By Some Miracle I Made It Out of There: A Memoir

Tom Sizemore · Anna David

Apr 2013 · Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

Tom Sizemore has been called many things. Brilliant. Brutal. Fiercely talented. Angry. Drug addicted. In reality, he’s all of them. He’s a survivor of the Detroit ghetto, the fifty-year-old father of twin boys, and a veteran of dozens of movies. He’s also now sober, after his addiction took his life just about as far down as any human being could go.

Through screen-stealing performances in the 1990s movies True Romance, Heat, and Natural Born Killers, Sizemore was so in demand that even when it was widely known that he had a drug problem, directors like Steven Spielberg were offering him roles and begging him to stay sober for them. Robert De Niro personally recruited him for the role of Michael

Cheritto in Heat after asking him to dinner and expressing his admiration. Jack Nicholson, Robert Downey, Jr., and Johnny Depp each went out of their way to befriend him. But this same man went from romancing Elizabeth Hurley and Juliette Lewis to being accused of domestic violence by the world’s most famous madam, and moved from a Beverly Hills mansion to a solitary-confinement cell at Chino State Prison and later a desolate, abandoned cabin in a town best known for being where Charles Manson hid Rosemary LaBianca’s wallet.

For years, Sizemore’s days were filled with overdoses, suicide attempts, and homelessness. The simple fact is that people don’t come back from where Tom Sizemore landed—yet miraculously, he did. By Some Miracle I Made It Out of There is a harrowing journey into the heart of addiction, told in riveting and often shocking detail—a terrifying cautionary tale for anyone who’s peered over the abyss of drug abuse. By turns gritty and heartbreaking, it is also one man’s look at a particular moment in entertainment history—a window into the drug-fueled spotlight that sent Robert Downey, Jr., to jail and killed River Phoenix, Heath Ledger, and Chris Farley and many others far before their time.

***

“I CAN’T TELL YOU WHAT I’D GIVE TO BE THE GUY YOU DIDN’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT. . . .

I’VE DONE A LOT OF THINGS THAT WOULD MAKE THAT IMPOSSIBLE, AND I KNOW THAT TELLING YOU ALL ABOUT THEM WON’T HELP ME TO BECOME AMERICA’S FAVORITE SON.

BUT IT MAY HELP YOU TO UNDERSTAND HOW EVERYTHING HAPPENED THE WAY IT DID. . . .”

—TOM SIZEMORE

Ratings and reviews

And I think you did a wonderful job on the book for sure as its said where there's dirt you'll find Sizemore great job Tom We always find ourselves

Tom really cracks himself wide open. Great book.

My soul has been touch again Ima save

About the author

Tom Sizemore rose in prominence as an actor throughout the 1990s, establishing himself as a memorable tough-guy character. Born in Detroit, he got his start in Born on the Fourth of July and has since starred in Devil in a Blue Dress, Strange Days, Wyatt Earp, Natural Born Killers, Heat, Saving Private Ryan, and Black Hawk Down, among many others. Sizemore recently costarred in Fox’s television pilot Exit Strategy and had a recurring guest-star role on Hawaii Five-O. Sizemore has counseled both teens involved in substance abuse and recovering addicts and is actively involved with the Hollenbeck Youth Center in East Los Angeles.