My Art and Life Among Athlete, Playboys, Bunnies and Provocateurs
LeRoy Neiman--arguably the world's most recognizable contemporary artist--broke the barrier between fine art and popular art during a career in which he created indelible images that helped define the twentieth century. But it is the life he's lived and the people he's known that make the memoir of this scrappy Depression-era kid who became a swashbuckling bon vivant with the famous mustache such a marvelous historical canvas.
Chronicler and confidant of Muhammad Ali, Neiman also traveled with Sinatra, cavorted with Dali and Warhol, watched afternoon soaps with Dizzy Gillespie, played in Sly Stallone's "Rocky" movies, exchanged quips with Nixon, smoked cigars with Castro, and experienced the September 5, 1972, terrorist attacks at the Munich Olympics alongside Peter Jennings, Howard Cosell, and Jim McKay. And then there's his half-century relationship with Hugh Hefner as principle artistic contributor to "Playboy "since its founding, setting up studios in London and Paris to cover his "Playboy "beat, "Man at His Leisure," and his creation of the Femlin, the iconic "Playboy" nymphette. And, still, there's so much more . . .
With his life's work, and now in "All Told," LeRoy Neiman has captured sports heroes, movie stars, presidents, dishwashers, jet-setters, jockeys, and more than a few Bunnies at the Playboy Mansion--a panoramic record of society like no other.
