King of the Sunset Strip: Hangin' with Mickey Cohen and the Hollywood Mob - Hardcover

Stevens, Steve; Lockwood, Craig

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1581825072 ISBN 13: 9781581825077

Publisher: Cumberland House Publishing, 2006

Synopsis

Who would have thought that an acting career that began as a teenage star in the Annette"" series on the ""The Mickey Mouse Club,"" Walt Disney's ""Zorro,"" ""The Roy Rogers Show,"" and ""That's My Mom"" would lead to the role of confidante and assistant to Southern California crime-boss Mickey Cohen? ""King of the Sunset Strip"" is a pistol-to-the-side-of-your-head Hollywood story. Beginning with the parties, boozing, and sex and the ""good-time"" macho whoring and gambling of the mob, the story covers the action in Sunset Boulevard penthouses, Beverly Hills mansions, Brentwood estates, and across state lines to Las Vegas. Steve Stevens takes readers down the palm-lined streets of Hollywood to meet film and entertainment giants like Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Louis Prima, Robert Mitchum, and many more.""

About this title

About the Author:

Steve Stevens has been in show business for more than fifty years. He has been an actor, producer, casting director, and for more than thirty years a Screen Actors Guild franchised talent agent. He is the author of So You Want to Be in Show Business.

Craig Lockwood is an award-winning columnist, correspondent, photographer, editor, and author. Both men lives in the Los Angeles area.

From Publishers Weekly:

Stevens traded Mickey Mouse for Mickey Cohen in 1959, after the mob mogul saw him play a "tuff guy" onscreen and sent a fan letter. Only 19, Stevens, who'd worked with Annette Funicello on The Mickey Mouse Club, was making the transition from child to adult actor, and under the tutelage of Cohen, he grew up fast in a world of guns, gambling, strippers and celebrities. Though the story is the familiar "innocent lured to the dark side by money, glamour and charisma" arc, Stevens and Lockwood's narrative chugs along after a slow start thanks to some snappy patter ("I was producing enough testosterone to make a major deposit in the Federal Sperm Bank") and the lure of the Hollywood mob-Ricky Nelson, Dean Martin and, of course, Frank Sinatra have cameos. The authors don't flinch from depicting the brutality Stevens endured at the hands of both Cohen and the cops, nor do they hesitate to bestow credit on the mob king when his men aid Stevens's father after a beating by thugs. Contrary to the title, however, this is Stevens's story. Cohen may have ruled the strip, but he's a supporting character in this memoir.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Cumberland House Publishing
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1581825072
• ISBN 13: 9781581825077
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 295