\n<\/p>\n
John Stamos wants to read you a story. In fact, he insists.<\/p>\n
Sure, you could pore over the 352 pages of his new memoir, \u201cIf You Would Have Told Me,\u201d to be published by Henry Holt on Oct. 24.<\/p>\n
But wouldn\u2019t you rather listen to him narrate the audiobook as he guides you through his 60 years with his voice, his emotions?<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, yes, you can put your own thoughts of what things look like or what they sound like,\u201d he said, \u201cbut it\u2019s just so real for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Howard Stern took Stamos\u2019s suggestion and listened. \u201cThen he left me the longest message on why he loved it,\u201d Stamos said, replaying it in his Los Angeles office, guitars on the wall behind him, drums to the side, the charm and hair and sincerity that he parlayed into playing bad boys with hearts of gold \u2014 Blackie Parrish on \u201cGeneral Hospital,\u201d Uncle Jesse on \u201cFull House,\u201d Dr. Tony Gates on \u201cER\u201d \u2014 still front and center.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Stamos\u2019s read was excellent, Stern said. He didn\u2019t overplay it, he didn\u2019t underplay it \u2014 he played it perfectly. And the anecdotes were compelling and even self-effacing. Stamos didn\u2019t really put down anyone, even when discussing his alcoholism and divorce.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt did show us a real sign of intelligence, so I think the book\u2019s a home run,\u201d Stern added in the message. \u201cYou definitely had a story to tell.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also the first time Stamos has revealed some of it publicly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a month, whoever decides to read it, they\u2019re going to know a lot,\u201d he said. \u201cI saw a lot of deep, dark stuff. And I thought, \u2018If I\u2019m not 100 percent honest, then why am I doing this?\u2019 But I\u2019ve never been 100 percent honest before in my life. It wasn\u2019t the way I was raised. My dad was like, \u2018Don\u2019t talk about politics. Don\u2019t talk about religion. Keep it light. Keep it surface-y. Be Dean Martin.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd here I was for many years not seeing a clear picture because I was drinking and stuff, trying to fulfill someone else\u2019s idea living vicariously through me,\u201d he added. \u201cI felt it was my duty to be that guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dark isn\u2019t what typically springs to mind when you think of Stamos. His mother liked to say that he decided to be an actor sometime between being born and arriving home from the hospital. An Orange County kid obsessed with Disneyland, he was intent on being famous. It never occurred to him that he wouldn\u2019t be.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThen I spent the next 20 years trying to get back to that fearlessness, which I think is where I\u2019m at now,\u201d he said. \u201cSobriety, I\u2019m telling you, is a huge thing. Because I would go into a party or a meeting, and I\u2019d have to get a little drunk. \u2018Hey, that makes me charming, that makes me funny \u2014 that makes me fuzzy.\u2019 And people saw that. There was a fuzz around me, women, the business. If I would\u2019ve straightened out 10, 15 years sooner, I think I\u2019d have been closer to a George Clooney career than I am now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Stamos doesn\u2019t shrink from that darkness in the book, starting with the first chapter when in June 2015 \u2014 his marriage to Rebecca Romijn long broken, his parents not long deceased, his career not quite the one he\u2019d dreamed of \u2014 he swerves in his Mercedes down Rodeo Drive while fans, recognizing that Stamos is dead drunk, yell at him to pull over.<\/p>\n
He finally does, and the police find him passed out, put him in an ambulance to the hospital and charge him with a misdemeanor D.U.I. When he wakes up, his \u201cFull House\u201d co-star Bob Saget is at his bedside. \u201cNo judgment, just concern and love,\u201d Stamos writes.<\/p>\n
Concern and love abounded.<\/p>\n
Even before she really knew Stamos, Jamie Lee Curtis had thought he\u2019d be perfect to play her father, Tony Curtis. \u201cThey have the same comic energy, captivating flair, sharp humor, keen intelligence, childlike passion and, dare I say, deep sadness behind the mask of a ridiculously handsome man,\u201d she writes in the book\u2019s foreword.<\/p>\n
She had witnessed that sadness firsthand. \u201cI had seen him at a business party in New York, when he wasn\u2019t sober, and looked into his gorgeous eyes, and tried to communicate with mine that there was another way for him.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
By the time he and Curtis co-starred in the series \u201cScream Queens,\u201d in 2016, Stamos was newly sober and in a relationship with Caitlin McHugh, the actor and writer who would become his wife.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have people I talk to every day,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of them is Jamie.<\/p>\n