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Fun While it Lasted: My Rise and Fall in the Land of Fame and Fortune
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| List Price: | £17.99 |
| Price: | £17.09 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Delivery on orders over £5. Details |
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Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk
Product Description
Bruce McNall became obsessed with coin collectingat the age of ten. At sixteen, his collection wasworth $60,000. During college, he travelled theworld buying coins stolen from ancient sites andtombs. His first major sale was to Sy Weintraub,the head of Panavision, who bought $500,000 worthof coins in one sitting. Soon, McNall branched outinto horse racing, moving making (The FabulousBaker Boys), and owning the L.A. Kings hockeyteam. But in 1990, his house of cards collapsed,and McNall was sent to prison for defraudinginvestors. Now here is his whirlwind life story.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #910984 in Books
- Published on: 2003-10-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 304 pages
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.co.uk Review
Bruce McNall's creative career afforded him celebrity status, lots of money, an opulent lifestyle, and, in the end, a five-year prison term. His memoir, Fun While It Lasted, which shares the same breeziness hinted at in its title, is both entertaining and a bit depressing. McNall parlayed a boyhood interest in rare coins into a profitable livelihood even before entering college. Within a few years, he was travelling the world, buying up coins from shady dealers and reselling them to Hollywood's elite.
McNall played fast and loose with his prices and accounting and profited handsomely off a market that he helped create. From coins, he branched out, trading in thoroughbred racehorses, and buying the LA Kings hockey team. Ultimately, the FBI caught up with him and McNall was jailed for fraud. In reflecting on his life and crimes, McNall heartily endorses the assessment made by a Los Angeles Daily News reporter: "In the end, Bruce McNall wanted too much to be liked." And while that explanation is awfully sweet, if one judges by his choices and lifestyle it seems like his problem was plain old greed.
Despite his financial success and stunning talent as a salesman, McNall always seemed to crave more money and power and was willing to break laws and lie to achieve them. Because it details a life more dramatic than most, and because its compelling central character ultimately gets his comeuppance, Fun While It Lasted, cowritten by Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael D'Antonio, manages to be both a fun adventure and a cautionary moral tale. --John Moe, Amazon.com
