Rosie Perez, star of “Fearless” and “The Counselor” will be signing copies of “Handbook For An Unpredictable Life” at the following location:
2/27/14 7:00 PM
The Strand Bookstore
828 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
Phone:(212) 473-1452
About the Author
Rosa Maria “Rosie” Perez (born September 6, 1964) is an American actress, dancer, choreographer, director and community activist.
Perez was born in Brooklyn, New York, in the neighborhood of Bushwick, to Puerto Rican parents. Rosie was born to Lydia Perez; her father is Ismael Serrano, a merchant marine seaman. She was transferred to a group foster home at age 8.
Because of problems in her life, Perez ended up having a speech impediment. She eventually moved in with an aunt. She attended Grover Cleveland High School, which is located in Ridgewood, in the New York City borough of Queens, and Los Angeles City College in Los Angeles, California.
Perez was first noticed in a dance club by Spike Lee in 1988, who hired her for her first major acting role in Do the Right Thing. Perez started her career in the late 1980s as a dancer on Soul Train and later choreographed music videos by Janet Jackson, Bobby Brown, Diana Ross, LL Cool J and The Boys. She was the choreographer for the dancing group the Fly Girls who were featured on the Fox television comedy program In Living Color.
She made her Broadway debut in Terrence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. Perez had her third major role in the hit comedy White Men Can’t Jump co-starring Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson.
Perez was nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Peter Weir’s 1993 film Fearless. In 1997, she starred in Perdita Durango, a controversial film in which many scenes of excessive violence, sex and nudity were edited out of the version released in the United States but remained intact in the version released throughout Latin America.
She provides the voices of Click, the camera, on Nick Jr.’s Go, Diego, Go! and Chel, a beautiful native woman in the DreamWorks Animation film The Road to El Dorado. She played corrupt police officer Carol Brazier in the Judd Apatow-produced film Pineapple Express, co-starring Seth Rogen and James Franco. Perez appeared on an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in October 2009 about pedophiles’ rights. Executive producer Neal Baer said the writers had Perez in mind when they wrote the role of a young sexual abuse victim’s mother. She suffered a serious injury during the filming of the episode. Most recently, Perez is the subject of a released album by Felt entitled Felt 3: A Tribute To Rosie Perez.
About the Book
Oscar-nominated actress Rosie Perez’s never-before-told story of surviving a harrowing childhood and of how she found success—both in and out of the Hollywood limelight.
Rosie Perez first caught our attention with her fierce dance in the title sequence of Do the Right Thing and has since defined herself as a funny and talented actress who broke boundaries for Latinas in the film industry. What most people would be surprised to learn is that the woman with the big, effervescent personality has a secret straight out of a Dickens novel. At the age of three, Rosie’s life was turned upside down when her mentally ill mother tore her away from the only family she knew and placed her in a Catholic children’s home in New York’s Westchester County. Thus began her crazily discombobulated childhood of being shuttled between “the Home,” where she and other kids suffered all manners of cruelty from nuns, and various relatives’ apartments in Brooklyn.
Many in her circumstances would have been defined by these harrowing experiences, but with the intense determination that became her trademark, Rosie overcame the odds and made an incredible life for herself. She brings her journey vividly to life on each page of this memoir—from the vibrant streets of Brooklyn to her turbulent years in the Catholic home, and finally to film and TV sets and the LA and New York City hip-hop scenes of the 1980s and ‘90s.
More than a page-turning read, Handbook for an Unpredictable Life is a story of survival. By turns heartbreaking and funny, it is ultimately the inspirational story of a woman who has found a hard-won place of strength and peace.
You can pre-order her book here on Amazon!
