Items related to Fun While It Lasted: My Rise and Fall in the Land of...
Synopsis
A high-stakes coin collector, formerly one of the richest men in America, recounts how he amassed a fortune in rare and ancient coins before branching out into various business deals with famous celebrities and major companies, involvements that led to his incarceration for fraud. Reprint.
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Review
Bruce McNall's creative career afforded him celebrity status, lots of money, an opulent lifestyle, and, in the end, a five-year prison term. His memoir, Fun While It Lasted, which shares the same breeziness hinted at in its title, is both entertaining and a bit depressing. McNall parlayed a boyhood interest in rare coins into a profitable livelihood even before entering college. Within a few years, he was travelling the world, buying up coins from shady dealers and reselling them to Hollywood's elite.
McNall played fast and loose with his prices and accounting and profited handsomely off a market that he helped create. From coins, he branched out, trading in thoroughbred racehorses, and buying the LA Kings hockey team. Ultimately, the FBI caught up with him and McNall was jailed for fraud. In reflecting on his life and crimes, McNall heartily endorses the assessment made by a Los Angeles Daily News reporter: "In the end, Bruce McNall wanted too much to be liked." And while that explanation is awfully sweet, if one judges by his choices and lifestyle it seems like his problem was plain old greed.
Despite his financial success and stunning talent as a salesman, McNall always seemed to crave more money and power and was willing to break laws and lie to achieve them. Because it details a life more dramatic than most, and because its compelling central character ultimately gets his comeuppance, Fun While It Lasted, cowritten by Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael D'Antonio, manages to be both a fun adventure and a cautionary moral tale. --John Moe, Amazon.com
Review
"Fun While It Lasted is as rare as one of Bruce McNall's ancient coins, and, better yet, it has more than two sides--astonishingly honest and hugely entertaining."
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