Guillaume: A Life
Actor and singer Guillaume, best known for his starring role on  Benson, presents a candid memoir that reads like a conversation  with a close friend. In fact, collaborator Ritz, who helped  Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and Marvin Gaye with their  memoirs, acknowledges in his preface that Guillaume is the  frankest person he has ever worked with. Prompted in part by a  recent stroke, Guillaume honestly tries to answer the questions  "Who the hell am I?" and "Why did I do the things I did?" He  begins with his early years with the strong grandmother who  raised him and the tutelage of the Catholic Church. Both of  those forces, he insists, saved him from a life on the streets.  Rejected by his mother and longing for her love, he struggled  with his relationships with women and endured the pain of  watching his son die of AIDS. This is a story of fierce  determination and triumph over poverty, pain, and  discrimination, much like Sidney Poitier's recent The Measure of  a Man, and will appeal to all biography lovers. Highly  recommended.Rosellen Brewer, Monterey Cty. Free Libs., Salinas,  CACopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.