Latest Read: When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead by Jerry Weintraub with Rich Cohen

Another book I found on the Bellevue Regional Library's new non-fiction table the other day is When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead by Jerry Weintraub with Rich Cohen.  If you like autobiographies, are an entrepreneur or just like stories about show business, I would fully recommend reading this book.  Although Weintraub is constantly telling stories about really cool things he did - and doing a lot of name dropping, I didn't once get the feeling like he was bragging.  It was great to read about his relationships with presidents, heads of studios and much more.

The biggest take away that I got from this book was his quote that "When artists try to run their business, they stop being artists."  Although I am not personally an artist, I've thought a lot about this and believe that people should do what they enjoy (and are hopefully good at) and leave the rest to other people.  What do you think?

I remember when Weintraub had Concerts West going full tilt back in the day - but in the end, he just shut it down when he stopped enjoying it.  It didn't hurt that by then he was producing some really big movies ..

BTW - here are some of the reviews from Amazon.com:

From Publishers Weekly

Hollywood power player Weintraub, now 72, is always in control and goes to great lengths to prove it: besides having managed musical legends like Presley, Sinatra and John Denver ("I cooked him from scratch"), Weintraub once closed a deal by faking a heart attack, and won the respect of one of Chicago's most powerful men, Arthur Wirtz, when he cursed Wirtz out for making him wait (Wirtz would go on to become one of Weintraub's mentors). Weintraub's also produced plays, TV shows, movies (from Nashville to the Ocean's 11 franchise), and more, summing up his talent simply: "When I believe in something, it's going to get done." Edgy and honest but refreshingly spare in his criticism of stars, colleagues and family, Weintraub can be forgiven for glossing over speed bumps in his career (one failed business lost $30 million before it closed in the mid-'80s) and occasionally showing his age with wandering rumination. As Weintraub repeatedly states, he is not a star, which perhaps that explains the disappointing omission of photos. Still, with a bold voice, a storied career, and a cast of superstars, his memoir makes a rousing insider tour of some five decades in the entertainment industry.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"Now, I could tell you stories about Jerry, but Jerry is the first and best to tell them. He's funny and grumpy and perfectly inappropriate. When it comes to work, nobody works harder. When it comes to charities, nobody guilts better. And when it comes to friendship, he has no peers. That's Jerry's great talent. He doesn't just light up a room, he lights it on fire. He's a great producer, a great organizer, a great friend, and truly the greatest showman on earth." (George Clooney)"Edgy and honest but refreshingly spare in his criticism of stars, colleagues and family . . . With a bold voice, a storied career, and a cast of superstars, Weintraub's memoir makes a rousing insider tour of some five decades in the entertainment industry." (Publisher's Weekly )"As the title of the book indicates, Weintraub loves to talk. And the 72-year-old impresario has some amazing stories to tell . . . All the stories are told in Weintraub's shooting-the-breeze voice. Credit for the easy-to-read style goes to Rich Cohen, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair magazine who turned Weintraub's tales into a breezy first-person narrative." (Rick Warner, Bloomberg News )"It reads at times like a screenplay: a rags-to-riches tale complete with stunning reversals of fortune, punchy dialogue, and star cameos galore . . . Even the lows are enviable." (Nathaniel Rich, VANITY FAIR )

"Jerry has made a fascinating career for himself by finding ways to put on a show and sell tickets at the door. Jerry has bloomed wherever he's been planted. His life has put him in the company of greats like Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, The Rat Pack, Robert Altman, and Steven Soderbergh, to name a few. Jerry's story chronicles his journey that involved a lot of improvising, love, and of course, luck. This story isn't just for music or movie lovers, or entrepreneurs....it's for everyone. So, pick up your copy of When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead by Jerry Weintraub... If there was a Mount Rushmore of legendary show business figures, he'd be one of them." (Don Imus )

"When I Stop Talking is anything but a rote, let-the-record-show memoir . . . Although it's packed with stories he's surely been telling at dinner forever, the book is also a modest set of guidelines for how you too can be a successful mogul . . . it's written with stealth and style, doubtless shaped by his co-writer, Rich Cohen . . . The book, really, is a performance, a monologue by a guy comfortable hanging with Armand Hammer at Leonid Brezhnev's funeral or with Joey Bishop at a deli. It's a show based on horse pucky on braggadocio." (RJ Smith, LA Times )

"This is a guy who can tell a story. And boy does he have stories to tell." (People Magazine )

"Weintraub knows a thing or two about placing bets. And his latest venture sounds like a sure thing-an autobiography, pithily titled When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man . . . [it's] a gripping personal story." (Entertainment Weekly )

"Old chestnuts from this journey are lovingly, and often hilariously, burnished in Weintraub's new memoir, When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead . . . The book, which is in no way a scandalous, showbiz tell-all, but a good-humored, and often self-deprecating romp of outrageous will and amazing fortune, also paints a picture of uncanny bliss." (Nicole LaPorte, The Daily Beast )