The Guy Under the Sheets: The Unauthorized Autobiography
Elliott, the comedian, actor, and writer, here blows the lid off one of the great untold Hollywood stories: the true life of Chris Elliott. The son of film legend Bette Davis and noted mustachioed actor Sam Elliott, Chris got his first big break on Late Night with David Letterman, where he dazzled audiences with his many running characters, including a Marlon Brando parody that had its genesis in Elliott’s traumatizing encounter with the Oscar-winning actor on his French Polynesian island. Torrid affairs with Shelley Winters and Lee Radziwill, among other women, scarred Elliott emotionally and psychologically, but he didn’t let that stop him from turning out classic film and television works like Cabin Boy and Get a Life. Sadly, Elliott’s own life was cut short by his untimely death at the hands of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, another spurned lover. This hugely entertaining pack of lies reads like a Woody Allen essay from the New Yorker, but, buried among the silliness, there is a nugget or two of legitimate autobiography. Wildly weird and hugely entertaining. --David Pitt