which a criminal finds that there's no way out for him from his life on the wrong side of the tracks, and has to keep committing bank robberies, once he's got form from having been in jail. The books spans a time period of over 50 years - David introduces us to Willy in 1923, mid-heist, and there is almost a travelogue-style to the adventures that follow, as we witness his numerous loves and stretches inside. We bid farewell to Sutton in 1976, in what is a fitting, and moving, climax to the adventures. Willie the Actor is not a `whodunnit', or hard-boiled Sam Spade detective novel. We witness the story as a personal account of the frustration that a thief encounters when he simply wants to carry out one final `job', which will give him the security to overcome society's refusal to let him become a more respectable member of society. In the title of the book, you get a clue as to the modus operandi employed by our lead character. As a master of disguise, the primitive policing at the time couldn't easily find this guy, and it's down to trusting the wrong people that continually acts as Sutton's Achilles heal. What wins you over as a reader is that this is an honourable thief who might threaten violence but never uses it. It's this reluctance to do harm that makes you realise that sometimes those who break the law legitimately can say that the world around them actually left them with very little choice. This also wins over the public at large within the story as well, and Willie becomes a legend, almost a `man of the people', with that slight tinge of Robin Hood embroidered in his exploits. We are left with a fictional biography that has "Movie of the Week" written all over it. The role of Willie would be sufficiently challenging for any actor, given its five decades-worth of character development that needs portraying. The occasional piece of bad language for some reason feels a little out of place within the prose, mainly because the rest of the story feels so "PG" in its rating. However, we're soon back on track, and the narrative bustles along at a fine old pace. There are not many pieces of fiction that can keep me turning the pages into the early hours. So, give yourself a treat and secure a copy of Willie The Actor. Alex J Geairns, Cult TV
4.0 out of 5 stars
Willie the Star,
By
This review is from: Willie the Actor (Paperback)
I truely enjoyed this novel based on the bank robber "Willie the Actor." a great story told with sympathy that reaches the inevitable conclusion but depite it all one feels for Mr. Sutton. Anyone whos a fan of prohibition america and the era will enjoy this excellent novel. Well worth a read.
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