If you aren’t familiar with Danny Trejo, I’d be surprised. Perhaps you know him from hit films like Desperado, Heat, or Machete. Maybe you spotted him in Spy Kids or Muppets Most Wanted while watching with your children. And who could forget his stand-out roles in television shows like Breaking Bad and Sons of Anarchy?! The point is, with a career boasting over 380 acting credits, Danny Trejo is an actor you are bound to recognise. But how much do you really know about the man behind these roles?
Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood—written by Danny Trejo himself, alongside his close friend Donal Logue—tells the truly inspiring, no-holds-barred story of his life. Trejo shares his experiences with complete honesty, no filtering and no bullshit. From his crime-filled youth to his battle with addiction, his most personal relationships to building a career as one of the busiest actors in Hollywood, this memoir leaves nothing out.
Growing up watching family member after family member go in and out of prison, it’s not necessarily surprising Trejo followed in their footsteps. He found himself taken into a police station for the first time at the age of 10, a regular in juvie by age 12. Assuming he would end up dying in prison, he grew to fear no consequences, escalating his stays in lock-up to some of the country’s most well-known prisons, from San Quentin to Folsom.
Alongside his early life in crime, Trejo also spends a great deal of time discussing his history of addiction. At a very young age he found himself using drugs to cope with overwhelming feelings of anger and fear; yet he was able to ultimately overcome this struggle. The story of how he got clean while in prison is inspirational, as is the way he has continued helping others in order to maintain his own sobriety. You may be surprised to learn Trejo has been involved in building and leading a great number of recovery programs and clinics in California. He even helped pass legislation in the same state, allowing those sentenced as juveniles better access to parole hearings.
Trejo also lays bare how his familial culture and relationships impacted him across his life. He shares openly how painful his relationship was with his father, who saw him as a disappointment. His uncle was instead the most important person in his world, a man who Trejo says saved his life but was also responsible for introducing him to heroin at the age of 12. In hindsight, he is also clear on how the men in his family influenced his own relationships with women, discussing what he calls the “machismo” and “Chicanismo” of the men he grew up around, who were so often unfaithful and violent. Readers are even given a view into Trejo’s relationships with his own children—his role in raising them, their own struggles with addiction, and his admitted inability to refrain from enabling them.
Simply put, Trejo is a memoir you don’t want to miss! Film aficionados will appreciate the inside look at how Danny Trejo accidentally fell into the film business, then became one of the hardest workers around, snagging the title of being “killed” on-screen more than any other actor. But this book is more than just that. It is a tale of ups and downs, of perseverance. A look across a lifetime of pain and loss, alongside joy and success. And most importantly, it is a reminder of how complex human beings really are, how powerfully resilient.
Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore. Many thanks to Atria Books for providing me with an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are entirely my own.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
For the first time, the full, fascinating, and inspirational true story of Danny Trejo’s journey from crime, prison, addiction, and loss to unexpected fame as Hollywood’s favorite bad guy with a heart of gold.
On screen, Danny Trejo the actor is a baddie who has been killed at least a hundred times. He’s been shot, stabbed, hanged, chopped up, squished by an elevator, and once, was even melted into a bloody goo. Off screen, he’s a hero beloved by recovery communities and obsessed fans alike. But the real Danny Trejo is much more complicated than the legend.
Raised in an abusive home, Danny struggled with heroin addiction and stints in some of the country’s most notorious state prisons, including San Quentin and Folsom, from an early age, before starring in such modern classics as Heat, From Dusk till Dawn, and Machete. Now, in this funny, painful, and suspenseful memoir, Danny takes us through the incredible ups and downs of his life, including meeting one of the world’s most notorious serial killers in prison and working with legends like Charles Bronson and Robert De Niro.
In honest, unflinching detail, Danny recounts how he managed the horrors of prison, rebuilt himself after finding sobriety and spirituality in solitary confinement, and draws inspiration from the adrenaline-fueled robbing heists of his past for the film roles that made him a household name. He also shares the painful contradictions in his personal life. Although he speaks everywhere from prison yards to NPR about his past to inspire countless others on their own road to recovery and redemption, he struggles to help his children with their personal battles with addiction, and to build relationships that last.
Redemptive and painful, poignant and real, Trejo is a portrait of a magnificent life and an unforgettable and exceptional journey through tragedy, pain, and, finally, success that will transfix and inspire.
