Comedian Rick Mercer recommends ‘The Kid Stays in the Picture’ by Robert Evans

“It’s probably my favourite show business autobiography. Robert Evans was a film producer—he did The Sun Also Rises, Chinatown and The Godfather series. He was a bad B-actor who ended up running a studio and changed Hollywood completely. He was also a huge ladies man. He was power hungry and power mad. And he hung out with the likes of Kissinger. He liked to pretend all these people did his bidding. He took a very bad turn with cocaine. Eventually, he was thrown out of Hollywood in disgrace, and managed to crawl his way back. He’s a larger than life character with a fascinating story–all of which, I think, has probably a 50 per cent bulls–t ratio. I would not take his side of the story for gospel. But still, it’s a fun, fun picture. It’s candy, you know? It’s a junky book with lots of anecdotes that are amusing and outrageous. He collected powerful friends and beautiful women and also was responsible for producing some of the greatest movies of an era.”