Johnny Depp: The Passionate Rebel

Ian C. Nelson, Librarian Emeritus, former Assistant Director of
Libraries (University of Saskatchewan) and dramaturge (Festival de la
Dramaturgie des Prairies).

With “rebel” as the subtitle keyword now for two fan-guide
biographies of Johnny Depp (the other by Brian J. Robb), the most
attractive feature of Stone Wallace’s entry is the coloured photo on
the cover. Wallace is credited with having previously written two novels
(Child of Demons and Blood Moon), books on “legendary and contemporary
celebrities” (Russell Crowe, George Raft, and Dolores Fuller), and a
historical reference book, Dustbowl Desperadoes: Gangsters of the Dirty
’30s. He is also the author of two books about famous Canadian film
stars.

Johnny Depp is written in the breathless headline style of
Entertainment Tonight, replete with showbiz vocabulary and cavalier
mixing of professional and intimate life. The biographer treats
“supporting” personalities to zappy adjectival characterizations,
but keeping track of his opinions—which change literally from sentence
to sentence—is a challenge. Mind you, we stand warned: both the
foreword by Dolores Fuller and Wallace’s introduction seem to beg one
to ignore what is to follow. Subsequently, speculative words like
“probably” and “perhaps” hedge most bets within the main text.
The publisher has tried to make this slim volume “cool,” despite its
almost newsprint-quality paper and black-and-white photos, by giving it
typographical pizzazz: highlighting paragraphs of the running text at
least every second page and providing sidebar fillers of quotes repeated
from the text (why?) or “Depp fan facts.” Empty or incomprehensible
sentences abound: one period of his career is said to represent “the
lowest, if not the darkest time in Johnny Depp’s life.” Even after
making allowances for the vagaries of Hollywood productions and eventual
film releases, keeping track of timelines from paragraph to paragraph is
troublesome. Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is called in the
text a “proposed remake,” whereas the reverse chronological
filmography goes so far as to list it as well as four other films slated
for release in 2005 and 2006 with no such specific notation. The
occasional bright observation stands out: for example, Tim Burton is
described as a “Steven Spielberg without restraint.”

Viewing Pirates of the Caribbean serves Depp’s career better than
this light backpack fanzine.