I Am What I Am John Barrowman (books that read to you txt) 📖

past, we kept going back for another one.) My first car was a fire-red Scirocco. I adored it, and I think when I sat behind the wheel for the first time, at that moment I knew that, whenever I could afford it, I wanted to collect cars.

Around this time, I met Stacey Simmons, who became a close friend and confidante all through high school, and who also owned a red car, a Pontiac Firebird. I believe our first conversation, after I’d introduced myself to her, was about that car.

Stacey was a tall, leggy blonde. She liked clothes, especially Ralph Lauren. Even better, Stacey was a bit of a petrol head like me. She adored all the stuff a girl wasn’t supposed to be into; and I loved all the things a boy wasn’t supposed to like. We complemented each other perfectly.

Stacey was also a member of our high-school Pom Squad, the Tiger Paws. When I’d hang out at her house, I’d help her with the choreography for her dance routines. This, of course, fuelled the high-school rumour that we were dating, which was rubbish. We were BFFs.6 When she and I went to parties, she was usually the designated driver because I’d be the one who’d like to have a drink.7

Stacey’s mother, Lynn, and her father, Frank, were from a big real-estate family in Joliet, and it was Stacey’s mother who first introduced me to ‘Midwest Caviar’. It’s still one of my favourite snacks. Take a block of Velveeta cheese, pour over a can of Hormel Chili with Beans,8 add a carton of sour cream, and then heat in the microwave for a few minutes. Mix and dip. I’d devour the entire bowl. Loved the stuff!

Stacey’s dad and I got along well, too. He was a really genuine guy, but one day – with absolutely no malice intended on his part – he said something that gutted me. I’ve kept this to myself all these years. But as I think about it now, in the context of these stories, I believe it was another of those small, defining moments that’s stuck in my psyche, and that may have had a bigger impact on me than I first thought.

Frank was typical of the generation of American men that emerged in the sixties, and which the US network AMC’s terrific TV show, Mad Men, has epitomized. Frank came home from the office, tossed his jacket on a chair or table near the front door, loosened his tie, and accepted the cocktail Lynn would have waiting for him. One evening when he arrived home, I was sitting in the living room, waiting for Stacey. He and I chatted for a while.

‘So, John,’ he said, ‘when are you going to stop all this funny stuff and think about getting a real job?’

I loved this family – still do – and I admired Frank very much. I thought he understood me. I laughed off his remark, and reminded him that acting was a real job, but I was hurt. At the time, his statement was one more added to all the others during middle and high school that made me even more determined to make my decision to be an entertainer pay off just as well as any ‘real job’.9

Years later, when I was getting big jobs and well-paid work, my parents ran into Frank and Lynn, and Frank was impressed with my accomplishments. If he reads this, I’m sure he’ll be surprised that his comment has stayed with me all these years afterwards – especially because he may not even remember the conversation. The incident has reminded me, though, that as adults we do have to be vigilant with our offhand comments and asides to the children in our lives because these kinds of remarks, in a child’s head, can carry so much more weight than we intend.

The passion for cars that I shared with Stacey has remained as important in my adult life as it was in my youth and childhood, when I used to load cars into my Matchbox garage or race them on my Hot Wheels electric ‘street speed challenge’ track.10 When I left for college, my dad traded in the VW Scirocco for an Isuzu Impulse with Lotus suspension,11 and I’ve never looked back.

Many of the cars I’ve owned as an adult have associations with my youth. In my childhood head, a symbol of a person’s success as a grown-up was to own a Mercedes. I’ve been lucky enough to afford two; I’m on first-name terms with my local Mercedes dealer, the Sinclair Group. In my garage, I have a slick black Volvo convertible, with champagne leather interior. With one touch, the car’s hardtop frame rises majestically, as if the car was a Transformer – one of my favourite toys as a boy. I recently added a fire-red Cadillac to my stable; my first scarlet car since my youth, and a vehicle whose front makes it look like it should be a character in Disney’s Cars.12 My olive-green Renault Avantime, of which only a limited number were sold in the UK, reminds me of George Jetson’s pod car, with its roof of glass and its sharp angles and futuristic shape, while my mint-green 1982 Mercedes SL is my Pam and Bobby Ewing car.

I used to own a DeLorean, the Back to the Future car, but because I have limited storage space for my car collection, I had to release this car back into the future. The first time I took the DeLorean out for a drive in Cardiff, I needed to fill up the tank. It took me forty minutes and a desperate phone call to its past owner in Ireland to find the location of the petrol cap.13

When my family returned to Scotland in 1972, after spending a year in the United States14 at the behest of my dad’s firm, Caterpillar Inc., one of the most prized possessions I brought back with me was my Big Wheel bike. Do