This was a really hard read to listen to. Billy Dee is showing his age, and I really didn’t think he’d be narrating his own memoir when I learned of it at Motor City Comic Con last fall. But he did.

At MCCC he was very slow, and his handler? manager? guy who does talking for him? Filled in a lot of gaps, and Billy didn’t seem to be able to stay on track with what he started talking about in the panel we attended. He spoke in the same way he did in the panel while narrating his memoir. Normally this is my favorite way to consume memoirs because someone is telling me about their life, but this might be less painful if you read it with your eyes, or someone else reads it to you.

All that said, it was fascinating to hear about his upbringing, and how his ideas of what a romantic leading man is. His approach to his roles, his life, and especially his unconventional marriage to Teruko Nakagami, were all very interesting to hear from him.

If you are thinking this will be entirely about Star Wars and would be disappointed if it’s not, this is not the memoir for you. Or you can skip ahead to those parts if you really want to, but his approach to Lando was putting into play much of what he thought all roles should be, colorless. That’s not to say that he was denying the color of his skin, just that you don’t have to have a certain color skin to play any given character. I wish that Hollywood could have pulled their heads out of their asses and been ready for Billy when he was ready for them. I would have loved to see what he could have done with proper support from the studios.

Like with all memoirs of people of a certain age, this one again amazed me that he casually is talking about Donna, Lena, Jimmy, and James to then casually drop that he dated Donna Summer, knew Lena Horn, and was friends with James (Jimmy) Baldwin and had worked with James Earl Jones before Star Wars. I know that the stars are normal people, but it’s still mind blowing to me when they name drop their friends who are these iconic figures in history.

I would recommend this book, even if you only care about BDW as Lando Calrissian. He led a fascinating life.