By Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up!
The year was 1988. I was a young student in my first semester at Dawson College taking a course in documentary film taught by David Grey. I wrote a paper on the NFB film Lonely Boy. The paper gets me a grade of 82%. In 1995 I am Best Man at the wedding of my friend Nick and his wife Nat. At the reception each member of the wedding party is announced and a different tune is played as they enter the ballroom. The music played for myself and the Maid of Honour: The Tonight Show Theme. Years later I leave my job at a credit card company. I sent out an office-wide memo saying goodbye to everyone that contained the lyrics to the song My Way. September 2007 I am in Toronto. As I walk past the CBC building downtown a dark sedan pulls up to the curb. Out steps a diminutive man sharply dressed in matching dark pants and jacket donning a pair of sunglasses. His receding hairline is dyed jet black and his skin is a shade of orange. He is quickly whisked past me and into the building for an interview on a show then called The Hour. What do all these stories have in common: Paul Anka
Before there was Justin Beiber, Paul Anka was making the teenaged girls swoon and selling out shows around the world. And today people still pay money to see him perform. He is an extremely successful singer, songwriter and show business survivor; and if you grew up in western society you have certainly heard one of his songs (whether it was sung by him or another artist). I have seen and heard multiple interviews with Paul Anka over the years and always admired how open and candid he was. On the aforementioned appearance on The Hour he said he was working on an autobiography but was waiting for two more people to die. I guess they have now because after seven decades in show business, the book My Way: An Autobiography is here.
My Way begins with a quote from Scorsese’s Goodfellas, a theme that reappears throughout the work. Anka narrates his own story as he takes us from his beginnings in Ottawa to his meteoric rise to stardom, his various personal adventures with other celebrities, and some, shall was say, less than savory characters.
I often wonder why publishers cannot approach biographies as serious pieces of literary art. Why more effort is not employed to make them pleasurable to read? There is great raw material here, but My Way is just another case of a famous person talking into a recording device and the co-author (in this case David Dalton) probably did little more than transcribe it. The experience was similar to that of sitting next to your verbose old uncle at a family gathering and having him endlessly drone on about instances in his life (you know that uncle…the one who talks but never really says much). While many of Anka’s stories and anecdotes are interesting (like to one about what actress Angie Dickinson did once while in a car on Mulholland Drive), several of them I have heard before, or seen in Casino or Goodfellas, and unfortunately the style and narrative of My Way makes the book difficult and often frustrating to read.
I’m sure the publishers wanted it in Anka’s own voice, which I do not object to, but it is way too much so. After reading this I fear the author will be fined for excessive use of the exclamation point and the word “anyways” (what self-respecting editor allows an author do that?). Anka falls into the trap of repetition (like how several times in the same chapter he states that unlike most singers of his era, he wrote his own songs; or when on multiple occasions he introduces us to a couple, talks about how much he likes them and mentions they are still friends of himself and his wife; or how when he brings up a person named Bob Skaff, as he does nine times in My Way, he feels the inexplicable need to inform us each and every occasion that they are cousins). On one page uses the word “Vegas” twelve times. This book should have spent quite a bit more time in editing, and not merely for content. There were numerous mistakes, misprints, and proofreading errors in the copy I read, which was not an advanced version but rather one that was meant for store sale. The back page contains an ad for Anka’s newest recording Paul Anka Duets, (the cover of which is that same as My Way). Maybe they were rushed to get the book out in time to help promote the new release?
That being said I do believe Anka is being honest in the book and he does give us a look at his creative process; you can’t last as long as he has without talent and that part is well-handled and you can tell he is passionate about his craft. But then he goes into his own opinions and observations, not all of which are inane, but they are not all that astute or original either. And on occasion his ego seems a little inflated, like when he was caught up in a big time jewelry heist and was able to figure out it was an inside job ahead of the police. I guess he left out the time he out-smarted Lex Luthor.
Reading My Way I was reminded of a far superior autobiography of a musician called The Real Frank Zappa Book (which is still in print) by Frank Zappa with Peter Occhiogrosso. In it Zappa did everything correctly. He told his story and views on the world and the music business to Occhiogrosso, a professional writer and journalist, who took the time to craft a flowing narrative that was readable, enjoyable and informative, everything My Way should have been.
