Vinnie Jones

Yes, another book completed, Vinnie Jones’ Vinnie: My Life, the story of an English football star turned Hollywood actor. 

He grew in a part of England I don’t recognize (Watford).  He did odd jobs and had various scrapes at school.  He wound up playing soccer (aka football) in England in the 1990s.  The teams he played for were Wimbledon (now long gone from Premier League), Leeds, Sheffield United, Queens Park Rangers, and Chelsea.   Like Black Sabbath and the Beatles playing in Hamburg, Germany, early in their careers, Jones played in Sweden for a short time.  Of these teams, he’s most associated with Wimbledon, for the most part a 2nd division team.  Unlike Beckham, his football career never took him to a world stage, so he's known as a football player in England and - to the extent he's known outside the UK - as an actor everywhere else. 

While playing in England he developed a bad reputation as a dirty player, which of course he denies completely. On one occasion, in an effort to get Paul Gascoigne to back off from behind him, he grabbed “Gazza’s” balls.  He’s been sent off 12 times – including once in the first 3 seconds of a game.

  However, it seemed to have led to his being tapped for a few English movies:  Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and Snatch.   I’ve seen both of these and they’re… OK.  The high point of the first one was a Bren gun; the second had Brad Pitt.   In each he pretty much played a bad-ass tough guy.  These led to his being cast in the remake of Gone in 60 Seconds, with Nicholas Cage and Angelina Jolie.  For the life of me I can’t remember his role as The Sphinx.

In fact, while he seems to brag about being a big Hollywood movie star, partying with the A-listers in Beverly Hills, I don’t see any evidence that he’s headlined a major US film in his own right as the lead role, although he has done the Burt Reynolds/Adam Sandler role in Mean Machine, a British remake of The Longest Yard.  Mainly he’s mid-level characters: Swordfish, a ManU hooligan in Euro Trip, Juggernaut in X Men: Last Stand, and Freddie the Dog in Madagascar 3. 

Although he puffs himself up in his book quite large, I still find him an intriguing guy.  I’ll make it a point to see more of his films again.