Face It: A Memoir

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I suspect the revelations from the #MeToo movement can’t have come as any surprise – her book is full of incidences of being abused, stalked and generally mistreated by men – but she says incidences of harassment in her career were rare. “I was working as a team and in a relationship. I wouldn’t have felt comfortable being a solo artist and I’m sure that those girls have a lot more to say about that than I do. I never went into meetings trying to get a record deal by myself, so it’s a little bit different.” The most important part of the #MeToo movement, she says, “is that it makes men stop and think about their accepted behaviour”. Debbie Harry talks about aging and her regret at not having children". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022 . Retrieved October 28, 2019. Deborah Harry starts in recounting her early years in New Jersey and how her adoption shaped her view of her world as evidenced by one of her more poignant reflections, '...everybody was trying to do the best they could for me. But I don't think I was ever truly comfortable. I felt different; I was always trying to fit in.' I expected something cool and fierce, instead this is dull and unengaging, told in a rambling monotone. Regardless of whether DH is talking about her house burning down, being stalked and raped Blondie splitting up or throwaway waitress jobs, there's no change of pace or tone and only the merest superficiality of detail. A few cameos of Bowie, Warhol and Basquiat add some brief interest but blink and they're over.

Face It by Debbie Harry review — the face that launched a

a b c d e f Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19thed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p.245. ISBN 1-904994-10-5. Rohan, Virginia (June 18, 2007). "North Jersey-bred and talented too". The Record (Bergen County) . Retrieved June 25, 2007. Debbie Harry: Class of 1963, Hawthorne High School [ dead link] Harry also appeared in film during this time, with a supporting part in Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990). From 1989 to 1991, Harry toured extensively across the world with former Blondie guitarist Chris Stein, Underworld's Karl Hyde, and future Blondie bassist Leigh Foxx. In July 1991 she played Wembley Stadium, supporting INXS. In 1991, Chrysalis released a new "best of" compilation in Europe entitled The Complete Picture: The Very Best of Deborah Harry and Blondie, containing hits with Blondie as well as her solo hits. The collection reached No. 3 in the UK album chart [34] and earned a gold disc. The album also included her duet with Iggy Pop of the Cole Porter song " Well, Did You Evah!" from the 1990 Red Hot + Blue AIDS charity album. In film, Harry co-starred with Pruitt Taylor Vince and Liv Tyler in James Mangold's directorial debut Heavy (1995), playing a misanthropic waitress at an upstate New York restaurant. The following year, she filmed Mangold's Cop Land (1997), a neo-noir thriller in which she portrayed a bartender. You start to think about the value of beauty as you're growing older. It's double-edged for sure,” she lamented.There are some good stories here, though you may have heard a few of them before. Drawing on a series of exclusive interviews with longtime music critic Sylvie Simmons, Face It covers much of the same ground as Cathay Che’s 1998 Deborah Harry: The Biography, a book based on interviews Harry did with Che in the 1990s. Che’s bio includes more detailed accounts of recording sessions, film appearances, and the 1970s downtown scene, along with some of the same anecdotes that crop up in Face It. It is only recently, she says, that she has thought she might have liked to have had children (she is godmother to Stein’s two daughters.) “I sort of thought: ‘Gee, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad to have kids.’ But I don’t know if I could have done it while I was working so much.” Because she would have had to give up some of her freedoms? “My natural inclination is to really throw myself into things. It wouldn’t be like I could hand over the baby. I would really want to be involved.”

Face It: A Memoir by Debbie Harry | Goodreads

Gotthardt, Alexxa (November 21, 2017). "On His MTV Show, Andy Warhol Broke All the Rules". Artsy . Retrieved April 13, 2018. So, fans of Debbie Harry, those who will brook no criticism of her, maybe you’ll want to skip this review. I can seem judgmental, more so with a memoir than with a biography written by a third party or a ghost writer. Unfortunately, after getting off to such a good start, Debbie occasionally lost her train of thought, and her tight chronological format unraveled, and she started to insert odd little antidotes and wandering off course, playing around with timelines, which is something that rarely works for me with a biography or memoir. Hey, Debbie, in Face It [ Harry’s memoir], you discussed the creation of the Blondie persona . How intentional were your choices in character curation, and why did you choose to adopt a persona in the first place? ChloSchmoThose who are very dedicated fans, or were much more involved in the punk scene, and are far more familiar with the atmosphere of that time and place, may not glean anything new from this memoir, but I’m sure the trip down memory lane will be worth your time. Harry’s response is typically modest: “I just got on with it. As much as possible, I found a way to do what I had to do.”

Debbie Harry: ‘It wasn’t a great idea to be as Blondie’s Debbie Harry: ‘It wasn’t a great idea to be as

In 1997, Blondie began working together again for the first time in 15years. The four original members (Harry, Stein, Clem Burke and Jimmy Destri) began sessions for what would become Blondie's seventh studio album, No Exit (1999). The lead single from the album, " Maria", debuted at No. 1 in the UK, giving Blondie their sixth UK No. 1 hit. "Maria" also reached No. 1 in 14 countries, the top 10 on the US Dance Charts, and Top 20 on the US Adult Top 40 Charts. No Exit debuted at No. 3 in the UK and No. 17 in the US. Simon, Scott (June 5, 2010). "How Times Have Changed, Ex-Playboy Bunnies Say". NPR. Actress Lauren Hutton was a Bunny, as was singer Deborah Harry... Although I was a little underwhelmed by the book, and I may have made it sound worse than it really was, I’m still glad I read it. There are plenty of interesting, juicy bits of information, lots of sex and drugs, and it was fun to hear Debbie talk about her hair colors and fashion styles over the years. Her work as an actress was far more accomplished than I realized and I enjoyed hearing about her movies, although I don’t think I’ve seen anything she played in. I think Debbie has lived quite a colorful life and deserves her place in music history and as a pop culture icon.

As to the format and organization, Debbie gets off to a good start, talking about her childhood, her road to success, and the atmosphere in New York during the seventies, which was bursting with creativity and artistry, but was also a dark, dangerous, terrifying city that was going broke. In 1981, Harry issued a press release to clarify that her name was not "Debbie Blondie" or "Debbie Harry" but rather Deborah Harry, though Harry later described her character in the band as being named "Blondie", as in this quote from the No Exit tour book: