Breathing Out

I've loved her forever, which for me means from afar since 1968 when first I beheld her. 'Twas that fall when I discovered her living in my television as part of a new hip detective endeavor...Julie, Pete & Linc they were - The Mod Squad. From unforgettable opening music to haunting close and betwixt, mine quite teen sensibilities fixated on fresh faced Peggy Lipton, I being quite enamored of her cool sexiness & sweet innocence, said exudations stirring nascent feelings within me...consumed, formers Batman & Robin were relagated to a lesser pedestal. Thence, television seemed a nice place to linger - so I did - and it occurred to me: what's she's really like, and can I peddle my bicycle to California over the weekend and still get back in time for school Monday? (spelled c-r-u-s-h). I never found out as I fell off my bike that Friday but the burning question remained; now, 37+ years later I've an idea after reading 'Breathing Out'. As such I'm sad and a bit disappointed - the former for her and the latter for me - yet still smitten & to reference her via a late 60's song "I Love You More Today Than Yesterday". 'Breathing Out' is a well written summation of highlights & low in Peggy's life, put to slightly more than 300 pages which make for a non-tedious interesting read. As to content it will likely appeal to those who remember her from her late 60's early 70's heyday (this encompasses a large portion of baby boomers of which she herself is one) and provides insight into the burning question `what's she like?' that I pined over decades before. A picture emerges as she illuminates her life from birth to date and offers insights on family & extended family, abuses and excuses, seeking (answers & fulfillment) and keeping (quiet), friends, lovers & affairs, self-analysis, girl to woman & the plural of each, likewise boys unto men, modeling to acting, emptiness to ecstasy, (self) medicinal adventures & preference in sustenance, love and loss, children, crises & more...the book literally speaks volumes. That for better or worse she is not Julie Barnes of Mod Squad per se if perhaps a bit more like Norma Jennings from Twin Peaks shouldn't really come as a surprise for watching a performer is not to `know' them apart from said of course. To that point 'Breathing Out' made this reviewer wish he could have rescued Peggy Lipton at various stages in her life because, apart from the aspect (conscious, inferred or via conclusions drawn) that she has been a typical pampered star in some ways and an admitted narcissist at times (par for the Hollywood landscape), she comes across as a genuinely sympathetic figure, one to whom comfort from her demons and indeed herself at times presented itself as the fervent hope of this reviewer...yet another example of fame, fortune and fun NOT being the end all, be all to finding contentment. Having said as much this is not to imply she was helpless or too compliant nee the blameless bystander, for the

I have been a fan of Peggy Lipton's for years. I was so pleased to hear she had a book coming out, but was concerned that it would fall in line with the rest of the celebrity tell-all shlock. Suffice it to say, it does not. Yes, she does go into to detail of her relationships with famous people, but it's well integrated with her longer more meaningful life journey. I fully enjoyed this read and I highly recommend it.

Revealing your history (including sexual experiences) is a choice. It's interesting to me that we're often more critical of women who write tell-all books then men. In fact, I've read a number of reviews criticizing famous males when they don't reveal more and praising them when they do. A personal, honest journey is not revealing dirt. And Ms. Lipton had a wonderful relationship for many years in which she had her children. Obviously relationships are important to her. I found her a true bright light on Twin Peaks. And she is more beautiful as a mature woman than ever! Breathing Out is a good thing.

When I was growing up, I wished more than anything that I could be Julie Barnes... so as soon as I heard about this book, I ran out and bought it. Peggy has had an amazing life, filled with despair and wonder, and she shares her stories in a very direct, honest manner. While parts of Peggy mirrored the emotional, vulnerable Julie that she played on the show, she is also much more sensual and complicated than her public persona. I guess I just assumed that a woman as beautiful and famous as Peggy would have led a happy life, but that was naive on my part. Breathing Out was a surprising memoir: so much of it was heavy and depressing, but then it became inspirational as Peggy grew stronger and learned to face her past, so she could change her future. This is a well-written, fast-paced and absorbing memoir. I recommend it very much.

Peggy Lipton, best known for playing Julie in the seminal TV hippie/cop show, THE MOD SQUAD, was one of the most beautiful girls of the 1960s, an era of much beauty. Lipton had a radiance and a natural glow about her that made her stand out, and she wasn't a bad actress, though THE MOD SQUAD didn't give her that much to do. She was sulky and bold, as though she were trying to play James Dean's part in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, and like Dean in REBEL, her character, Julie, had to bond in a convincing way with other misfits. "With Michael and Clarence, I had an intuitive, wordless connection," she writes. The three of them could be lounging around a hippe pad together, or riding their big Harleys down Sunset Boulevard, and that connection remained. She was a star in her day (40 years ago), and she accomplished all this almost by accident,while wearing the coolest clothes ever seen on TV, and fighting crime, and reconciling the values of a drug and street culture to the strict law and order regime of a Quinn Martin production. Behind the scenes Peggy was much gossiped about and as her revealing memoir tells us, it turns out to have been all true. Her affair with Paul McCartney is beautifully told. As she describes it, she was kind of squeezed in between Jane Asher and Linda Eastman, and I for one can see how Asher, Eastman, and Heather Mills are all variations on the Peggy Lipton type. She lived with Lou Adler and so she was right at the center of the LA "youthquake" with the Monterey Pop Festival, the Mamas and the Papas, etc. She even made an LP which I wish was included as a CD in the back of this book but alas no. She survived a close encounter with Sammy Davis Jr., and she "ended up spending three long weekends" with the one and only Elvis Presley. I'm just scratching the surface here. She got around in a serious way--she was "rapaciously romantic," she admits. When she married Quincy Jones, she sort of withdrew from acting, and then David Lynch and TWIN PEAKS put her back on the map again. Her accounts of working with both men are equally satisfying. Most of all her readers will grow genuinely fond of her by the time the book comes to a close.