Total Page : 288
Publisher : Touchstone
Publication Date : 2010 03 16
>> An incredible story of Todd Bridges
In promoting this book Todd Bridges in his interview with Today show co host Meredith Vieira on NBC on March 15 2010 and later with Joy Behar on her show on CNN spoke openly and honestly about his ordeal of physical sexual and emotional abuse he faced from the very people who were responsible for his best interest and safety He has lived through the most difficult days of abuse the harassment from police intense racism in Los Angeles Police Department LAPD in 1980s and 1990s addiction to controlled substances life on the mean streets of South Central Los Angeles repeated criminal charges including a murder charge and bad publicity surrounding Diff rent Strokes other actors Gary Coleman and Dana Plato Incidentally Dana died tragically at a very young age due to drug addiction and drug overdose on May 8 1999 It is absolutely overwhelming for any man let alone a kid to face this trauma yet Todd proves that you need to fight your way out never relent to momentary setbacks and you can still emerge as a reformed positive role model for kids who face similar challenges He has turned his life around by becoming an author a family man a responsible father working actor director and a producer This is absolutely incredible saga of an individual who had everything to the very lowest point in life This is especially hard for fans who watched Diff rent Strokes on TV regularly during 1970s and 80s
The middle pages are especially hard to read as Todd Bridges describes in great detail his unfortunate addiction to various controlled substances and then becoming a drug trafficker himself living on the most dangerous streets of South Central LA and dealing with worst offenders Constant harassment of LAPD racism he experienced from them at a very young age when he could not understand what it meant Todd describes a very happy childhood growing in San Francisco where he faces very little racism but moving to Los Angeles would change everything it is not only fame money girls drugs and sex but also the law going incessantly after him
From this book we also get to know the working relationship between three young actors of the show Gary Coleman guided by his father was mean and unfriendly The friendship between Dana Plato and Todd Bridges is not so sweet after all Dana had addition to drugs since the age of 13 and everyone on the set knew her problem because she was using them on the set and was a highly unreliable cast member Both of them had several years of sexual relationship and drug use but Todd Bridges still regards her as his best friend whom he wanted to help in her final days by persuading her to check into a rehab clinic This story is deeply saddening and hard to read especially for fans who adored the show
1 Diff rent Strokes Seasons 1 2 DVD Set First Two Seasons
2 On the Set of Diff rent Strokes
>> Raw but not in a good way
If you re looking for a raw no holds barred depiction of drugs sex and violence then this may be the biography for you However if you re looking for anything heavier than that introspection self awareness and maturation this may not be the place to look I couldn t bear to keep reading after around 200 pages not because of Todd s raw depiction of the street life but rather because his chronicle feels thoroughly deficient in other more important respects
First of all Todd demonstrates little understanding of himself and seems to have a tremendous ego He goes on and on about what a big deal he was as a child/teen star often seems like he s bragging when he discusses his exploits and promotions in the drug world and constantly paints himself as an innocent victim even going as far as to say that none of what he did was his fault other than taking drugs in the first place How about his running two crack houses and intentionally getting several women hooked How about all the crime and death he indirectly promoted through his drug dealing activities At one particularly important point in the book he finds himself wrongfully accused of murder and never connects the dots to realize that the murder was committed by his people in his crack house against his arch rival No Todd claims he never fired a gun but many guns fired because of him Todd sees himself here as an innocent victim of racial profiling and personal grudges in much the same way as he was when the police repeatedly pulled him over earlier in life and hassled him for being black The two situations are far from the same It s not that Todd needs to show more remorse over the things he did it s that he doesn t show any because he doesn t see himself as deserving blame Though he often talks about how far he fell and how ashamed of himself he d become it was never for anything other than being a drug user who no longer cared about his career He ll spend entire pages talking about pioneering a way to make crack in the microwave or rising to become a small time drug lord in such a short amount of time but these read like bragging rights not confessions
Secondly there are several times in the book where Todd s accounts seem highly unreliable Though there are times where he knows that what he s saying sounds hard to believe and says as much there are other accounts that simply don t add up At one point in the book Todd is cheated out of his entire fortune and is left with nothing Yet in the next few chapters he mentions his nice five bedroom home his Ethan Allen dining room table and his BMW and he has another car too Sure he may have lost most of his fortune but he s clearly still affluent and goes on to survive comfortably and support a heavy drug addiction without working or stealing for many years after At another point in the book Todd s drug lord mentor has four crack houses but when Todd takes over his business a few pages later there are two crack houses In a third memorable instance Todd s old rival gets revenge on Todd by knocking him down running into his crack house and locking him out This makes absolutely no sense Drug lords seeking revenge outside of a crack house at night fire guns and kill They do not run into houses and lock people out The fact that this is all part of Todd s alibi for how he had nothing to do with this man ending up in his crack house and being brutally murdered makes this account even more suspicious There s also a time when Todd is on death row for killing Henry and the cops add an armed robbery charge to the mix Todd tells them that Henry is the one who did it and to go look for him Why would he have said that if Henry s death is the whole reason Todd was on death row in the first place
Finally the general writing style is exceptionally poor and non engaging Todd often sounds like he s just rambling and heading toward a general direction in his narrative There s also an excessive usage of commas in the middle of sentences and before the word because any time that it is used I m not sure what co writer Sarah Tomlinson actually did for this book but it feels completely unedited
Please don t get me wrong Todd Bridges has led a fascinating and incredibly painful life he has been the victim of many unfortunate circumstances including abuse sexual abuse and blatant racism he has pulled himself out of the abyss and in at least one instance he has performed a heroic feat that saved someone s life I have nothing against Todd Bridges as a person but I could certainly do without Killing Willis
>> Todd Bridges is such a whiner
I really didn t want to deal with this book because I was ALIVE during the 90s and 2000s so I already know Todd Bridges life story but the Vine program offerred it and there was nothing else I wanted so I got it The reviews made it seem like this book was soooo good All Todd does is whine in the book When Todd was harrassed by the police for driving his own Porshe he stated it was racism by the LA Cops we got it When he was arrested for the killing of the people at the crack house he stated it was racism by the LA Cops we got it Now in his book he rehashes the same claims Todd we get that your life got off track because of racism give it a rest Sarcasm
Todd whines and I use the word whines because Todd s life was pretty okay and has turned out fine yet he still feels he has been wronged The trials and tribulations of Todd Bridges would have been good in book form but the writing is dry He describes the abuse at the hands of his father over and over again but the way he describes it is like he was an observer I felt no emotion to any of the things Todd said in his book and the racism thing just got old
To top it off Todd was on the Joy Behar show a week ago and they were talking about actors being able to bounce back Robert Downey Jr etc When Todd was asked why he couldn t bounce back of course he replied RACISM Todd just be quiet
You have not become a huge star again because your acting range is limited Other than Willis and your child characters your acting has been blah You bring nothing to a dramatic role You are no Denzel Morgan Freeman Don Cheatle Tyler Perry etc You just don t have the acting chops to bounce back Your son is now an actor focus on his success and stop whining
Would I recommend this book Yes if you were not ALIVE in the 90s and 2000s and don t know Todd s story already the racism the arrests the drug use the former child star syndrome the sex with Dana Plato etc
