You can’t judge a book by its cover, but the very first page of “Don’t Hassel The Hoff” pretty much nails this brazen masterwork of self-promotion.
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It’s a photo of author/actor/singer/ironically iconic pop-culture titan and German-loved David Hasselhoff, accepting his Guinness World Records certificate for being the most-watched actor on TV, along with an imprint of the certificate itself.
So, before we’ve even read a word of the 297-page memoir, Hasselhoff and co-writer Peter Thompson want to make sure we get the theme — David Hasselhoff is important!
He’s got hit shows (“Knight Rider” and “Baywatch”), the German pop music career, a mission to visit and cheer up terminally ill children, and the sparkly good looks.
It’s hard to read “Don’t Hassel The Hoff” without thinking about that video of him drunkenly trying to eat a hamburger on the floor of his Las Vegas hotel suite as his young daughter tapes him.
But Hasselhoff has thus far exhibited a resilience that has baffled critics and fans alike. “Don’t Hassel The Hoff” is full of tales of bouncing back from adversity.
And that seems to be happening again. Hasselhoff’s co-custody of his two daughters with his ex-wife has been reinstated (it was revoked when the videotape came out). He’s also returning as host of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent.”
Hasselhoff probably believes he’s being humble, but every few pages, he can’t help mentioning how much work he’s done with sick kids, or how much he hates injustice and racism — Martin Luther King Jr., Sammy Davis Jr. and his father’s African-American best buddy are all name-dropped by the end of the fifth paragraph of Chapter 1.
Even with all the self-promotion, there are some fun moments of self-awareness in “Don’t Hassel The Hoff.”
He admits to having been a huge jerk at times, bolting from rehab, driving drunk and being such a fame junkie that he finds himself wandering around Kenya asking Masai warriors whether they’ve heard of him.
In the foreword, Hasselhoff writes: “My image is someone else’s perception of what my life is.” If “Don’t Hassel The Hoff” is the actor’s own perception of his life, it varies little from the image everyone else has — a basically likable guy. But a guy with real problems, a healthy ego and an insatiable drive to constantly reinvent.