Say Everything by Ione Skye

 

In 1987, sixteen-year-old Ione Skye skyrocketed to fame with the breakout role of Diane Court, the dream girl who inspires John Cusack’s iconic boombox serenade in the hit Cameron Crowe film, Say Anything. While Skye seemed perfectly typecast as an aloof valedictorian, she was anything but.

Deserted by her dad, the folk singer legend Donovan, Skye dropped out of school in ninth grade and sought validation through her Hollywood career, working alongside iconic costars like Keanu Reeves, River Phoenix, Matthew Perry, John Cusack, and Robert Downey Jr. But like her sixties It Girl mom, Skye’s greatest weakness was musicians.

On the heels of a toxic relationship with Red Hot Chili Peppers’s frontman Anthony Kiedis, which began when she was just sixteen and he was twenty-four, the actress leapt into wedded bliss with her first great love, Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz.

But marriage was not the magical hall pass to adulthood Skye had imagined. Awakening to her bisexuality and desperately insecure, she risked her fairytale marriage for a string of affairs with gorgeous nineties “bad girls.” The dream marriage imploded, and Skye’s trust in herself and her future went with it.

Set against the backdrop of rock royalty compounds, supermodel cliques, and classic late-century films like River’s Edge, Gas Food Lodging, and Wayne’s World, Say Everything is a wild ride of Hollywood thrills as well as lyrical reflection on ambition, intimacy, and a messy, sexy, unconventional life. -Simon & Schuster

 

“Please don’t tell me if it turns out John Cusack is a jerk,” was what my good friend Ann-Marie said to me when we were shopping at Barnes & Noble.  Ione Skye is famous for her many film roles but perhaps most notable is her role as Diane Court opposite John Cusack as Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything (1989).  My friend Ann-Marie has been crushing on Cusack since the 80s and fortunately for her, Ione spills a lot of tea on her past relationships and people she’s worked with but at least according to Ione, Cusack is a nice guy. 

I didn’t know too much about Ione going into her memoir.  I of course knew her as Diane Court, but I also loved her in a little indie film, Gas Food Lodging (1992).  I just always had the sense that she was a very cool talented woman that I could be friends with and wanted to know more about her.  It  turns out I was right, and she is even cooler than I thought, her memoir is very honest and self-reflective not just about her accomplishments but also her faults and her complicated relationship with her father.  Her memoir reads just like you’re sitting down with a good friend for drinks and sharing your life with them - both the good and bad parts. 

I got my copy of Say Everything at Barnes & Noble.  You can pick up a copy there, or at your favorite local bookstore, library or online shop.  You can also visit the publisher's website linked above for more information.