Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • Patti LuPone

  • A Memoir
  • By: Patti LuPone
  • Narrated by: Patti LuPone
  • Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (70 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Patti LuPone

By: Patti LuPone
Narrated by: Patti LuPone
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

The legendary Patti LuPone is one of the theatre’s most beloved leading ladies. Now she lays it all bare, sharing the intimate story of her life both onstage and off - through the dizzying highs and darkest lows - with the humor and outspokenness that have become her trademarks.

From inspired costars and demanding directors to her distinct perspective on how she developed and honed her Tony Award - winning performances, Patti LuPone: A Memoir is as inspirational as it is entertaining. And though the title might say “a memoir”, this is ultimately a love letter to the theatre by a unique American artist.

Raised on Long Island’s North Shore, Patti discovered her calling at the age of four and knew that she was destined for the stage. A prodigiously gifted child, she was one of only 36 young actors chosen for the inaugural class of The Juilliard School’s Drama Division, where she fought near-constant criticism from her instructors, and here describes those early years with disarming frankness. From the heady days of her early 20s - crisscrossing the country as a founding member of the classical repertory theatre ensemble, The Acting Company - to her early success on Broadway, her four-year stint as Libby Thacher on the television series Life Goes On, her loving marriage to Matt Johnston, and much, much more, Patti chronicles her professional and personal life with inimitable candor and wit.

With its insightful retrospective of her career-defining turns, both on Broadway and abroad, in Evita, Les Misérables, Anything Goes, Sunset Boulevard, Sweeney Todd, and Gypsy, Patti LuPone: A Memoir reveals the artist’s deeply felt passion for music and the theatre and is, in the end, the compelling and quintessential tale of an exceptional life well lived.

“I have been incredibly fortunate over the course of my career to have been associated with some extraordinary dramatic and musical productions, and also some rather spectacular disasters. Looking back, I can find gifts and life lessons in every one".

©2010 Patti Lupone (P)2010 Random House Audio
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2
activate_samplebutton_t1

Listeners also enjoyed...

I Was Better Last Night cover art
Oh Miriam! cover art
There Are Worse Things I Could Do cover art
Chita cover art
Unprotected cover art
In Such Good Company cover art
So That Happened cover art
I, Rhoda cover art
Alan Bennett: Diaries cover art
Boys Keep Swinging cover art
Cheech Is Not My Real Name cover art
The Improv cover art
Learning to Live out Loud cover art
My Mother Was Nuts cover art
Putting It Together cover art
Born to Run cover art

Critic reviews

"Patti LuPone, with honesty and humor, gives a brave and candid account of an astonishingly unique and brilliant performer’s journey to reach Broadway stardom." (Angela Lansbury)
"Anyone who has seen Patti LuPone perform on stage is well aware of her daring, risk-taking artistry. Now she has channeled her considerable talent from the stage to the page and the result is a frank, funny and totally captivating memoir about her life on and off the stage." (Jane Fonda)
"For some rare performers, there is a place beyond commercial success, popularity with audiences, and honors within an industry. A special place where they are both respected and adored--even envied--by other performers for their wealth of talent. These are actors who sing, as opposed to singers who act. They bring an actor’s range of thought about character and truth and psychology. Among them, none has more talent, more courage, and more emotive power than Patti LuPone. When Patti LuPone comes on stage, you don’t always know what will happen, but you know it will be among the greatest work by any stage actress in theatre, ever. Ever. As everyone in our business knows, Patti…is Patti." (Alec Baldwin)

What listeners say about Patti LuPone

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    59
  • 4 Stars
    9
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    58
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    51
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Standard theatrical bio – until Sunset Boulevard…

Where does Patti LuPone rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It's a good listen – and essential if you work in, or have any passion for, theatre in general and musical theatre in particular.

What other book might you compare Patti LuPone to, and why?

Seth Rudetsky's Broadway Nights – a novel which plays on the neuroses and obsessions of musical theatre actors for comedy, but which LuPone reveals aren't all that far from the truth.

Which character – as performed by Patti LuPone – was your favourite?

Well, it's an autobiography, so I'd have to say "herself".

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Her recitation of her professional life starts out interesting, but a little dry. And then it gets to her involvement with Andrew Lloyd Webber and the Really Useful Group when she is cast as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. Then the claws come out, the blood pressure raises and you won't believe that any company could act so cavalierly towards its star.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful

Loved listening to this book. I felt like I had become one of Pattis friends by the end and listened with great interest and amusement to her experiences. It was all I had hoped it would be and more and truly hope she will write another one before too long to bring us up to date. Thank you Patti.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Couldn’t stop listening

Funny, enlightening, and a great listen from a great person. I’m not really a theatre ‘luvvy’ but after watching Patti in Company in London, and then ‘An evening with’….. I’m a fan

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A must listen

This is an incredible story and incredibly told by the woman herself. An absolute must listen!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent, brilliant, marvelous!

OK so I admit upfront I am a massive musicals fan so perhaps I was always going to live this - but then if you are not a musicals fan then you wouldn't be considering buying this anyway, right?
This 'memoir' is a story of a truly amazing career on the stage told by Patti herself. In all honesty, I was only aware of Patti as a somewhat legendary diva, someone with a ferocious anger and that is difficult to work with; as Patti addresses herself, this is the pre-conception many have of her. BUT what this book does is give you is a real insight into what an amazing lady this is. Yes she has a temper, but what is clear is that this temper comes from nothing but utter passion for her craft - ACTING - not singing, but ACTING. The singing is something in which Patti has invested so much to master, and master she has, while is it the telling of story on the stage and her growth as a performer that has driven much of her career.

You get utterly wonderful, funny stories from her incredibly varied career, from plays to musicals to films and back to plays and musical again. What I found SO exciting was that Patti has chapters dedicated to her experiences in some of the most iconic musicals of all time, both on Broadway and in the West End (there are chapters on Evita, Les Mis, Sunset Boulevard, Gypsy to name a few).
What makes this book EXTRA special is that Patti really doesn't hold back! I had no idea of the controversies, difficulties, personal traumas, egos, back-stabbing, grudges and down-right disasters that went on in the world of musicals; Patti's discussion of her experiences with Sunset (and more specifically Andrew Lloyd Webber) are just so insightful, I had no idea...you must read this!
Patti reads this audiobook herself, which adds so much. She has a bit of an odd delivery, at first sounding peculiar and stuttery - but I suspect this is a product of trying to annunciate as clearly as possible - by Chapter 2 you are so engrossed you won't care! Seriously READ THIS!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Absolutely OUTSTANDING!

I just finished listening to this, and I sobbed ON THE BUS. She finished the whole thing with a quote from W.B Yeats, and GUESS WHAT? I’m studying Performing Arts under the Yeats Academy in Institute of Technology, Sligo (soon to be Atlantic Technological University)! That quote means so very much to me as a young Irishwoman. Not to mention her well-wishes to young performers like myself. Absolutely worth the read/listen, she gives so much humour, insight, and solid advice (especially when faced with conflict of interest between actor and producer) throughout. I feel I’m a changed person having experienced it. 10/10.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great but a bit errr

This is a fascinating story. But Patti’s learned enunciation can be grating. It can also get a tad repetitive with the whole show rejection show. There’s no happy upward trajectory…dare I say she’s too hard on herself?

That said it’s a really good book and I’d highly recommend it. You just have to get into a cutthroat musical theatre mindspace.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A beautiful book for a beautiful career and life

An interesting,funny and engaging inside into the theater industry and a living legend's career. Patti LuPone is not only an incredible artist on stage and on camera but also an incredible narrator. An audiobook is not usually my favourite way of consuming books,but I enjoyed every second of this memoir.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

As it is

Patti tells it as it is, I found her stories fascinating I could'nt turn it off and when I did could'nt wait to be back for more. This is a must for anyone for anyone interested in the theatre Patti's account of her dealings with most of the worlds top writers,directors,producers,fellow artists and critics are all no hold's barred accounts. I throughly enjoyed them.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!