the rock autobiography

Dwayne Johnson (I)

IMDbPro Starmeter 71 136

• Contact info
• 22 wins & 77 nominations

Rock On: The Life and Times of Dwayne Johnson

Photos 1346

• Mitch Buchannon
• Callum Drift
• Post-production
• Maui (voice)
• In Production
• Pre-production
• King Kamehameha
• In Development
• Raymond Gaines

• Rocky Maivia
• 292 episodes

• 159 episodes

• Hobbs (uncredited)

• Dwayne Johnson
• 37 episodes

• Krypto (voice)

• The Foundation (voice)

• John Hartley

• Bank Robber #2 (voice)

• Frank Wolff

• The Rock (voice)
• executive producer
• producer (rumored)

• 16 episodes

• 10 episodes
• producer (produced by, p.g.a.)
• producer (produced by, p.g.a)

• producer (produced by)

• 14 episodes

• created by (creator)
• In-development projects at IMDbPro

Personal details

• Dwayne 'The Rock' Johmsom
• 6′ 5″ (1.96 m)
• May 2 , 1972
• Hayward, California, USA
• Spouses Lauren Hashian August 18, 2019 - present (2 children)
• Children Tiana Johnson
• Parents Ata Johnson
• Relatives Peter Fanene Maivia (Grandparent)
• Other works Features in Wyclef Jean 's song/video "It Doesn't Matter".
• 1 Print Biography
• 3 Portrayals
• 10 Interviews
• 44 Articles
• 5 Pictorials
• 28 Magazine Cover Photos

Did you know

• Trivia Although he has lived in the United States for most of his life, he has Samoan citizenship as his mother is Samoan. He has often stated in interviews he is proud of his Samoan heritage and feels honored to be a Samoan.
• Quotes Finally...The Rock...has come back to [whatever city he's in at the time]
• Trademarks Wrestling finisher: The People's Elbow
• The People's Champion
• The Brahma Bull
• The Great One
• Salaries Black Adam ( 2022 ) $22,500,000 + producer fee
• How old is Dwayne Johnson?
• When was Dwayne Johnson born?
• Where was Dwayne Johnson born?

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Add demo reel with IMDbPro

How much have you seen?

Recently viewed

• World Biography
• Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson Biography

Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson Biography

May 2, 1972 • Hayward, California

Professional wrestler, actor

Although Dwayne Johnson is not a superhero out of a comic book, he does have an alter ego. By day he is a somewhat mild-mannered husband and father. But at night when he steps into the ring, he becomes the chair-flinging, wisecracking wrestler known as The Rock. In the late 1990s the charismatic Johnson, with his exotic good looks and signature eyebrow arch, helped make World Wrestling Smackdowns a part of must-see TV. By the mid-2000s, he had such a following that he was dividing his time between the mat and the big screen. Some observers felt that Hollywood had found its next big-budget action idol, and many predicted that Johnson would have no problem filling the shoes of America's favorite muscleman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was now busy in his new role as governor of California.

Third generation wrestler

Johnson is a third-generation wrestler. His mother's father, Peter "High Chief" Maivia, was a professional wrestler of Samoan descent whose heritage served as the basis for his ring persona. Samoa is an island nation located in the South Pacific, and Maivia played the part of an island native, wearing his hair long, wrestling barefoot, and sporting traditional tattoos over most of his body. While on the wrestling circuit he became acquainted with an up-and-coming African American wrestler named Rocky Johnson. During a visit with Maiva's family, Johnson met High Chief's daughter, Ata. The two eventually married, and on May 2, 1972, the couple had a son, whom they named Dwayne Douglas Johnson.

Johnson was born in Hayward, California, but he grew up all over the country, since the family moved around to accommodate Rocky Johnson's wrestling career. Because of the family's frequent moves, young Dwayne had a difficult time making friends. He was also teased by other children about his father's profession, and about his size—even as a youngster, Johnson was bigger than average. As a result, he had a quick temper, and as Johnson admitted to Samantha Miller of People, he was even arrested several times for fighting. "It was all youth and stupidity," he explained. In the mid-1980s, however, the Johnsons settled down long enough for Dwayne to begin attending Freedom High School in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where an interest in sports helped calm the young man down.

"My work, my goal, my life, it's like a treadmill. And there's no stop-button on my treadmill. Once I get on, I just keep going."

At Freedom High, Johnson boxed and ran track, but he pursued football with a vengeance, hoping to win a scholarship in order to become the first member of his family to go to college. He was a standout star, and by his senior year he was named to USA Today 's high school All-American team. Before graduation Johnson was recruited by several colleges, but he chose to head to Florida to attend the University of Miami, where he played defensive tackle. He soon became known for his talents on the gridiron, but was also known for his crazy antics. During one game against San Diego in 1992, millions of people watched on television as he raced around the field chasing the opponent's mascot, a man in a giant Aztec warrior costume.

Johnson's future in football looked bright until he suffered a back injury during his senior year. He was so depressed that he cut classes and his grade point average (GPA) dropped to a dangerously low 0.7. Not only was he sitting on the bench, he was also on academic probation. Johnson pulled himself together, thanks in part to his future wife, Dany Garcia, a business major he met while in Miami. Garcia encouraged him to hit the books, and in 1995 he graduated with a degree in criminology and a respectable 2.9 GPA.

Enter Rocky Maivia

Because of his injury, Johnson was not picked to play for the National Football League (NFL) during the 1995 draft, but he still pinned his hopes on a career in pro football. When he was offered a contract by the Calgary Stampeders, he signed on the dotted line and headed to Canada. Life in Canada was miserable. Johnson saw little field action and was paid less than $200 per week to be a practice-squad player. He rented a tiny, dingy apartment and slept on a mattress he found near a local dumpster. His salary left little room for food, so Johnson took to attending every Stampeder meeting, even though he didn't have to, because he knew sandwiches would be served. He was determined to stick it out, but in an abrupt move, Johnson was let go by the football franchise to make room for a former NFL player. "That was hard," he told Zondra Hughes of Ebony. "I was supposed to be reaping the fruits of my labor, and there I was in Canada having to start all over again."

Johnson returned to Florida where both his parents and Dany Garcia lived, and immediately approached his father with a proposal: he wanted to be trained as a wrestler. His decision was made partially out of necessity, but Johnson also had a real love of the sport. After all, he had seen his first wrestling match when he was three weeks old, and when he was six years old his father had taught him such basic moves as the headlock and the armlock. Rocky Johnson, however, had his doubts. He knew that the life of a wrestler was not an easy one and he wanted to spare his son the tough road he had walked. Rocky finally relented, and for the next few months kept the would-be sparrer on a grueling training schedule.

When he felt prepared enough, Johnson contacted a colleague of his grandfather's, who helped open the door for a tryout with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in Corpus Christi, Texas. Although promoters were impressed enough to sign a contract with him, Johnson still had to pay his initial dues by spending some time in Memphis, Tennessee, performing in the WWF second-tier system, the Unites States Wrestling Alliance. During the summer of 1996 Johnson wrestled in promotional matches using the name Flex Kavana, and earned about $40 per night. In August he was given his second professional tryout, this time pitted against a well-known wrestler named Owen Hart. He did so well that he was transferred to Connecticut where the WWF headquarters and training facility were located.

On November 16, 1996, just one year after hitting a low point in Canada, Johnson made his professional wrestling debut at Madison Square Garden in New York City. He performed under the name of Rocky Maivia, a nod to both his father and grandfather. The WWF event was called the Survivor's Series, and Johnson, as Rocky Maivia, was considered to be a "good guy" or, in wrestling terminology, a "babyface." His "bad guy" opponent, or the "heel" in the match, was Paul Levesque, more commonly known as Triple H.

The Rock is unveiled

Johnson quickly became a hit with wrestling crowds, and in February of 1997 he captured his first WWF championship, making him, at age twenty-four, the youngest wrestler to win a belt. But just a few months later Rocky was being booed during matches. Apparently the fickle audience members were becoming much more interested in rooting for the "bad guys," and in a business where image is everything, Johnson had some rethinking to do. In mid-1997, after suffering a knee injury, he took some time off to recuperate, to marry his longtime girlfriend Dany Garcia, and to strategize.

Wrestling in the late 1990s was not the world of wrestling Johnson's father had inhabited. In 1979 the regional federations that existed throughout the United States had been consolidated into a single organization known as the World Wrestling Federation, and by the mid-1980s pro wrestling had evolved from an athletic sport into a form of high-energy entertainment. Wrestlers now admitted that their moves were choreographed and that the outcomes of the matches were pre-determined. Wrestling had become big business, attracting millions of fans and earning millions of dollars for promoters and the main attractions, the wrestlers.

Johnson and WWF writers and producers worked long and hard to come up with just the right image for the handsome, six-foot-four-inch, 270-pound newcomer. What finally emerged was a character named The Rock, who would transform the world of wrestling. According to Johnson, who spoke with Sona Charaipotra of People, "The Rock is Dwayne Johnson with the volume turned all the way up." Wearing black boots, black briefs, and with a tattoo of a Brahma bull on his twenty-two-inch bicep, The Rock was touted as part of the Nation of Domination, a league of "bad boy" wrestlers. He also became a formidable force both inside and outside the ring, especially when he glared at opponents and the press with a menacing lift of his right eyebrow.

When The Rock was unveiled on August 11, 1997, in Jackson, Mississippi, the crowd went wild, and over the next several years fans stood in line to catch the next installment in his wrestling storyline. Producers pitted him against various characters in mock grudge matches, and The Rock won, then lost, then regained his federation championship several times. Along the way, Johnson became perhaps the most popular wrestler in the history of the sport. He was known as The People's Champion, and his signature eyebrow move even took on a name—The People's Eyebrow. In addition, The Rock became a merchandising gold mine. His image appeared on T-shirts, posters, and Halloween masks; and there were Rock action figures and video games. By the 2000s, according to Gillian Flynn of Entertainment Weekly, the WWF was bringing in $120 million in merchandise sales per year, thanks solely to Johnson.

Pins down the big screen

Johnson's appeal was not limited to wrestling fans, although he is credited with almost doubling the WWF's female fan base, thanks in large part to his movie-star good looks. He was so popular that in 2000, when he published his autobiography, The Rock Says, the book stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for an astonishing twenty weeks. Johnson drew record crowds at book signings, and began popping up on television, both to promote his book and to take on small acting roles. He made several appearances on the late-night comedy program Saturday Night Live, and was featured on such TV shows as DAG, Star Trek: Voyager, and That '70's Show. The next logical step was the big screen.

In 2001 Johnson appeared briefly in the summer blockbuster The Mummy Returns, for which he was paid, in Hollywood terms, a paltry $500,000. Although he was given only minutes of screen time, producers were impressed enough that they built a movie around Johnson's Mummy character, called The Scorpion King. The film, which was released in 2002, is an action-adventure movie set in ancient Egypt. Johnson plays Mathayus, a desert warrior who is determined to save his people from an evil conqueror named Memnon. If he succeeds, he will take his rightful place as the Scorpion King. Although the movie was definitely not high drama, considering that Johnson's character spent most of his time swinging a sword and slashing his enemies, the would-be actor took his role seriously. In fact, he worked closely with an acting coach throughout the shooting of the film.

When The Scorpion King hit theaters in April of 2002, it made more than $36 million during its opening weekend. Critics discussed the digitized action sequences and compared the movie to The Mummy, but most focused on Johnson and his million-dollar performance ($5 million, to be exact). In various reviews he was called a big-screen champ and the new face of Hollywood action. As Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly put it, "The Rock commands the screen as naturally as he does the ring."

The most electrifying man in sports

By the mid-2000s, Johnson was a full-fledged movie star. In 2004 he made his dramatic debut in Walking Tall, playing Chris Vaughn, a club-wielding sheriff who battles drug dealers and con artists who threaten to take over his peaceful Washington town. There were also several other movies in the pipeline, including two comedies, Be Cool (2004), a sequel to the 1995 hit Get Shorty, and Instant Karma, slated to open in 2005.

Although busy with his many film roles, Johnson still managed to maintain his hectic wrestling schedule. This meant that between filming he was still out on the road, performing and promoting for more than two hundred days a year. Such a demanding schedule was hard on family life, especially considering that Johnson and Dany had their first child, daughter Simone Alexandra, in 2001. Even on the road, however, Johnson claims that he finds the time to call Dany every day, and he still retains close ties to his mother. As Hughes commented, "The Rock is a mama's boy." But The Rock is also a very determined man who has pumped-up plans for the future. As he told Hughes, "I want to do more in the WWF. I want to do more in the movie industry. Ultimately, I want to be the most electrifying man in sports entertainment, period."

For More Information

Johnson, Dwayne, with Joe Layden. The Rock Says … The Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment. New York: Regan Books, 2000.

Periodicals

Charaipotra, Sona. "The Rock Sounds Off." People (April 19, 2004): p. 30.

Flynn, Gillian. "Rock of Ages: Wrestler, Actor, Action Hero?" Entertainment Weekly (May 3, 2002): pp. 10–12.

Gleiberman, Owen. "Rock Formation: The Scorpion King, a Bare-Bones Prequel to the Mummy Movies, Gives The Rock a Solid Step toward Stardom." Entertainment Weekly (April 26, 2003): pp. 117–118.

Gostin, Nicki. "Newsmakers: Interview with The Rock." Newsweek (April 12, 2004): p. 71.

Hughes, Zondra. "The Rock Talks about Race, Wrestling, and Women." Ebony (July 2001): p. 32.

Leyner, Mark. "The Rock is an Onion." Time (April 29, 2002): p. 81.

Miller, Samantha. "Bigger, Boulder: Scorpion King's The Rock, a.k.a. Dwayne Johnson, Wrestles with Fatherhood, Fame—and Flab?." People (May 6, 2002): pp. 109+.

The Rock Official Web site. http://www.therock.com (accessed on July 6, 2004).

User Contributions:

Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic:.

• pop Culture
• Facebook Navigation Icon
• Twitter Navigation Icon
• WhatsApp icon
• Instagram Navigation Icon
• Youtube Navigation Icon
• Snapchat Navigation Icon
• TikTok Navigation Icon
• pigeons & planes
• newsletters
• Youtube logo nav bar 0 youtube
• Instagram Navigation Icon instagram
• Twitter Navigation Icon x
• Facebook logo facebook
• TikTok Navigation Icon tiktok
• Snapchat Navigation Icon snapchat
• Apple logo apple news
• Flipboard logo nav bar 1 flipboard
• Instagram Navigation Icon google news
• WhatsApp icon whatsapp
• RSS feed icon rss feed

Complex Global

• united states
• united kingdom
• netherlands
• philippines
• complex chinese

Work with us

terms of use

privacy policy

manage preferences

california privacy

public notice

accessibility statement

COMPLEX participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means COMPLEX gets paid commissions on purchases made through our links to retailer sites. Our editorial content is not influenced by any commissions we receive.

© Complex Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Complex.com is a part of

What We Learned from Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's 2000 Autobiography 'The Rock Says...'

Can you smell what The Rock is, er, writing....

There are certain books that become defining texts. The Bible. Catcher In The Rye . 50 Shades Of Grey . And to this list, I believe we should add Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson ’s 2000 autobiography The Rock Says .  Because, come on, The Rock is one of the greatest people to have ever lived. 

Since it came out in 2000, The Rock Says doesn’t cover The Rock’s Hollywood career. We don’t get to find out about hanging out with Vin Diesel, Rock-Bottoming Jason Statham, or miming to Taylor Swift on that gameshow. It doesn’t even cover his era defining Wrestlemania match against Hulk Hogan. But it should give us an insight to the man behind the legend. His Motorcycle Diaries , if you will. Oh, and about a third of it is written in character, in the third person.

Thing is, The Rock’s story isn’t actually that interesting. A lot of wrestlers, from Ric Flair to Daniel Bryan, had really interesting journeys to stardom. The Rock however, got into wrestling because his dad was former WWF tag team champion Rocky Johnson, and his granddad was Samoan grappling legend ‘High Chief’ Peter Maivia. And he was fast-tracked to the top.  He’s kind of the Miley Cyrus of wrestling.

So what tales does the book spin? We start out with The Rock growing up in Hawaii, and it’s standard anodyne biographical stuff. We find out that his “mom was the real rock of the family”, and he shares a genuinely heart-warming anecdote about his granddad beating up some guys. Key quotes from opening chapter: “There is nothing The Rock finds more offensive than racism… but more on that later”. When he was eight, he did a piledriver on one of his friends and made him cry. 

Chapter two though. It’s entitled “The People’s Puberty”. Yeah, really. Want to hear the story of how The Rock lost his virginity? “When it came to fighting and fornicating, I was way ahead of the curve”. The Rock tells us that he’s “always been attracted to older women, often they reciprocated.” Rocky popped his cherry when he was just 14, to a high school senior named Maria. He convinced her he was “a hunka-hunka burnin’ love,” and they did it for the first time out in the open at a public park. And then a cop car came and told them to stop half way through.

“Not only did I attract the attention of older women. I seemed to get a rise out of men. Older boys, actually.” That’s how the next chapter begins. Teenage Dwayne got beaten up by a load of older kids. Which is crazy. What kind of idiots try and start a fight with The Rock? Did they never watch Smackdown in the early 00s? Or Fast 6? They get the jump on him, because he’s a still young kid, but then young Dwayne’s pro-wrestler dad went and sorted them out.

Anyway, The Rock then went to college in Miami to play football. Injury ravaged his college football career, but he once get into a fight with the San Diego Aztecs mascot (a dude dressed as Aztec warrior) during a Miami Hurricanes game, and chased him along the sidelines. Sadly, the WWE never picked up on that storyline, and have the mascot do a run in on one of his matches.

The Rock dreamed of making to the NFL, but things never quite worked out. Instead, he ended up in Canadian Football League. He was paid so little for the Calgary Stampeders that he had to sleep on a piss-stained second-hand hotel mattress, and steal sandwiches. Things were not working out the way The Rock planned, so he headed back to the US, and decided to become a professional wrestler. With his dad’s connections in the business, he quickly got a try-out with the WWE and had his first match not in a dive bar or a sparsely attend high-school gym, but at a big TV taping . The Rock would grasp this opportunity and go on to be both the greatest wrestler and greatest actor of all time, so I don’t really want to gripe about nepotism, but it doesn’t really give the book much of a “triumph over adversity” narrative.

He would wrestle his try-out in trunks borrowed off a WCW veteran called Meng, who is describes as sweet and kind-hearted, but is best known for once biting a guy’s nose off in an airport. It’s at this point the book is interrupted by a insert of colour photos, including The Rock as an eight year old with an incredible afro, hanging with Andre The Giant and “Classy” Freddie Blassie. Best of all though is a generic modern day press photo, with the brilliant caption “The Rock filming his Chef Boyardee commercial on South Beach, Florida”.

Eventually, Dwayne Johnson develops the arrogant bad guy persona of “The Rock,” which would make him a superstar in the WWE. It’s at this point the book’s font changes, and The Rock starts narrating the book in third person, as his wrestling character. The Rock did this. The Rock did that. It’s supposed to be like a wrestling promo, but as charismatic as The Rock is talking, it’s nigh-on unreadable written down. 

We’ve still got a third of the book to go, and we’re basically at the (then) present day. It flips between those unreadable third person, with normal chapters about Dwayne Johnson doing things. A day in the life of The Rock tells us that The Rock spends 9.00pm to 9.15pm “getting pumped.” There are photos of him with Boyz II Men and Shaq. He gets annoyed about the young son of a maid sneaking into his hotel room. The book does end with a dramatic finisher like The People’s Elbow, but with a whimper.

So yeah, it’s pretty terrible. It’s also really badly formatted, with about four different fonts used, and grainy black and white photos (in the chapter about the late, great Owen Hart, a miniature Rock is photoshopped into Owen’s hands, for some reason). The thing is I genuinely love The Rock. The Rock is amazing. Basically, what happened was that in 1999, the WWE published Mick Foley’s autobiography and it was shock bestseller (it’s also shockingly good, and probably the only book by a wrestler a normal person ever needs to read). Because of that book’s success, the WWE quickly churned ghostwritten autobiographies of their top stars, regardless whether they’d done anything interesting in their lives yet. If The Rock wrote a book now, it could be genuinely interesting. The guy is a legit pop culture icon, and worthy of a biography. Even more so if he waited another 15 years. But this book is not good, y’all.

Still, there’s a chapter actually called “The People’s Puberty”. That’s gotta be worth something.

SHARE THIS STORY

Sign up for the

Complex Newsletter

Your leading source for what’s now and what’s next in Music, Style, Sports, and Pop Culture.

By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you’re agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our

Latest in Pop Culture

| BY JOSE MARTINEZ

Korean YouTuber Arrested After Allegedly Stabbing Rival Streamer to Death

| BY JAELANI TURNER-WILLIAMS

Kris Jenner Tells Her Family She Has a Tumor in Emotional 'The Kardashians' Clip

| BY JACOB KRAMER

Summer 2024 Movie Preview: The Most Anticipated Films of the Summer

Justin and Hailey Bieber Announce Pregnancy

| BY JOE PRICE

Cuba Gooding Jr. Recalls Seeing 2Pac the Day He Was Murdered

| BY HOLLY HOWE

The Most Instagrammable Pavilions At This Year’s Venice Biennale

| BY TRACE WILLIAM COWEN

Drake Highlights Contemplative Clip From Netflix’s 'A Man in Full' Amid Ongoing Kendrick Lamar Beef Talk

'Star Wars' Actor Ahmed Best Opens Up About Jar Jar Binks Hate 25 Years Later: 'My Career Began and Ended'

Bette Midler Recalls Lindsay Lohan's 'Chaotic' Exit From Her Sitcom After Shooting Pilot

Cuba Gooding Jr. Responds to Lawsuit Against Diddy That Alleges He Groped Man: 'I Don't Know P. Diddy's Life'

• Biographies & Memoirs
• Arts & Literature

Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime Try Prime and start saving today with fast, free delivery

Amazon Prime includes:

Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.

• Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
• Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
• Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
• A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
• Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
• Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access

Important:  Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.

Buy new: .savingPriceOverride { color:#CC0C39!important; font-weight: 300!important; } .reinventMobileHeaderPrice { font-weight: 400; } #apex_offerDisplay_mobile_feature_div .reinventPriceSavingsPercentageMargin, #apex_offerDisplay_mobile_feature_div .reinventPricePriceToPayMargin { margin-right: 4px; } $9.99 $ 9 . 99 FREE delivery Thursday, May 16 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35 Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com

Return this item for free.

Free returns are available for the shipping address you chose. You can return the item for any reason in new and unused condition: no shipping charges

• Go to your orders and start the return
• Select the return method

Save with Used - Good .savingPriceOverride { color:#CC0C39!important; font-weight: 300!important; } .reinventMobileHeaderPrice { font-weight: 400; } #apex_offerDisplay_mobile_feature_div .reinventPriceSavingsPercentageMargin, #apex_offerDisplay_mobile_feature_div .reinventPricePriceToPayMargin { margin-right: 4px; } $8.99 $ 8 . 99 FREE delivery Friday, May 17 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35 Ships from: Amazon Sold by: 2nd Life Books

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Follow the author

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson: The Life, Lessons & Rules for Success Paperback – November 22, 2018

Purchase options and add-ons

If you’re looking to be inspired by someone who has truly made the most of life’s opportunities, then read this remarkable story of one of today’s most well-known celebrities. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is best known as a former professional wrestler that later came to dominate Hollywood with a series of blockbuster movies. His powerful on-screen presence and strong physique give the impression that he effortlessly reached global success, yet Dwayne faced a series of challenges and setbacks as he rose to the top. From being homeless as a child and later having little more than $7 in his pocket to facing the reality that his dream career in football was over, Dwayne’s life hasn’t always been a linear track of successes. However, rather than let this bring him down, he never gave up and pushed himself to be the best he could in everything he applied himself to. If you want to discover what’s the story behind Dwayne’s extraordinary success, this book takes you on a journey from his childhood to how he became one of Hollywood’s most well-known action figures. Strip away the glitz and the glamor and you find a remarkable story of persistence, commitment, and deeply ingrained work ethics that kept Dwayne moving forward to where he is today. If you want proof that success is rarely served on a silver platter and the majority of successful people have to sweat blood and tears to reach their goals, then Dwayne’s life story will give you exactly that. In this book of ‘ Dwayne Johnson: The Life, Lessons & Rules of Success ’, you will find:

• The story of Dwayne’s childhood and how it shaped the strong core values he lives by today.
• Why his football dreams came to an end and how he became one of WWE’s greatest wrestlers.
• How he moved into Hollywood and became a successful A-list actor - even without any acting background, experience, or qualifications.
• The main lessons he learned throughout his life.
• Dwayne’s 10 rules of success and how you can apply them too.

Are you ready to take a journey through life in the shoes of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson? Then click the ‘ Buy Now ’ button and let’s get started.

• Print length 59 pages
• Language English
• Publication date November 22, 2018
• Dimensions 6 x 0.15 x 9 inches
• ISBN-10 1790217229
• ISBN-13 978-1790217229
• See all details

Frequently bought together

Similar items that may deliver to you quickly

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Independently published (November 22, 2018)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 59 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1790217229
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1790217229
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.52 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.15 x 9 inches
• #1,852 in Actor & Entertainer Biographies
• #3,068 in Success Self-Help

About the author

Influential individuals.

At Influential Individuals, we focus on learning from the world's elite. The greatest moments arise on the path to success and through studying these journeys; it can help us better walk our own path. We take you through the successes, failures and learnable moments of these people providing the key principles to their success that we can incorporate into our own lives for big results.

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

Reviews with images

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

• Amazon Newsletter
• About Amazon
• Accessibility
• Sustainability
• Press Center
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell on Amazon
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Supply to Amazon
• Protect & Build Your Brand
• Become an Affiliate
• Become a Delivery Driver
• Start a Package Delivery Business
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Become an Amazon Hub Partner
• › See More Ways to Make Money
• Amazon Visa
• Amazon Store Card
• Amazon Secured Card
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Credit Card Marketplace
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Amazon Prime
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices
• Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

How The Rock went from failed football player to one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood

• Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's trajectory is a true rags to riches story.
• He was dead broke after failing to make it in the NFL before becoming a WWE star.
• Today, he's one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood and heads a successful production company.

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has been on an incredible run of late, making him one of the most bankable stars ever.

Franchise successes like "Fast and the Furious" and "Jumanji" are just the latest hits that have turned him into not just one of the most recognizable actors in Hollywood but one of its highest-paid.

And that's only going to continue with his foray into the superhero world with his upcoming "Black Adam" project for DC Comics and teaming with Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot in the anticipated Netflix action movie "Red Notice."

But first, there's Disney's "Jungle Cruise (opening Friday in theaters and on Disney Plus), in which he teams with Emily Blunt for this latest adaptation of the classic Disney ride.

But none of this success happened overnight. Here we look back on the incredible career of "The Rock," from a failed pro football run, to becoming a WWE superstar, and then to bona fide movie stardom.

Carrie Wittmer, Frank Pallotta, and Mallory Schlossberg contributed to an earlier version of this story.

Dwayne Johnson was born on May 2, 1972, in Hayward, California.

Source: Biography

Wrestling is in Johnson's blood. His father, Rocky "Soul Man" Johnson, was a member of the first African-American tag-team champions, and his grandfather Peter Maivia was one of the first Samoan wrestlers.

Source: YouTube

Johnson didn't go straight to wrestling. His first sport was football. After being a star in high school, he played in college for the Miami Hurricanes. Over his tenure at the school, Johnson started just once but appeared in 39 games and had 77 tackles. He was a part of the 1991 national championship team.

Source: ESPN

The University of Miami was also where he met his first wife, Dany Garcia. The two separated after 10 years but have stayed close. "Since our divorce, we've become pretty good at working together, and we are also raising our beautiful 11-year-old daughter, Simone," Johnson has said.

Source: Huffington Post

If it wasn't for serious injuries to both his shoulders and back, Johnson could have perhaps continued his football career in the NFL.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter  

Instead, he ended up playing in the Canadian Football League, making just $250 a week and eventually getting cut. "The dreams I had, they're dashed," he recalled later. "There is no more football. My relationship was crushed. That was my absolute worst time."

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

This 2011 tweet from Johnson looking back on his life in the mid 1990s sums things up:

—Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) December 14, 2011

Johnson stepped into the family business of wrestling. He debuted on TV at the 1996 Survivor Series. His wrestling name was originally "Rocky Maivia," which combined the names of his father and grandfather.

The first third-generation wrestler in WWE history, Johnson is considered by many to be one of the greatest to ever enter the ring.

Source:  WWE ,  Bleacher Report

During his many years at the WWE, Johnson was known for signature moves like "The People's Elbow" and "The Rock Bottom" as well as his talent for interviews to pump up the crowd.

Johnson proved his prowess in the ring by winning the WWE heavyweight title six times and securing the tag-team title five times.

His popularity as a wrestler put Johnson on Hollywood's radar. This included getting a call from New York about hosting "Saturday Night Live." After he was asked to host, Johnson says, "I fell out of my chair."

Source: YouTube ,  YouTube

The wrestler's stint on "SNL" (as seen below — he's playing the monkey-human hybrid Papa Peepers) was a ratings success. Most importantly, the gig showed Hollywood that Johnson wasn't just another wrestler — he could really act.

Johnson made his feature-film debut in 2001's "The Mummy Returns," playing a villainous ruler. He reprised the role in "The Scorpion King" for which made $5.5 million, the most any actor has made for a first leading role.

Source: MTV

Despite the large paycheck, it wasn't until "The Rundown" in 2003 that people began to see Johnson as a legitimate action hero. "The Rock has a flair for action and comedy," Rolling Stone wrote. "He's a real movie star."

Source: Rolling Stone

As Johnson's film career began to take off, he dropped "The Rock" from his name. "'The Rock' was a name, a character I created in TV," he said. "When I made the transition into film, I knew eventually I was going to be billed as my given name."

Source:  Los Angeles Times

He showed his range by acting in family films like 2007's "The Game Plan" and comedies like "The Other Guys." "I felt there were bigger and better opportunities," Johnson said. "I also felt there was franchise potential, hopefully, multiple franchises in every genre — whether drama or comedy or action-comedy."

After years of finding his footing in Hollywood, Johnson finally hit his stride when he appeared in the fifth installment of the popular "Fast and the Furious" series, 2011's "Fast Five," alongside Vin Diesel. "I've known Vin for a long time and we've always talked about doing something together," Johnson said. "This felt like the right opportunity to create a formidable adversary for him."

Source: Screen Rant

"Fast 5" went on to make $676 million worldwide. Johnson appeared in 2013's sequel "Fast & Furious 6" and in 2015's "Furious 7," which made an astounding $1.5 billion worldwide.

Source: Box Office Mojo

Throughout Johnson's career, the one thing separating him from many is his work ethic. The actor put on "12 to 15 pounds of muscle" for 2013's "Pain and Gain." Between himself and costar Mark Wahlberg, the actors were eating 17 meals a day.

Source: Yahoo  

In an interview with Muscle and Fitness magazine, Johnson said his diet contained seven meals a day — four of which consisted of cod.

Source: Muscle and Fitness

Even though Johnson's acting career was going strong, he has returned to the ring for events like Wrestlemania and Royal Rumble over the years. "I'm back, not for money, not because I like being on the road, but because I love the business," he said.

Source:  Huffington Post

Hits like 2015's "San Andreas" and "Central Intelligence" starring opposite Kevin Hart the following year proved Johnson's star status had staying power.

Then he went and got into the Disney business with the hit "Moana," in which he plays demigod Maui. It was another box office sensation.

Johnson also jumped into the TV realm. In the HBO series "Ballers," he plays a former pro football player turned financial manager and attempts to persuade current stars to hire him. The series, which Johnson was also a producer on, ran for five seasons.

In 2017, Johnson joined the "Fast" family once more for "The Fate of the Furious." It was another hit, scoring over $1 billion at the worldwide box office ...

But would mark the final time Johnson and Vin Diesel would share the screen together. Friction between the two on set reportedly led to the split.

Source: Page Six

Johnson teamed with Jason Statham for the 2019 "Fast" spin-off "Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw," but the likelihood of him coming back to the franchise is slim. He recently said, "I wish them the best of luck."

Source: Insider

Johnson hardly has a lack of franchises to go to. His involvement in the relaunch of the "Jumanji" franchise with 2017's "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" and 2019's "Jumanji: The Next Level" proved even decades-old IP's can be profitable with his name attached.

Next, he will launch the superhero chapter of his career, as he recently wrapped on shooting the much anticipated "Black Adam."

Johnson wrote in a July Instagram post that the conditioning and diet to play the DC Comics superhero has been the "hardest of my career."

A post shared by therock (@therock)

Johnson is also finding success as a producer. With his Seven Bucks Productions, which he co-founded with Dany Garcia, he's been behind everything from NBC's "The Titan Games" to the 2019 indie hit "Fighting with My Family," which featured a breakout performance by Florence Pugh.

He's also a producer behind the NBC series, "Young Rock," which premiered in 2021. It's based on his life and has been renewed for a second season.

Source: Deadline

Johnson topped Forbes' highest-paid actor list in 2018 and 2019. Taking in $89.4 million and $87.5 million, respectively.

Source: Business Insider

Johnson has also become an entrepreneur with his own energy drink, ZOA, and he's one of the latest celebrities to have his own liquor brand with Teremana Tequila.

With all of this success and popularity, some think he would make for a great president. "it'd be my honor," he said when it was brought up to him..

Johnson will next be seen in the Disney action movie, "Jungle Cruise." It also stars Emily Blunt and will be available in theaters and on Disney Plus.

In November, Johnson stars opposite Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot for the Netflix action thriller "Red Notice."

• Main content

The Rock Dwayne Johnson

By a fan for fans, dwayne johnson books.

My favorite Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson books that are available on Amazon. I love to read autobiographies like The Rock Says… and other wrestling memoirs.

The Rock Says… is an awesome read and addition to any book collectors library. Even though it was published in 2000, it still gives insight into Dwayne’s desire, positive attitude and work ethic to be the best at everything you do in life. You’ll learn about his childhood to stealing piss stained motel bed mattresses to making it on the biggest stage of pro wrestling.

Other Awesome Wrestling Books

I have to tell you about a few other wrestling books that are must reads. Jim Ross’s book Slobberknocker  details his 50 years in the “wrastlin’ business.” It just came out last month and I bought it immediately and couldn’t put it down once I started reading it.

And if your the ultimate pro wrestling fan, you must have Mick Foley’s Have a Nice Day.  He hand wrote the book himself on spiral notebooks and talks about his youth, his love for wrestling, having a supermodel wife and losing part of his ear in a match in Japan.

Copyright @ 2018 TheRockGear.com

Filed under:

A People’s History of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson

The rise and fall (and rise?) of a man who loves to cook

Share this story

• Share this on Facebook
• Share this on Reddit
• Share All sharing options

Share All sharing options for: A People’s History of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson

Movie stars at the top of their game can often feel invincible, but there was something about Dwayne Johnson’s 2000s climb from wrestler to bankable Hollywood star that seemed uniquely bulletproof. Possessing an endless supply of charm and an aggressive careerist streak, “The Rock” seemed to will his way to the top of the wrestling world and then the box office, managing the tricky maneuver of being ever-present — on the big screen, in random TV appearances, on Instagram — yet not suffocating.

That era, impossibly, seems to be over. Johnson remains busy, but smelling what The Rock is cooking has never been more difficult. These days, Johnson is more likely to make headlines for publicity missteps and alleged scandals — like speculation over a rightward political turn , or behind-the-scenes drama over how his behavior may have contributed to delays and overspending on Red One , his forthcoming Prime Video Christmas movie with Chris Evans.

For the first time in a long time, public opinion might be shifting against Johnson, as he risks becoming the one thing he has carefully avoided his entire career: unlikable. What happened?

Presented here in brief is a people’s history of the rise and fall of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, one written while fully aware that The Rock may rise once more. Only time will tell which version of the man we’ll get next.

2001: Out of the ring, into the box (office)

After duking it out for five years as a face and heel in WWE (then the WWF), and a handful of TV appearances in Star Trek: Voyager and That ’70s Show , The Rock was ready to make his feature debut. Dwayne Johnson’s role as the Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns was much publicized but ultimately a bit of a letdown; he only appeared in the film’s prologue and then again as a CG monstrosity that was hilarious for a long time and might have looped back around to become terrifying. The silver lining: You can’t let down anyone who wasn’t pumped to begin with. Less of an upside: his starring role in 2002’s Mummy spinoff The Scorpion King .

2003: Upon this Rock

Director Peter Berg’s The Rundown is a fascinating movie to consider 20 years later for a lot of reasons, from its still-impressive action set-pieces to its now-rare action-adventure flavor, but for the purposes of this timeline, it’s the first movie that made audiences sit up and consider that there might be more to Dwayne Johnson than The Rock. Like a lot of early-career wrestlers-turned-actors, Johnson had spent a lot of time up to this point simply playing a Big Man, and he’d do plenty more of that in the years to come. But The Rundown lets him flesh out a character : a reluctant bounty hunter who hates guns and aspires to open a restaurant, and is forced to retrieve the most annoying man on Earth (Sean William Scott) from the clutches of a ruthless miner (Christopher Walken) in Brazil.

A box-office flop, The Rundown mostly served to open creative doors for Johnson, giving him the chance to take on meatier action roles like Walking Tall and weirder small parts in movies like Southland Tales . This is arguably the start of the most interesting phase of his career, the moment he showed the world that he had the juice to do all sorts of things outside the ring.

2007: Call him Dwayne

While his 2003-2007 run — which also included everyone’s favorite video game movie, Doom — proved The Rock could cook on a movie set, he was not yet reliably starring in box office hits. A shift in strategy was necessary to be a king at the level of his WWE career. A wrestler becoming an aspiring action star wouldn’t turn heads, but one who could charm in family films just as easily? That’s a stepping stone to four-quadrant appeal. 2007’s The Game Plan , about a star quarterback who reconnects with the daughter he didn’t know he had, was the start of that shift, one where he would fully abandon his ring name to strike out solely as Dwayne Johnson in movie credits.

It’s easy to consider this next stretch Johnson’s lost years, as he cast about in family-friendly fare like Race to Witch Mountain and Tooth Fairy . This, however, would be crucial in widening his box office appeal — and Vin Diesel’s 2005 comedy The Pacifier made family films for action stars a less risky bet — but truly interesting roles for Johnson were few and far between during this period, with the lean-and-mean revenge movie Faster and a brief but memorable appearance in The Other Guys being notable exceptions.

2011: Franchise Viagra

It’s still incredible how Johnson explodes into the Fast and Furious series in Fast Five . He doesn’t single-handedly turn the directionless franchise around, but he does become a vital part of the Fast Formula over the next few years — so much so that his temporary exit from the franchise saps its seemingly unstoppable energy. This is also the movie that would complete Johnson’s ascendance to box office king, earning him the industry nickname of “ Franchise Viagra ” for his knack for giving long-in-the-tooth series a shot in the arm. (He would later slow jam about this moniker in a 2015 SNL monologue.)

Johnson would spend the next decade effectively invincible, but the kinds of characters he would play would start to dramatically contract.

2013: The short-lived auteur

Michael Bay’s absurd crime caper Pain & Gain might not be the ceiling for Johnson’s growth as an actor, but it’s the last time he reaches for artistic merit. As Paul Doyle, a born-again Christian struggling with a coke addiction, Johnson brings a manic comic energy to Bay’s chronicle of gym-rats-turned-criminals. It’s the sort of role that reminds viewers of the potential shown off 10 years earlier in The Rundown . Anyone looking for more of that would have to turn their attention to the small screen for his tenure on HBO’s Ballers .

2016: The Candy Ass Saga begins

In the mid-2010s, Johnson is in empire-building mode. He’s having a second, more successful run at family films as the voice of Maui in Moana ; starring in one-off actioners like San Andreas and Skyscraper ; and lending his likability to comedies like Central Intelligence . But as any former wrestler knows, real heroes are made by the quality of their enemies, and for this, Johnson set his sights on his Fast & Furious co-star Vin Diesel.

A stray Instagram post from Johnson calling one of his male co-stars a “candy ass” ignites weeks of speculation over trouble in turbocharged paradise, as onlookers wonder who said candy ass might be. This ultimately results in actual franchise trouble, as Johnson departs the series after Furious 7 to star in the spinoff Hobbs & Shaw with Jason Statham — notably not a candy ass — and turns his energy elsewhere until the post-credits scene of Fast X . For reasons we’ll get to.

2017: Dwayne Johnson for president

A background joke for a couple of years at this point becomes a GQ magazine cover in the early days of the Trump presidency: Dwayne Johnson, POTUS . The seriousness of the idea doesn’t really matter here. Johnson is a born showman, and The Man Who Should Run for President was as good a ring name as any. For his part, Johnson doesn’t lean too hard into the idea, seeming to recognize that articulating policy runs the risk of alienating people — the one thing Dwayne Johnson does not want to do. “I think that’s a real possibility,” journalist Caity Weaver recorded him saying “solemnly.” Beyond continuing to tease this “possibility,” Johnson kind of leaves it at that whenever the Oval Office comes up.

What matters about this is that the moment had found a Rock to rest on: a resolutely centrist hunk of charisma with a megawatt smile and a commitment to never being visibly unlikable. In the hyper-polarized Trump era, Dwayne Johnson found his best role: The Man We Could All Agree On. (Interesting bit of trivia: The sitcom Young Rock would use a Dwayne Johnson presidential run as a frame story for its narrative.)

But times change, and left, right, and center all change with them. Rocks, unfortunately, are famously not flexible.

2022: The hierarchy of power in the Dwayne Johnson universe

Dwayne Johnson’s downward slide starts gradually. As the COVID-19 pandemic throws everyone’s life into chaos, Johnson’s talent for being an affable hitmaker can’t find a foothold. His Netflix action movie Red Notice doesn’t move the needle in a year when everyone is launching a streaming service and each one is looking for a hit. His TV series Young Rock makes little to no impression. And Ballers , Elizabeth Warren’s favorite show , has just wrapped. Times are tough, and even Johnson needs a win.

What makes Black Adam such a definitive turning point for Johnson isn’t simply that it was a bad movie . The quality didn’t help , sure, but the bigger blow was clout. Johnson had made it his mission to wrest control over a corner of the struggling DC movie universe post-Snyder Cut , to stake his reputation as a hitmaker on delivering a sensational movie that he would oversee personally. The catchphrase “the hierarchy of power in the DC Universe is about to change” didn’t go viral simply because it was awkward and belabored, but because Johnson seemed like he meant it.

He was right, though. The hierarchy did change. Just not the way he wanted it to.

2024: The final boss of wrestling

It’s ironic that, in returning to his ring name for a saga that would climax with April’s WrestleMania 40, The Rock would be dubbed The Final Boss of Wrestling. Once again, he was a heel — hearkening back to his late-’90s Attitude Era ascent to popularity. In some ways, this was a retreat to safety: WWE was the only place he could definitely make a huge splash while he licked his box office wounds and began to rebuild.

As the ultimate heel, the man once again calling himself “The Rock” could win with a loss, joining defending champion Roman Reigns (who would ultimately fall to Cody Rhodes), but haunting every promo as a boogeyman that wrestling fans (and crucially, The Rock fans) would be electrified to see. How well it worked remains to be seen — fan demand notoriously caused WWE to shift plans from a Rock-centric championship to one squarely focused on Reigns and Rhodes, with Johnson playing a supporting role.

Heel turns don’t necessarily work the same way outside of the ring. (There’s a Batman movie quote about this.) But if anyone could make a pivot to being The Guy Everyone Loves to Hate, it’s Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

Beyond: A24 Rock?

If Johnson’s return to the ring feels like a retreat to safety, his upcoming movie slate underlines it. His next projects are dominated by sequels: Moana 2 (and the Moana live-action remake ), Fast X Part 2 , Red Notice 2 , Jungle Cruise 2 , San Andreas 2 — the man is cashing the many franchise checks he wrote in his boom years. It’s a nice cushion, but it’s not all guaranteed to happen; the Moana films, Red One , and Fast X Part 2 are the only ones far enough along to have release windows between now and 2026.

One notable exception is The Smashing Machine , the A24-produced solo directorial debut from Benny Safdie. The film, about real-life UFC champion Mark Kerr and his relationship with his wife, Dawn (rumored to be played by Emily Blunt), seems like a tentative step forward for Johnson’s career. If it’s a critical and box office darling — two wins that Johnson has rarely managed to align in the same film — it might herald the start of a new phase of his career, one where he commits more seriously to buzzier, more prestigious films in between his franchise mainstays. It worked for Adam Sandler .

Dwayne Johnson became a movie star during a time where conventional wisdom held that no new movie stars were being minted, and franchises were king. He got around that by becoming a franchise himself, sometimes with an intellectual property attached, but none bigger than the Dwayne Johnson Brand. But franchises have peaks and valleys, and sometimes they crash and burn. To avoid that, Johnson might have to give up on being a brand, and finally become an actor.

Loading comments...

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson and His Impressive Wrestling Family Tree

The WWE champion turned Hollywood leading man is just one of many relatives who used the ring as a springboard to stardom.

As the popular wrestling personality "The Rock," Johnson famously feuded with wrestler Steve Austin and won the WWE Heavyweight title numerous times. His success in the ring eventually enabled him to transition to Hollywood action hero, but he's not the only one in his family to rise to WWE fame. The first third-generation Superstar in WWE history, Johnson is a member of a sprawling family of grapplers that includes numerous uncles and cousins and even his oldest daughter, Simone . Here are a few of the many relatives who have thrived in the arena of scripted combat, colorful costumes and outlandish stage personas:

'High Chief' Peter Maivia

The dynasty started with the tenure of Johnson's American Samoa-born grandfather, who began wrestling in the 1960s as Prince Peter Maivia before settling in as the " High Chief ." Showcasing his eye-catching tribal tattoos, Maivia became a champion and fan favorite in New Zealand, Hawaii and the mainland United States, until cancer ended his Hall of Fame career and claimed his life at age 45. While technically not part of the Anoa'i lineage that produced most of the wrestling stars of the family, Maivia was considered an extended member as a "blood brother" of its patriarch, Reverend Amituana'i Anoa'i.

The Wild Samoans

The sons of Amituana'i Anoa'i, Afa and Sika Anoa'i played their ethnicity to the hilt as The Wild Samoans , their "savage" behavior including displays in which they ate raw fish and bit opponents. They were also among the most formidable duos of their era, thrice claiming the World Tag Team championship over a three-year period in the early 1980s. The brothers began pursuing separate paths by the end of the decade, Sika pressing forward with a solo career and Afa focusing on managing and running his Wild Samoan Training Center, though they reunited for induction into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2007 and the Pro Wrestling Hall in 2012.

Rocky 'Soul Man' Johnson

Rocky Johnson learned the tools of the trade under Maivia before marrying the High Chief's daughter, a union that brought him into the family and produced its most famous champion. But the muscular " Soul Man " was a star in his own right, pairing with Tony Atlas in the "Soul Patrol" to become the first Black tag team champions in the WWE. Johnson later trained his son and became part of the act that shaped his rise to prominence, Johnson repaying the efforts by inducting the Soul Man into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2008.

Jimmy 'Superfly' Snuka

Hailing from Fiji, Snuka entered into the Anoa'i family by way of marriage to his second wife, Sharon. He emerged as one of pro wrestling's biggest stars of the 1980s, his high-flying "Superfly Splash" countering the sheer mass of giants like Hulk Hogan , and later became a headliner in the Eastern Championship Wrestling organization. Snuka was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 1996 and saw his legacy continued by way of two offspring's entries into the world of pro wrestling, though he remained haunted by questions about his alleged involvement in a girlfriend's death until his own passing in 2017.

Despite descending from the same bloodlines as uncles Afa and Sika, Rodney Anoa'i styled himself as a Japanese sumo wrestler under the moniker of Yokozuna . But the results were otherwise the same, as the near 600-pound behemoth quickly pushed aside the biggest names in the sport en route to toppling Bret Hart and Hogan in title matches. Yokozuna also teamed with Owen Hart to become a two-time tag team champion, but the massive girth that made him a wrestling star also fueled a health-related descent, and the Hall of Famer died from a pulmonary edema at age 34.

Fatu/Rikishi

Another nephew and protege of the Wild Samoans, Solofa Fatu went by his last name in the early 1990s and teamed with cousin Samu to form the Headshrinkers. But he achieved greater heights of fame after resurfacing at the end of the decade as Rikishi , the bleached-blonde, 425-pound monster known for his alliance with the Too Cool duo and his delivery of the disgusting-as-it-sounds "Stinkface" move. For all the theatrics, Rikishi was a force to be reckoned with over a lengthy career that brought three tag team crowns and an intercontinental championship, leading to his own WWE Hall of Fame induction in 2015.

Jamal/Umaga

Following older brothers Rikishi and Tama into the ring, Eddie Fatu made a tepid entry to the WWE as Jamal, one-half of the 3-Minute Warning duo, before returning with a bang in 2006 as the terrifying Umaga. The 350-pound "Samoan Bulldozer" ran up an eight-month winning streak that culminated with a loss to champion John Cena , and he remained a top draw as he twice claimed the intercontinental championship. Sadly, the ride came to an end after Umaga failed a second drug test in 2009, leading to his release from the WWE, and he was dead a few months later from a heart attack.

Roman Reigns

The younger of Sika Anoa'i's two pro wrestling sons, Leati Anoa'i initially pursued a career in football that stalled after stints in the NFL and CFL. But he hit the ground running in the WWE as Roman Reigns, first as one of the three members of The Shield, before emerging as an individual superstar. Using his devastating "Superman punch," the agile 265-pounder has been crowned the WWE's United States, Intercontinental and Universal champion, among other accolades. And while he hasn't always earned a warm reception from audiences, Reigns turned more fans in his favor with his return in 2019 from a battle with leukemia.

Football also loomed large in the early lives of Rikishi's twin sons Jonathan and Joshua Fatu, who played together at the University of West Alabama. But they were ready when it came time to trade in the pads for tasseled costumes and tribal costumes, and they arrived in the WWE in 2010 under the respective names of Jimmy and Jey Uso. Initially billed as "heels" — wrestling's bad guys — the Usos rose in popularity thanks to energetic showings that included performances of the traditional Samoan Siva Tau war dance. They also joined cousins Johnson and Reigns as titleholders, becoming the first duo to win tag team crowns in both the Raw and Smackdown divisions.

Born in Australia to a cousin of the High Chief and a German mother, Savelina Fanene was drawn to basketball before becoming a plus-size model. However, all roads lead back to the family business, and she quickly worked her way up the WWE's development ladder to make a splash as Nia Jax in 2015. At 6 feet and 270-odd pounds, Jax has fulfilled her destiny as an overpowering force in the women's field and yet another champion of the family tree, claiming the Raw women's title in 2018 and a tag team triumph with Shayna Baszler in 2020.

Famous Athletes

Simone Biles

Trinity Rodman

Dorothy Hamill

Jesse Owens

Alice Coachman

Wilma Rudolph

Tiger Woods

Caitlin Clark Prepares to Join the WNBA

Sha’Carri Richardson

Aaron Rodgers

• Biographies
• Champion’s Training
• Athletes Diet Plan
• Fitness Secrets & Tips
• Workout Routine
• Future Stars
• Inspiring Stories
• Future stars
• Legends of the Game
• Women in Sports
• Adventure Sports
• Arm Wrestling
• Chess Boxing
• Discus Throw
• Sports Anime
• Video Games
• Gaelic Football
• Hammer Throw
• KreedOn Banter
• Press Release
• Asia Cup 2023
• Asian Games 2023
• Commonwealth Games 2022
• Cricket World Cup
• ICC Men’s T20 World Cup
• ICC T20 World Cup 2024
• ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2020
• ICC World Cup 2019
• Indian Premier League 2020
• IPL – Indian Premier League 2019
• IPL – Indian Premiere League 2021
• ISL – Indian Super League
• ISL – Indian Super League 2021-22
• Paris Olympics 2024
• Pro Kabaddi League 2019
• Tokyo olympics 2021
• Women IPL 2023
• KreedOn Case Study
• School Sports Education
• Sports Apps
• Sports Career
• Sports Industry
• Sports Infra
• Sports Products
• Sports Science
• Cricket Predictions
• Web-Stories
• Sign in / Join
• Meet Our Team
• Our Proud Partners
• Work With Athletes
• Submit Article

Ashutosh Sharma Biography: Family | Stats | Records | Net worth…

Shashank Singh Biography: Family | Stats | IPL | Net worth…

The Complete List of Businesses and Brands Associated with Virat Kohli:…

Treesa Jolly Biography: Early Life | Career | Net worth |…

Coca-Cola India and Hockey India Partner for National Women’s Hockey League:…

Virat Kohli Charms Fans with Fluent Punjabi in Viral Video Ahead…

‘Probably creators are also his fans like me’ : SS Rajamouli…

Saudi Smash 2024: Manika Batra Stuns World No. 14 to Storm…

GT vs CSK Dream11 Prediction | Chennai Super Kings vs Gujarat…

Top 10 Best Olympic Opening Ceremonies of All Time: Spectacular Beginning

PBKS vs RCB Dream11 Prediction | Punjab Kings vs Royal Challengers…

SRH vs LSG Dream11 Prediction | Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Lucknow Super…

How Sports Participation Boosts Academic Performance: Unlocking the Link

Top 10 Resistance Tubes for Your Workouts | Flex Your Strength

Why College-Level Sports Need Equal Representation: The Equality Game

Top 10 Best Badminton Rackets for Beginners in 2024 | Ace…

DC vs RR Dream11 Prediction | Delhi Capitals vs Rajasthan Royals…

Dwayne johnson aka “the rock” biography: the incredible climb to superstardom.

Table of Contents

Dwayne Douglas Johnson, better known by his ring name “The Rock”, is an American actor, film producer, and retired professional wrestler. Johnson is widely considered to be one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, and he had an integral role in the development and success of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) during the Attitude Era, an industry boom period during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Dwayne’s journey to fame commenced in 1996 when he entered the realm of professional wrestling.

Transitioning to acting, Dwayne Johnson made his debut in the late 1990s, initially facing challenges in escaping his wrestling persona. However, his determination and hard work paid off as he secured roles in a variety of films.

About Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

Johnson was born on May 2, 1972, in Hayward, California, to wrestler Rocky Johnson and Ata Johnson (née Maivia). His father is of Black Nova Scotian descent, and his mother is of Samoan descent. Johnson grew up in a wrestling family and needless to say, he began training to be a wrestler at a young age. He attended Freedom High School in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he was a standout athlete in football , track, and wrestling.

After graduating from high school, Johnson received a full scholarship to the University of Miami, where he played college football for the Miami Hurricanes. It is worth mentioning that Johnson was a member of the 1991 national championship team.

Football Career

Before bursting into the wrestling scene, Johnson had a promising career in football. For the University of Miami, he played defensive tackle. He was also a member of the Miami Hurricanes football team during his freshman year.

Post his graduation, Johnson was signed by the Canadian Football League team, Calgary Stampeders. There, he changed to the linebacker position from defensive tackle, but he was cut after one season.

Dwayne Johnson: Professional Wrestling Career

In 1996, Johnson signed with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), and that is precisely the moment when history was made. He made his WWF debut as Rocky Maivia, a name that paid tribute to both his father and his grandfather. Johnson quickly became one of the most popular wrestlers in the WWF, and he won the WWF Championship six times. He also won the Intercontinental Championship, the Tag Team Championship, and the Royal Rumble.

Johnson’s character was initially portrayed as a clean-cut babyface, but he eventually turned heel and became one of the most popular villains in the WWF. He was known for his charisma, athleticism, and his catchphrase, “Do you smell what The Rock is cooking?”

Johnson left the WWF in 2004 to pursue an acting career. However, he returned to the WWE in 2011 and continued to wrestle until 2019. During his second stint in the WWE, Johnson won the WWE Championship twice and the Universal Championship once.

Acting Career

Dwayne Johnson began his acting career in 2001 with a role in the movie “The Mummy Returns”. He has since then, starred in numerous successful films, including “Fast Five”, “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle”, and “Hobbs & Shaw”. Each of these movies achieved significant success at the box office. Furthermore, he is one of the highest-paid actors in the world.

In addition to his acting career, it is worth mentioning that Johnson is also a successful businessman. He has his own production company, Seven Bucks Productions, and he is the co-owner of the XFL, a professional football league. Johnson is also a philanthropist and has donated money to many charities.

Dwayne Johnson Wife

Dwayne Johnson is married to Lauren Hashian and together, they have two daughters together. Previously, he was married to Dany Garcia. Their marriage lasted from 1997 to 2008.

Dwayne Johnson Net Worth

As of 2023, Forbes reports that Dwayne Johnson’s net worth stands at a staggering $800 million.

Dwayne Johnson is a cultural icon and one of the most popular celebrities in the world. He is known far and wide for his out of the world charisma, athleticism, and work ethic. Furthermore, he is also a loving father and husband. Johnson is an inspiration to many people and is an example of how hard work and determination can lead to success.

Other Interesting Facts

· Johnson is the first person of Samoan descent to be a WWE champion.

· He is the highest-grossing actor of all time in terms of opening weekend box office sales.

· He is the co-founder of the Seven Bucks Companies, a production company that has produced films such as “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” and “Hobbs & Shaw”.

· He is the co-owner of the XFL, a professional football league that was relaunched in 2020.

· He is a philanthropist and has donated money to many charities, including the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Red Cross.

Dwayne Johnson Social-Media

          View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Dwayne Johnson (@therock)

Dwayne Johnson embodies the quintessential American success narrative. He has triumphed in the realms of both wrestling and acting, a feat that underlines his extraordinary accomplishments. It’s only natural that he stands as an emblem of aspiration for countless individuals globally, given his impressive track record. As a colossal and charismatic figure, he maintains an unyielding ability to captivate and motivate individuals of every generation.

Dwayne Johnson was born on May 2, 1972, in Hayward, California, USA. He comes from a family with wrestling lineage, as his father is Rocky Johnson, a former professional wrestler.

Dwayne Johnson began his career as a professional wrestler in 1996, gaining fame in WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) under the ring name “The Rock.” He then transitioned to acting, making his debut in the late 1990s. He gained prominence in Hollywood with roles in action and comedy films, becoming one of the highest-paid actors in the industry.

Dwayne Johnson’s unique blend of athleticism, charisma, and versatility has contributed to his success as both a wrestler and an actor. His ability to connect with audiences across different platforms has solidified his status as a global entertainment icon.

Yes, Dwayne Johnson is known for his philanthropic endeavors. He has supported various charitable organizations and causes, including children’s hospitals, military veterans, and disaster relief efforts.

Follow us on:  Instagram ,  Facebook ,  YouTube ,  WhatsApp  and be part of KreedOn’s community

For more sports knowledge and latest stories on Indian sports and athletes

RELATED ARTICLES

Ashutosh sharma biography: family | stats | records | net worth | girlfriend – all details, shashank singh biography: family | stats | ipl | net worth | girl friend – all details, the complete list of businesses and brands associated with virat kohli: from the pitch to the boardroom, treesa jolly biography: early life | career | net worth | achievements – all details, naman dhir biography: family | stats | ipl | net worth | girl friend – all details, tanisha crasto biography: early life | career | net worth | achievements – all details, leave a reply cancel reply.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Subscribe Now Receive exciting Indian sports stories on your WhatsApp now. Click the link above

Trending on top

• Bajrang Punia
• Bengal Warriors
• Bengaluru Bulls
• Bengaluru FC
• Champion's Training
• Chennaiyin FC
• Commonwealth Games 2018
• Dabang Delhi K.C.
• Deepa Malik
• Deepika Kumari
• Deepti Sharma
• Dipika Pallikal
• Dream11 Prediction
• Dutee Chand
• FIT India Movement
• Geeta Phogat
• Gujarat Fortunegiants
• Harmanpreet Kaur
• Haryana Steelers
• Health and Fitness
• Horse Racing
• Hyderabad FC
• ICC Men's T20 World Cup
• ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2020
• Ice-Skating
• India Throwdown 2018
• IPL - Indian Premier League 2019
• IPL - Indian Premiere League 2021
• ISL - Indian Super League
• ISL - Indian Super League 2021-22
• ISL – Indian Super League 2019
• Jaipur Pink Panthers
• Jamshedpur FC
• Jhulan Goswami
• Joshna Chinappa
• Jwala Gutta

Basic Badminton Skills That You Can Learn Without Coaching – KreedOn...

Top 10 Greatest Footballer of All Time – Meet the Best Football...

Kho Kho – Did You Know the Game Has Roots as...

How to win Chess in 3 moves? Explained in Simple Steps-...

Track and Field Events – Different Types of Events in Athletics

TATA IPL Team Owners | Meet the brains behind the teams!

Top 10 Most Handsome Footballers in the World (2024) | Explore...

Top 10 Best Football Prediction Site in the World | Bet...

Meet the 32 Most Beautiful and Gorgeous Cricketers Wives

All About the National Cricket Academy – The home of Legends...

Types of Bowling in Cricket: A to Z Guide for Fast...

Meet 50 Most Famous Sports Personalities in India: The Gems of...

Top 10 Best Football Clubs in the World | Which one...

Dive into the World of Swimming: Learn 5 Styles and Their...

Top 20 Best Dream 11 Prediction Website for a Perfect Fantasy...

Top 24 Most Popular Traditional Indian Games Gen Z Must Try

Top 5 Famous Kho Kho Players in India 2021 | Do...

Top 20 Best Bodybuilders In India | India’s Muscle Marvels

Top 10 Richest Cricketers in the World | Stumping the Rich...

Top 11 Famous Indian Badminton Players: Reflection of Golden Generation |...

Popular posts.

Coca-Cola India and Hockey India Partner for National Women’s Hockey League:...

Virat Kohli Charms Fans with Fluent Punjabi in Viral Video Ahead...

‘Probably creators are also his fans like me’ : SS Rajamouli...

Saudi Smash 2024: Manika Batra Stuns World No. 14 to Storm...

Find us here.

Office No. 301, Lalwani Icon, Sakore Nagar, Viman Nagar, Off New Airport road, Pune, Maharashtra 411014.

Contact Us: +91 8755444551 Email Us: [email protected] , [email protected]

“I can’t wait to see this one”: After Dwayne Johnson’s Young Rock, A Young Sylvester Stallone Movie Set Before Rocky Fame Reportedly in the Works

B ack in 2021, we got a sitcom titled Young Rock , based on the life of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Running for three seasons, the show told the story of Johnson’s life from his childhood to his early days as a WWE wrestler in a fictionalized version. The current day Rock is running for the President of the United States of America in the 2030s and reminisces about his past life with every episode.

Now, in 2024, we have another star who will be getting a movie made on his life, and it is none other than Sylvester Stallone. From the time before he came to his Rocky fame and the early days of his life, the upcoming movie will showcase the struggle before Stallone became a worldwide sensation. Director Peter Farrelly is attached to the project as of now, which will be known as I Play Rocky .

A Movie on Sylvester Stallone Is In The Works

The story of the movie is inspired by how Sylvester Stallone started the Rocky project from scratch, and gave his everything to have the movie made with him in the lead. The synopsis for I Play Rocky reads (via IndieWire ):

“[The movie] follows a struggling actor with a partially paralyzed face and a speech impediment who writes a script that a big movie studio wants to buy, but he refuses to sell it unless he gets to play the lead. Turning down an offer of life-changing money, he instead works for pennies to get the movie made with himself in the starring role.”

One of Netflix’s Best 2023 Korean Dramas That is Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky on Steroids is Renewed for Season 2

The movie does not allude to Stallone directly and does not use his name. But casting is underway, and the plan is to present it to buyers during the upcoming Cannes Film Festival. Peter Gamble wrote the script for it, and Peter Farrelly is directing as well as producing the movie alongside former Warner Bros. film chief Toby Emmerich and Christian Baha.

Fans React to Young Sylvester Stallone Movie in the Making

The story of Sylvester Stallone to have Rocky made is the dream underdog story, who makes it big in life. And it has fans hyped to see a real-life story fictionalized by a director of caliber. Many even want Stallone to make an appearance in the movie, but only time will tell whether that happens or not.

This is what fans have to say about I Play Rocky :

Talking about the movie, producer Christian Baha said:

“When I first read Peter Gamble’s energetic and poignant script, I knew it captured something very special. The story of ‘I Play Rocky’ is as unique as Sylvester Stallone himself, a seeming Everyman with an undeniable gift who needs to share it with the world and refuses to take ‘no’ for an answer.”

After Sylvester Stallone, Tom Selleck Confesses Action Movies Ruined His Body: “You get a lot of aches and pains”

The movie is sure to be something interesting as well as exciting. And if they manage to get Sly in it, that would just be the cherry on top. I Play Rocky does not have a release date yet.

The 50 Greatest Rock Memoirs of All Time

By Rob Sheffield

Rob Sheffield

Funny thing about rock & roll memoirs: They tend to have the same plot. Our heroes begin with big dreams about making it as rock stars. There’s the sleazy bars, the cheap motels, the shady managers. Then they get a taste of the big time: hit records, limos, drug orgies, groupies, diseases, the works. What could go wrong? Craaaash! But, hey, Elizabethan revenge tragedies all have the same plot too, and nobody complains when the royal family gets butchered in the final scene. Great rock memoirs don’t always come from great artists: Sometimes it takes one-hit wonders, losers, hacks, junkies, crooks. Every rock & roll character has a story to tell. Here are 50 of our favorites.

Steven Tyler: ‘Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?’ (2011)

If you can find a single coherent sentence in this book, write and tell the publisher, so they can correct this error in future editions. But happy hunting, because Steven Tyler’s brain is located, as he puts it, “in the way-out-a-sphere.” From Aerosmith to American Idol , Tyler has been “61 Highwayed and I did it my wayed; Little-Willie-Johned and been-here-and-goned; million-dollar riffed and Jimmy Cliffed; cotton-picked and Stevie Nick’d.”

[ Find the Book Here ]

Nikki Sixx: ‘The Heroin Diaries’ (2007)

This one gets the “truth in packaging” award — Nikki Sixx does so many drugs in this book it should come in an aluminum-foil dust jacket. It’s more personal than The Dirt , but just as juicy. It might be cheating to mention  The Heroin Diaries on a list like this, since there’s barely any mention of his music, but anyone even vaguely interested in Mötley Crüe is going to be fine with that.

Alice Bag: ‘Violence Girl’ (2011)

A Chicana punk coming-of-age story from East L.A., where a barrio kid named Alicia Armendariz starts a hardcore band called the Bags, battles her way to the stage, then finds she has to keep on battling. Raised on the Mexican ranchera records of her immigrant parents, baptized in 1970s glam rock, Alice Bag thrives on her confrontational dust-ups with the slam-dancing mosh pit crew, in her pink dress and high heels. For her, it’s all about “the giddy adrenaline rush of the fight.”

Billy Idol: ‘Dancing With Myself’ (2017)

Billy Idol seems to show up at least once in every Eighties-Nineties memoir, usually when some sort of pharmaceutical dessert is consumed. So it’s only fitting he wrote his own. Hell, Billy’s index has more drama than most books: “Idol, Billy, cocaine use of,” “GHB overdose of,” “hair of,” “police anti-crack sting,” “violin lessons of.” From “White Wedding” to “Cradle of Love,” his purple prose is a thing of beauty, as when an early punk romance breaks up because the drugs “dashed my hopes on the rocks of desire as the sea poured into our kingdom.” No matter where he is, Billy never idles.

Debbie Harry: ‘Face It’ (2019)

The Blondie grande dame has told her story before — most notably in Making Tracks , her great 1982 photo-history with Chris Stein and Victor Bockris. But Face It has the complete saga: how Debbie Harry came out of nowhere to seduce the world, from CBGB to The Muppet Show , then lost it all, yet refused to give up and quit. Her whole book has the glorious sneer of a tough old punk queen who knows how cool she is and does not care if you agree. “My Blondie character was an inflatable doll, but with a dark, provocative, aggressive side. I was playing it up, yet I was very serious.”

Rick James: ‘Glow’ (2014)

Fame — it’s a hell of a drug. Rick James begins his chronicle in Folsom Prison after flaming out on crack, in the hard times between his “Super Freak” peak and his Chappelle’s Show comeback, which explains why it’s not titled I’m Rick James, Bitch . In the Sixties, he plays in a hippie band with a not-yet-famous Neil Young, stays up all night with Joni Mitchell grooving to Sketches of Spain , cruises the Whiskey a Go Go with David Crosby, gets turned on to acid by Jim Morrison. Then he sees KISS and gets a lesson in showmanship. Rick becomes the King of Punk Funk, hitting Studio 54 (“Tanya Tucker was my best friend”?) and beefing with Prince. And along the way, he meets some very, very kinky girls.

Elton John: ‘Me’ (2019)

When Elton published his long-threatened memoir in late 2019, the world learned why the biopic Rocketman was such a humorless drag — it turned out Captain Fantastic was saving all the juiciest dish for his own superb book. Me has the right mix of salty gossip and even saltier self-mockery. A shy English schoolboy named Reginald Dwight decides to become a glitter-rock starlet, dubs himself Elton, peacocks through the Seventies, only to end up a respectable elder statesman. Hello, yellow brick road.

Gucci Mane: ‘The Autobiography of Gucci Mane’ (2017)

Dean Wareham: ‘Black Postcards’ (2008)

Dean Wareham led the great New York guitar band Luna through the 1990s, after the breakup of the Boston indie pioneers Galaxie 500. He shares the dirty details of how tedious it can be to plug away in a semi-famous, halfway-to-the-big-time rock band: the airports, the motels, the bickering band politics, the broken relationships, the constant asking around to see who’s got the drugs. Nobody in this story gets rich, or even seems to break even — all anyone gets out of the experience is a few dozen excellent songs. And that ends up being enough.

Bobbie Brown: ‘Dirty Rocker Boys’ (2013)

Peter Hook: ‘Substance: Inside New Order’ (2016)

Neil Peart: ‘Ghost Rider’ (2002)

In the summer of 1997, Neil Peart’s teenage daughter Selena dies in a car crash. Less than a year later, his wife Jackie dies of cancer. So he gets on his motorcycle and hits the road, from Quebec to the Yukon, then down south to Mexico and Belize. He rides thousands of solitary miles, brooding over his grief, with no home to go back to, while his brothers in Rush give him the time he needs to fire up the willing engine. Ghost Rider is different from anything Peart wrote for Rush — an unusually personal statement from such a shy and private writer. But the Professor brings all his analytical rigor to these road journals — and leans on the healing power of mechanical music.

Find the Book Here ]

Tegan and Sara: ‘High School’ (2019)

Donald Fagen: ‘Eminent Hipsters’ (2013)

Joe Boyd: ‘White Bicycles’ (2006)

John Lydon: ‘Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs’ (1993)

The former Johnny Rotten has all the dirt about how the Sex Pistols pissed off the world. But he’s also got poignant details about his hardscrabble youth in London’s Irish-immigrant squalor, raised by a mother even more badass than he was. He also shares his deep hatred for religion, the Queen, the other Sex Pistols, hippies, rich people, racists, sexists, the English political system, Malcolm McLaren, and, of course, Pink Floyd . “A lot of people feel the Sex Pistols were just negative,” he says. “I agree, and what the fuck is wrong with that? Sometimes the absolute most positive thing you can be in a boring society is completely negative.”

Gregg Allman: ‘My Cross to Bear’ (2012)

A Southern Gothic rock epic. The Allman Brother sings “Whipping Post,” he snorts himself senseless, he rats on his drug roadie. And, of course, he marries Cher . On their first date, he even manages to stay off heroin until right after dinner. “I went to her house in a limousine, and when she came out, she said, ‘Fuck that funeral car,’ and handed me the keys to her blue Ferrari.… She didn’t have shit to say to me, and I didn’t have shit to say to her. What’s the topic of conversation? It certainly ain’t singing.” The second date goes a little better: “We made some serious love.”

Boy George: ‘Take It Like a Man’ (1995)

The confessions of a natural-born poseur. Boy George grows up as the “pink sheep” of his working-class Irish Catholic family, getting his start on the London club scene as a coat-check boy with a face full of cosmetics and a reputation for picking the customers’ pockets. He becomes an international pop sensation with Culture Club, while having a torrid affair with the drummer. The Boy doesn’t worry about making himself seem likable — quite the opposite. He bitches himself out along with everybody else, which is why his catty recollections make this book addictive.

Marilyn Manson: ‘The Long Hard Road Out of Hell’ (1998)

Luke Haines: ‘Bad Vibes: Britpop and My Role in Its Downfall’ (2009)

Brian Wilson: ‘I Am Brian Wilson’ (2016)

Robbie Robertson: ‘Testimony’ (2016)

Lemmy: ‘White Line Fever’ (2002)

Neil Young: ‘Special Deluxe’ (2014)

Henry Rollins: ‘Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag’ (1994)

Did Jack Kerouac ever write a book this great? In a word, no. This is the real on-the-road American adventure: a band of antisocial maniacs who hate each other crammed in a van, bumming from town to town, sleeping on floors when they’re lucky, getting clubbed by the cops when they’re not, doing it all for those few minutes of glorious noise. Black Flag were hardcore pioneers who paved the road other bands have traveled ever since, and Rollins’ tour diaries are the essence of that pain-is-my-girlfriend punk spirit.

Kim Gordon: ‘Girl in a Band’ (2015)

Jay-Z: ‘Decoded’ (2010)

If you’re curious about what it’s really like to be Shawn Carter , you’ll learn more about his hard-knock life from his albums, which have always gone heavy on the In My Lifetime narrative. But what he’s really trying to do here in Decoded is write the whole story of hip-hop, merely using himself as a prime example, as he rises from criminal-minded fan to industry kingpin. Like he says, “Rap is built to handle contradictions.” Most surprising moment: Hov defends the Coldplay duet “Beach Chair” as “one of the hidden jewels of my catalog.”

Tommy James: ‘Me, the Mob and the Music’ (2010)

The Goodfellas of rock & roll literature. Everybody knows the Tommy James oldies — “Mony Mony,” “Hanky Panky,” “Crimson and Clover,” etc. But according to Tommy, these songs got on the radio because he had some influential mobbed-up friends pulling the strings. (And, of course, pocketing the loot.) The whole topic of criminal connections in the music business is still taboo — see Fredric Dannen’s 1990 classic Hit Men for the full picture. But Tommy James is the first star to tell the story from the inside: How the Mafia gave the world “I Think We’re Alone Now.”

David Lee Roth: ‘Crazy From the Heat’ (1998)

You know what’s crazy? How underrated this book is. Diamond Dave’s book of pensees really deserves to be read wherever generally insane ramblings by generally insane dudes are read. Crazy From the Heat barely got noticed because it came out in the late Nineties, when public interest in Van Halen was at an all-time low. But every page abounds with his stark-raving lunatic eat-‘em-and-smile rock & roll Zen wisdom. Preach, Dave: “I’m not real good with baby steps. My specialty is ass-kicking. Does that sound unreasonable? It may well be, but I guarantee you, you will find no reasonable man on top of big mountains.”

Kristin Hersh: ‘Rat Girl’ (2010)

Even if you don’t know Kristin Hersh’s band Throwing Muses, Rat Girl is a crucial first-hand account of the Eighties indie-rock uprising. Her narrative voice is warm, friendly, and surprisingly funny. When Hersh gets pregnant and decides to have the kid, without giving up her band, she shrugs, “I’ll cross the living-in-a-van-is-probably-child-abuse bridge when I come to it.” Deep down it’s a story about messed-up kids finding one other, starting a band, and accidentally scrounging up an audience of similarly messed-up kids. It belongs on the shelf next to Michael Azerrad’s classic Our Band Could Be Your Life .

Morrissey: ‘Autobiography’ (2013)

Richard Hell: ‘I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp’ (2013)

Chuck Berry: ‘The Autobiography’ (1987)

The “Johnny B. Goode” man who invented rock & roll tells a few stories about what he saw along the way. As a Fifties black pop star, scoring hit records in a land full of violent racism, his story seems to touch on all the contradictions and injustices of American culture. In the early Sixties, while bands like the Beatles , the Stones , and the Beach Boys were hero-worshipping him, Berry himself was rotting in jail, railroaded in a blatantly racist trial. That’s where he wrote the deeply ironic “Promised Land” — a classic celebration of American dreams, written in a prison cell.

David Bowie: ‘Moonage Daydream: The Life and Times of Ziggy Stardust’ (2002)

It’s a massive coffee-table art book, with lavish images of Bowie in the Seventies from photographer Mick Rock . But the main attraction of Moonage Daydream is the text by the man himself. He’s in top form, whether he’s shopping for shoes with Cyrinda Foxe (who teaches him to wear “palm-tree’d fuck-me pumps”) or sipping tea with Elton John (“We didn’t exactly become pals, not really having that much in common, especially musically”), or partying it up with Mick Jagger (“I have absolutely no recollections of this party at all”). The closest this world will ever get to a straight-up Bowie autobiography — but who’d ever want anything straight-up from Bowie?

Rod Stewart: ‘Rod’ (2012)

Anthony Kiedis: ‘Scar Tissue’ (2004)

The Red Hot Chili Pepper tells a quintessential made-in-L.A., rise-and-fall-and-rise story, complete with all the californicatory details. Kiedis muses about his childhood, his band, his face time with the Dalai Lama, and his many, many, many ex-girlfriends, most of whom inspire him to share a kind word, a nude photo, or both. (Ione Skye was “an au naturel, soft, soulful forest nymph.”) Scar Tissue has the best final sentence of any book on this list, starring Keidis’ lovable pooch Buster: “And when I do think, ‘Man, a fucking motel room with a couple of thousand dollars’ worth of narcotics would do me right,’ I just look over at my dog and remember that Buster’s never seen me high.” Let’s hope Kiedis writes a whole book about Buster some day.

Ronnie Spector: ‘Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness’ (1989)

The New York doll of the Ronettes had one of rock & roll’s biggest voices. She also had one of rock & roll’s most famously nightmarish marriages, as she was practically kept captive by Phil Spector for years. But if you’re looking for self-pity, you’ll be disappointed, because her book, like her voice, is full of cocky, smart, self-aware humor. And, yes, in case you were wondering, it totally sucked to be married to Phil Spector.

John Taylor: ‘In the Pleasure Groove’ (2012)

Paul McCartney: ‘Many Years From Now’ (1997)

Officially this is an “authorized biography,” by longtime Macca friend Barry Miles. But that’s just a front, because the book really exists as a vehicle for Paul to tell his story in his own words. Every page has killer lines, like when he reveals “Can’t Buy Me Love” was recorded after a nine-day orgy with Miami Beach’s finest hookers: “It should been ‘Can Buy Me Love,’ actually.” Some fans were put off by the way he squabbles over credits, even breaking down songwriting by percentages. (To pick one controversial example, he calculates that “Norwegian Wood” as 40 percent his and 60 percent John’s.) But on the page, as well as in song, his voice overflows with wit and affection. And he did less to fuck up his good luck than any rock star who has ever existed, which might be why his memories make such marvelous company.

Nile Rodgers: ‘Le Freak’ (2011)

The “sex, drugs, and disco” revolution of the Seventies, as seen by the Chic guitarist who permanently changed the way music sounds and feels and moves. This is a cerebral and unabashed celebration of disco; as Nile Rodgers puts it, “We shared Afrobromantic dreams of what it would be like to have real artistic freedom.” He also reveals that when he and Bernard Edwards wrote the classic “Upside Down” for Diana Ross , everybody at Motown hated it. The song would have been axed forever, if not for the one listener who recognized its brilliance. “We played it for Gene Simmons of KISS , who was recording next door, and he told us it was great. We respected Gene, but he was dating Diana Ross at the time, so what else would he say?”

Carrie Brownstein: ‘Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl’ (2015)

The RZA: ‘The Tao of Wu’ (2009)

How do you choose between the RZA’s two excellent memoirs? ( Choose the sword and you join me. Choose the ball and you join your mother. You don’t understand my words, but you must choose! ) The first installment, The Wu-Tang Manual , is more of a beginners-guide handbook to the Shaolin mythology. But The Tao of Wu digs deeper, as the RZA broods on hip-hop and spirituality. He combines esoteric Buddhism, true mathematics, kung-fu flicks, chess tactics, and comic books into his own unique theosophical ruckus.

Slash: ‘Slash’ (2007)

There’s no shortage of Sunset Strip metal-sleaze gossip books out there, including other excellent GN’R memoirs — see Steven Adler’s My Appetite for Destruction or Duff McKagan’s It’s So Easy (And Other Lies) . But Slash’s book is surprisingly reflective, yet hilariously blasé about all his decadence. Low point: Slash collapses during a hotel drug binge and gets rushed to the hospital, where the doctors restart his heart. He complains, “I had no remorse whatsoever about my overdose — but I was pissed off at myself for having died. The whole hospital excursion really ate into my day off.”

Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz: ‘Beastie Boys Book’ (2018)

Viv Albertine: ‘Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys’ (2014)

Keith Richards: ‘Life’ (2010)

Like a lot of books on this list — only more so — Life makes you marvel that the guy who lived through all this chaos could end up remembering any of it. In fact, it’s hard to imagine how a guy who lived the rock & roll myth as hard as Keith Richards could still talk his way through a transaction at the drive-through window, let alone a book this great. Despite all the cranky bitching about Mick , this book exceeded any reasonable expectation for literary Keefness.

Questlove: ‘Mo Meta Blues’ (2013)

Bruce Springsteen: ‘Born to Run’ (2016)

Patti Smith: ‘Just Kids’ (2010)

An incredibly romantic portrait of two young hustlers in the big city: Patti Smith and her best friend, artist Robert Mapplethorpe, have to keep telling each other how great they are, because nobody else will believe it. The most amazing thing about this book is the warmth, the lack of bitterness — what Smith seems to remember most about New York bohemia in the 1960s is all the moments of awkward kindness. Best scene: Allen Ginsberg buys Patti a cheese-and-lettuce sandwich at the Automat, because he thinks she’s a pretty boy. When she breaks the news that she’s a girl, she asks, “Well, does this mean I return the sandwich?” Ginsberg just keeps talking to her about Jack Kerouac while she eats — a gentleman as well as a poet.

Bob Dylan: ‘Chronicles, Volume One’ (2004)

Everybody knew this guy had a way with words. But it’s safe to say that nobody expected his autobiography to be this intense. He rambles from one fragment of his life to another, with crazed characters and weird scenes in every chapter. It all hangs together, from his Minnesota boyhood (who knew Dylan started out as such a big wrestling fan?) to the “deserted orchards and dead grass” of his Eighties bottoming-out phase. He evokes his early folk-rogue days in New York, even though he hated being perceived as the voice of a generation: “I was more a cowpuncher than a Pied Piper.” So where’s that Nobel Prize already?

Megan Thee Stallion Strikes Again With New Single 'BOA'

• 'I’m really hip-hop'
• By Mankaprr Conteh

Towa Bird Says 'Sorry Sorry' on Bittersweet New Single

• All Apologies
• By Brittany Spanos

Ice Spice Brings New Heat to Sean Paul's Summer Classic on Single 'Gimme a Light'

• Light It Up
• By Larisha Paul

Post Malone 'Had Some Help' From Morgan Wallen on New Country Single

• Gone Country

Maryland Outlaws Hidden Fees on Concert Tickets

• That's The Ticket
• By Ethan Millman

Most Popular

Emily blunt says she's 'absolutely' wanted to throw up after kissing certain actors during filming: 'i've definitely not enjoyed some of it.', peter jackson working on new 'lord of the rings' films for warner bros., targeting 2026 debut, serena williams' ethereal white swimsuit photoshoot shows the way she’s exercising after baby no. 2, no a’s in attendance: oakland trails a whopping 553 u.s. teams, you might also like, variety nominated for 74 southern california journalism awards, outstanding mother awards honor debbi hartley-triesch, nyakio grieco, dendy engelman and more in new york, the best yoga mats for any practice, according to instructors, the real-life martha who inspired ‘baby reindeer’ speaks out against the ‘defamatory’ netflix show: ‘i’m not a stalker’, wnba taps delta airlines as charter flights this season.

Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.

Verify it's you

Please log in.

Follow us on

Watch: Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson trains MMA for new UFC heavyweight movie… ‘It’s been very humbling’

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson has posted footage from Day One of MMA training as he prepares for his upcoming UFC heavyweight biopic movie.

The iconic wrestler-turned-actor is stepping into a new type of area for his next major film role as he embodies the legendary UFC heavyweight champion Mark Kerr in ‘The Smashing Machine’.

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson trains for UFC heavyweight movie

Fan-favorite sports personality and actor Dwayne Johnson has posted footage from Day One of training for the upcoming biopic movie ‘The Smashing Machine’, which is scheduled to premiere around the world in 2025.

‘The Rock’ posted a 58-second montage of his preparation to play former UFC heavyweight champion Mark Kerr to his social media, see below, noting that “I’m learning daily and it’s been a very humbling, intense and motivating journey into this world of combat.”

“I’m a hard worker, but I realized that I’d have to work harder with this role than anything I’ve ever worked for in my life,” he stated, adding how “This physicality is just one part of the larger journey, that is truly a team effort… Growing and grateful.”

Day 1. MMA training camp. Preparing for “Smashing Machine” I’m learning daily and it’s been a very humbling, intense and motivating journey into this world of combat and becoming, Mark Kerr – the two-time @UFC Heavyweight Tournament Champion, World Vale Tudo Champion. I’m a… pic.twitter.com/kf4xMZjshc — Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) May 6, 2024

What do we know so far about ‘The Smashing Machine’ movie?

The upcoming movie will explore the life and career of two-time former UFC heavyweight champion, Pride superstar, NCAA Division I champion, and World Vale Tudo Championship tournament winner, Mark ‘The Smashing Machine’ Kerr.

According to Variety , fan-favorite actress Emily Blunt is in talks to play Dawn Staples, Kerr’s wife, but this has yet to be officially confirmed by the studio.

• ANNOUNCED : Undefeated bantamweight set to main event UFC Abu Dhabi against Sandhagen

Speaking to the outlet, Dwayne Johnson revealed what first attracted him to the role, explaining how director Benny Safdie (Uncut Gems, Oppenheimer) wants “to create, and continues to push the envelope when it comes to stories that are raw and real, characters that are authentic and at times uncomfortable and arresting.”

“I’m at a point in my career where I want to push myself in ways that I’ve not pushed myself in the past. I’m at a point in my career where I want to make films that matter, that explore a humanity and explore struggle [and] pain.”

The film’s official tagline reads:

“The Smashing Machine’ is a drama based on the story of Mark Kerr, the legendary MMA fighter from the no-holds-barred era of the UFC at the peak of his career. He struggles with addiction, winning, love and friendship in the year 2000.”

• LEAKED : Coach finally details the truth behind Sean O’Malley’s ‘sparring KO’ of UFC champion

Movies about Mixed Martial Arts and the UFC

MMA movies have already been in the news in 2024 thanks to the release of Conor McGregor’s main role in the Road House remake – which premiered via Amazon Prime Video back in March to a surprisingly positive reception from both combat sports and film fans alike.

Also released in 2024 to critical acclaim was the documentary surrounding undefeated UFC strawweight Tatiana Suarez called ‘The Unbreakable Tatiana Suarez’, which is available to stream right now on HBO.

• IMMORTAL : UFC legend announces retirement after vicious one-punch knockout

If you are in the mood for an MMA-related movie, there are plenty of films and TV shows out there that are well worth your time, including:

• Warrior (2011) – Tom Hardy, features Nate Marquardt and Anthony Johnson
• Bruised (2021) – Halle Berry, features Yves Edwards and Keith Peterson
• Redbelt (2008) – Chiwetel Ejiofor, features Randy Couture and Frank Trigg
• Never Back Down 3 (2016) – Michael Jai White, features ‘Rampage’ Jackson and Josh Barnett
• Here Comes the Boom (2012) – Kevin James, features Joe Rogan, Chael Sonnen and Bruce Buffer

The Smashing Machine, starring Dwayne Johnson as Mark Kerr, is scheduled to premiere in 2025 – a more specific release window has not yet been revealed.

• OUCH : ‘Lionheart’ agrees to Alex Pereira’s $50K challenge after stunning upset win at UFC 301

• True Crime Blog
• A&E Classics
• A&E Crime Central
• Link A&E on facebook
• Link A&E on twitter
• Link A&E on youtube
• Link A&E on instagram
• Link A&E on tiktok

A&E Rocks with Hard Rock Legends in New 'Biography®' Specials Beginning Sunday, June 16 at 9/8c

Website Name

Year published.

https://www.aetv.com/news/ae-rocks-with-hard-rock-legends-in-new-biography-specials-beginning-sunday-june-16-at-9-8c

Access Date

May 10, 2024

A+E Networks

A&E ROCKS WITH SOME OF HARD ROCK’S GREATEST LEGENDS IN NEW “BIOGRAPHY ®” SPECIALS FEATURING  BRET MICHAELS, DEE SNIDER, ALICE COOPER, SAMMY HAGAR, AND SEBASTIAN BACH

BEGINNING SUNDAY, JUNE 16 AT 9PM ET EACH SPECIAL OFFERS A BACKSTAGE PASS INTO THE ICONS’ LIVES  AND THEIR CELEBRATED MUSIC LIKE NEVER BEFORE

New York, NY – May 7, 2024  – A&E offers viewers a backstage pass to the celebrated careers of some of hard rock’s greatest legends with new specials celebrating rock icons  Bret Michaels , Twisted Sister’s  Dee Snider ,  Alice Cooper ,  Sammy  Hagar,  and  Sebastian Bach . Produced by Banger Films in association with A+E Factual Studios™ group under the award-winning “ Biography ® ” banner, the specials will feature exclusive interviews with each of the artists and those closest to them. Beginning  Sunday, June 16 at 9pm ET,  the nostalgia inducing specials will go behind-the-scenes to the artists’ journeys to fame, legendary careers, and iconic music that defined the genre then and now.

“Biography: Dee Snider” Premiering Sunday, June 23 at 9pm ET, “Biography: Dee Snider”  shares the untold story of how Snider went from a high school choir boy to one of the most recognized faces in hard rock. The special depicts the disappointment of record label rejection and how this rejection ultimately led him to write the hit song, “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”   Viewers are taken on a whirlwind adventure as they find out just how far success would fuel Snider’s ego before things started to go wrong.

“Biography: Alice Cooper” Premiering Sunday, June 23 at 10pm ET, “Biography: Alice Cooper”  explores the highs and lows of an incredible journey and genre defining artist. Shock rock, hard rock, amazing rock—Alice Cooper and his pioneering group have been described as the founders of it all. From a kid with asthma in Detroit who had an obsession with art and performance to one of the most celebrated characters in music history as the frontman of the groundbreaking Alice Cooper Group to the challenges of addiction that turned the man into a character with the desire to offend, the special delves into the incredible career and legacy of a rock icon and his legendary band.

“Biography: Sammy Hagar” Premiering Sunday, June 30 at 9pm ET, “Biography: Sammy Hagar”  traces Hagar’s path to fame, beginning as a poverty-stricken child, to the lead singer of the band Montrose, to  launching a successful solo career, and ultimately  joining Van Halen. The special explores how Hagar helped Van Halen get their first ever number one hit, uncovers what led a band that was on the top of world to suddenly split apart, and how Hagar has continued to leave his mark on the hard rock genre.

“Biography Sebastian Bach” Premiering Sunday, June 30 at 10pm ET,  “Biography: Sebastian Bach”  outlines how a small-town kid from Canada became the ultimate bad boy of hard rock. From a job offer as a rock front man at age 14 to a last-minute wedding invitation that led to him meeting the Bon Jovi family and joining Skid Row ,  the special explores the highs and lows of Bach’s incredible career.

*Join the conversation by following @AETV

All specials will be available on demand and to stream on the A&E App and aetv.com

The hard rock legend “Biography” specials are produced for A&E by Banger Films in association with A+E Factual Studios group. Co-directors are Sam Dunn and Marc Ricciardelli. Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen serve as executive producers for Banger Films. Rick Krim is an executive producer. Stephen Mintz is an executive producer for A+E Factual Studios group. Executive Producers for A&E Network are  Elaine Frontain Bryant and Brad Abramson.

About Banger Films Banger Films is an award-winning global leader in music and documentary storytelling, founded by Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn in 2004. Banger’s catalogue includes critically acclaimed documentary series, feature docs, live concerts and kids’ programs featuring the biggest names in pop culture and entertainment. Past projects include the Emmy- and Peabody-winning series   Hip-Hop Evolution , Grammy-nominated films   Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage   and   ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band from Texas , Tribeca audience choice award winner   Super Duper Alice Cooper , and the breakthrough heavy metal film   Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey .

About A+E Factual Studios™ A division of A+E Networks ® , A+E Factual Studios™, through its holdings, specializes in the development and production of premium, multiplatform unscripted series and specials for the A+E Networks ®  portfolio and the global marketplace. A+E Factual Studios™ brands, Category 6 Media™ and Six West Media™, span an array of genres including true crime, lifestyle, history, biography, premium documentaries, limited series, quick turn specials, and podcasts. For more information, please visit  https://www.aefactualstudios.com/ .

Get Instant Access to Free Updates

Don’t Miss Out on A&E news, behind the scenes content, and more!

• Privacy Notice
• Terms of Use

Need help with the site?

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

These 12 Stunning Autobiographies Will Leave You in Wonder

By Mia Barzilay Freund

We may earn a commission if you buy something from any affiliate links on our site.

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to win Wimbledon , run The Washington Post , or get drunk with Jimmy Buffett ? Through the best autobiographies and celebrity memoirs , we can access gripping true stories told in the words of the people who lived through them.

Translating experience into language is a creative act. Autobiography can be earnest or irreverent, playful or profound. Often, real life can be stranger than fiction. The best autobiographies bring us closer to remarkable people and circumstances—and they’re well-written, to boot.

But that’s not all. The best examples from the genre can provide insights that help us improve our own lives. After all, there’s nothing like a story of perseverance against all odds to prove anything is possible.

These tales of endurance, transformation, and unlikely triumph are sure to command your attention––and dare we say, inspire your own main character energy .

Open by Andre Agassi

You don’t need to love tennis to find yourself totally engrossed by the story of Agassi’s legendary career. Once the number-one player in the world, Agassi led a life of pressure and publicity—from his intense childhood coached by his father to his high-profile marriages to Brooke Shields and Steffi Graf to the acute physical pain of his last chapter in professional tennis. The book was written with the help of ghostwriter J. R. Moehringer, whose own memoir The Tender Bar inspired a 2021 film with Ben Affleck. (Moehringer most recently helped Prince Harry pen his memoir, Spare .)

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

The Glass Castle

A New York Times bestseller for more than eight years, this stunning memoir details the author’s unconventional upbringing and her trajectory from a trailer park in Arizona to the New York City literary scene. Under her troubled but relentlessly dreaming father, Wells nurtured her imagination as she and her siblings learned to fend for themselves within their dysfunctional household. Her approach was creative and sometimes painful—like when she suffered full-body burns cooking hot dogs at age three, or when she fashioned homemade braces from rubber bands and wire. A brilliant prequel, Half Broke Horses , focuses on Walls’s adventurous grandmother during the early 1900s.

The Accidental Life by Terry McDonell

The Accidental Life

A legend in the world of magazines and publishing, McDonell was the trusted editor and friend of literary greats like James Salter and George Plimpton. His 2016 memoir chronicles relationships and skirmishes across a four-decade career in journalism—from sipping wine with Jimmy Buffett to playing “acid golf” with Hunter S. Thompson. Each chapter comes marked with a word count, making for satisfying, self-contained dips into literary lore. Evocative, irreverent, and honest, McDonell’s memoir spans a wild and wonderful time in American media.

How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

How to Say Babylon

A poet as well as a memoirist, Sinclair fills her 2023 memoir with lyrical descriptions of her upbringing in Montego Bay, Jamaica, where the Rastafarian faith into which she was born prescribed rigid codes on the basis of gender. However, language—specifically, poetry —served as a welcome escape, made possible by Sinclair’s literature-loving mother. Moving and unflinching, Babylon is an astonishing feat of memory set in motion.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

I Know Why the Caged Bird

Angelou enlarged and enriched the genre of autobiography with her 1969 account of her early life in Stamps, Arkansas. In it, she fashions her younger self into a literary character through whom she revisits events of the past. A young Maya endures affronts to her humanity through encounters with racism and sexual violence, but her story channels adolescent insecurity into self-possession, reflected in the author’s breathtaking command of language and narrative.

Easy Beauty by Chloé Cooper Jones

Easy Beauty

Born with sacral agenesis, a rare condition that affects her gait and stature, Cooper Jones is keenly aware of the reactions her physicality elicits. Her subtle and humorous 2022 memoir—a Pulitzer Prize finalist—challenges the reader to reassess the way bodies claim space , tracing how Cooper Jones’s own perspective shifts when she unexpectedly becomes a mother.

Personal History: A Memoir by Katharine Graham

Personal History

Graham’s Pulitzer Prize–winning autobiography explores her isolating upbringing amid extreme privilege, her exhilarating and agonizing marriage, and her leadership of The Washington Post during its coverage of events like the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate scandal. With its intimate insight into a formidable figure in American life, Graham’s Personal History makes the memoir a literary force.

Grace: A Memoir by Grace Coddington

Vogue ’s longtime creative director pulls back the curtain on the fashion industry and the creative world surrounding it, documenting the insecurities of moving from industry outsider to insider and the joy of bringing to life fashion fantasies in the magazine’s pages. Beginning with her upbringing in Wales and her early career in modeling, Coddington recounts things in a playful and characteristically British tone: the professional squabbles, artistic decisions, iconic outfits, and all. The memoir also features Coddington’s personal photographs, as well as lush spreads from her favorite features.

Por Estas Calles Bravas / Down These Mean Streets by Piri Tomás

Down These Mean Streets

Growing up in Spanish Harlem in the 1930s and ’40s, Tomás experienced discrimination and abuse on the basis of his Puerto Rican heritage. In an environment of poverty and violence, he fell into crime and drug addiction and eventually was incarcerated over a dispute with a police officer. His vivid personal account, available in both English and Spanish, details his journey from a place of hopelessness to self-acceptance through storytelling.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Douglass’s narrative is an important document of American history, as well as an essential piece of American literature. It records his experiences under slavery and his eventual escape and involvement in the abolition movement. A story of incredible hardship and triumph, the narrative includes the acquisition of language itself; Douglass taught himself to read and write, skills the enslaved were otherwise denied.

The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day

The Long Loneliness

A leader in the Catholic Worker movement, Day was a radical political organizer and journalist governed by principles of nonviolence and charity. Her autobiography captures a storied life, including her religious conversion, her personal conflicts over motherhood, and her founding and operation of the Catholic Worker newspaper. Her autobiography stands as an exquisite piece of personal reflection and social activism (with a moving introduction by psychiatrist Robert Coles).

Night by Elie Wiesel

Written in 1960, Wiesel’s memoir is the sobering account of his experiences during the Holocaust, including his time in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. At certain moments, his prose takes on a fractured, faltering quality, as if language itself fails to capture the horrors he endured. Sixty-four years after its publication, Night remains an important record of a dark chapter in recent history.

By Sophie Dodd

By Hannah Jackson

By Maia Torres

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Duane Eddy, Whose Twang Changed Rock ’n’ Roll, Dies at 86

A self-taught electric guitar virtuoso, he influenced a generation of musicians. One of them, John Fogerty, called him rock’s first guitar god.

By Bill Friskics-Warren

Bill Friskics-Warren reports on country music from Nashville for The New York Times.

Duane Eddy, who broke new ground in pop music in the 1950s with a reverberant, staccato style of guitar playing that became known as twang, died on Tuesday in Franklin, Tenn. He was 86.

The cause of his death, in a hospital, was complications of cancer, said his wife, Deed (Abbate) Eddy.

Mr. Eddy had tremendous success as a strictly instrumental recording artist in the late 1950s and ’60s, selling millions of records worldwide with growling, echo-laden hits like “Rebel Rouser” and “Forty Miles of Bad Road.” In the process, he played a major role in establishing electric guitar as the predominant musical instrument in rock ’n’ roll.

Mr. Eddy influenced a multitude of rock guitarists, including George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Springsteen, whose plunging guitar lines on “Born to Run” pay homage to Mr. Eddy’s muscular fretwork.

“Duane Eddy was the front guy, the first rock and roll guitar god,” John Fogerty, the founding lead singer and guitarist of Creedence Clearwater Revival, is quoted as saying on the Rhino Records website .

Mr. Eddy, who was self-taught, devised his rhythmic melodicism by playing the lead lines on his guitar’s bass strings and by liberally using the vibrato bar. He never learned to read or score music, but he had a strong ear for pop idioms, including country, jazz, and rhythm and blues.

He also had a knack for studio experimentation; at one point he brought a 2,000-gallon water tank to a session and placed a speaker inside it to simulate the effects of an echo chamber.

“I like exploring different textures on tracks in the studio, and different arrangement ideas,” Mr. Eddy said in a 2013 interview with Guitar Player magazine, which had honored him in 2004 with its Legend Award.

“For me,” Mr. Eddy went on, “it’s not just playing the instrument, it’s also making the record. I guess a better way of explaining it is that I don’t write or arrange songs as such. Instead, I think of it as writing or arranging records . My sound is the common denominator that pulls all the threads and knits them together.”

Easily recognizable, Mr. Eddy’s signature approach to the guitar accounted for 15 Top 40 pop hits from 1958 to 1963. “Because They’re Young,” a string-sweetened record, appeared on the soundtrack of the 1960 movie of the same name that starred Dick Clark and Tuesday Weld.

More characteristic of Mr. Eddy’s gritty playing was “Cannonball,” a rollicking instrumental that reached the pop Top 20 in the U.S. and the Top 10 in Britain in 1958, and “(Dance With the) Guitar Man,” a 1962 hit that featured a female vocal group on the chorus. “The Ballad of Paladin,” a loping instrumental, was used as the theme for the CBS television series “Have Gun — Will Travel.”

Most of Mr. Eddy’s early recordings were made with the producer and songwriter Lee Hazlewood and released on the Philadelphia-based label Jamie Records. The Rebels, his backing band, boasted several members of the celebrated West Coast studio collective known as the Wrecking Crew, which included the guitarist Al Casey , the saxophonists Jim Horn and Plas Johnson, and the keyboard and bass player Larry Knechtel .

Most of Mr. Eddy’s albums from the late 1950s and early ’60s incorporated a version of the word “twang” in their titles.

Mr. Eddy was born on April 26, 1938, in Corning, N.Y., a small town in the south central part of the state. He started playing the guitar at the age of 5. His father, Lloyd, drove a bread truck and later managed a Safeway grocery store. His mother, Alberta Evelyn (Granger) Eddy, managed the home. The family moved to Tucson, Ariz., when Duane was 13, and then to Phoenix, where he met Mr. Hazlewood and they began their musical partnership.

Duane acquired his first custom-made Chet Atkins-model Gretsch guitar when he was 16. He made his first recordings — as half of the duo Jimmy and Duane, with the pianist Jimmy Delbridge (who later recorded under the name Jimmy Dell) — the next year.

In 1957, Mr. Eddy began touring as a guitarist with Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars , and he began releasing recordings under his own name shortly afterward.

Mr. Eddy and Mr. Hazlewood parted ways over a contract dispute in late 1960, though they later reunited to work on projects. Mr. Eddy soon signed with RCA.

The hit singles had stopped coming by the mid-1960s, but Mr. Eddy continued to release instrumental albums, including “Duane Does Dylan,” a collection of covers of songs written by Bob Dylan.

The rockabilly revival of the next decade gave rise to renewed interested in Mr. Eddy’s work. The 1970s also saw Mr. Eddy producing albums by Phil Everly and Waylon Jennings , whose widow, Jessi Colter, was married to Mr. Eddy from 1962 to 1968.

Mr. Eddy’s music was introduced to yet another generation of fans in the 1980s, when the British synth-pop group Art of Noise released an avant-disco reworking of his 1960 hit version of Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn,” with Mr. Eddy on lead guitar. It won a Grammy Award for best rock instrumental performance in 1987.

Mr. Eddy was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, the same year that his original hit recording of “Rebel Rouser” appeared in the movie “Forrest Gump.” “The Trembler,” a track he wrote with Ravi Shankar , was featured in Oliver Stone’s 1994 film, “Natural Born Killers.” He was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville in 2008.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Eddy is survived by three children, Linda Jones and Chris Eddy, from his first marriage, to Carol Puckett, and Jennifer Eddy Davis, from his marriage to Ms. Colter; a sister, Elaine Scarborough; five grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.

Unlike many instrumentalists, Mr. Eddy said, he never seriously considered expanding his musical résumé to include vocals.

Elaborating on the subject to Guitar Player in 2013, he recalled an interview with Conan O’Brien in which he was asked, “Duane, you’ve been in this business for many years now; what do you consider your greatest contribution to music?” He answered, “Not singing.”

“I never felt that I had a good voice for singing,” he went on. “When I was young, this frustrated me a lot, so I took it out on the guitar.”