Breathing Out

by Peggy Lipton, David Dalton, Coco Dalton

Peggy Lipton's overnight success as Julie Barnes on television's hit The Mod Squad made her an instant fashion icon and the "it" girl everyone-from Elvis to Paul McCartney-wanted to date. She was the original and ultimate California girl of the early seventies, complete with stick-straight hair, a laid-back style, and a red convertible. But Lipton was much smart and determined to not be just another leggy blonde, she struggled for a way to stay connected to her childhood roots, though her coming of age had not been an easy one. And when she fell in love with Quincy Jones, that wasn't easy, their biracial marriage made headlines and changed her life.

Lipton's passionate and complicated seventeen-year marriage to Jones plunged her into motherhood and also into periods of confusion and difficulty. Her struggle to keep moving forward in the world while maintaining a rich inner life informed many of her decisions as an adult. When Lipton's marriage to Jones ended, she returned to television, appearing in David Lynch's Twin Peaks as well as in The Vagina Monologues and other stage productions. But her most recent triumph has been her overcoming a surprising diagnosis of colon cancer in 2003.

Breathing Out is full of fresh stories of life with the pop culture icons of our times, but is also a much more thoughtful book about life in the limelight, work, motherhood, and marriage. It's a refreshing and real look at the life of an actress who became, in many senses, a woman of her times.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Biography Memoir

320 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2005

About the author

Margaret Ann "Peggy" Lipton was an American actress and former model. Lipton became an overnight success through her best-known role as flower child Julie Barnes in the ABC counterculture television series The Mod Squad (1968–1973) for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama in 1970. Her fifty-year career in television, film, and on stage included many roles, most notably that of Norma Jennings in David Lynch's surreal Twin Peaks. Lipton was married to the musician and producer Quincy Jones and is mother to their two daughters, Rashida Jones and Kidada Jones, who also became actresses.

Her autobiography Breathing Out was published in 2005.

Abridged from Wikipedia

Reviews

[Mom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmm. . .I loved "The Mod Squad" when I was a kid, I'm glad I didn't know what she was like then. She has had a rough journey into finding peace with herself. The book itself, I feel, is well written, the design and theme are great, it was a fast read that kept me going. However, this book is not for everyone and it ends rather abruptly, leaving you wondering what happened next. On the subject of Hollywood, I am getting this sense of foreboding, an impression of "don't ever go there"; the phrase "the land of the fruits and nuts" applies.

[blmagm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hear that sound? That's the sound of one of my teen-aged idols falling off her pedestal! Who knew there was so much more drama going on behind the camera rather than in front of the camera on one of my favorite TV shows Mod Squad? Every week I looked forward to the adventures of Pete, Linc, and, of course, Julie, the iconic California Girl with her long blond hair, interesting fashions, and shy, sweet ways.
I am so sorry about Peggy's sexual abuse as a child, and I don't mean to judge her life choices as I have certainly not "walked a mile in her shoes." That being said, it was disheartening to read about her seemingly endless number of affairs and other self-destructive behaviors.
I must remember that I am here to critique her memoirs not her personal life. I appreciate her honesty and certain ones of the vignettes such as the one about her mother's hands and her time spent in the Indian ashram were really very touching. The book definitely kept me reading to the end. However, there was a disjointedness about the chapter order that was confusing. The chapters jumped back and forth in time in a haphazard sort of way. After such great detail about her early days, the ending vignettes seem abrupt and glossed over. I wish her continued good health and happiness with her children and their families, and inner peace.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed learning about Peggy's life. I was one of those girls back in the late 60's/early 70's who watched Mod Squad and wanted to look like (and be like) Peggy Lipton/Julie Barnes. When I see Peggy, those years come back to me. I was, of course, sad to know that she has been so troubled all of her life. One thing that surprised me was that she wrote so little about her singing talent, and the record albums she made. It's really a shame she did not go further with the music. Peggy has a beautiful voice, and I feel if someone would have worked with her on this talent back in the day, she could have been a major singing star. Her sweet voice often reminds me of Olivia Newton John. I hope that Peggy is doing well these days, and has hopefully overcome some of these inner demons that plagued her in her youth.

[Teri · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is amazingly candid, but for me, rather shocking to discover my teenage idol had such a lack of integrity throughout most of her life.

[Patti · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not sure why creative people seem to lead such tortured lives, but it certainly seems to be the case. If I have one complaint about this novel, it’s that Peggy Lipton’s misfortunes seem a little exaggerated. Certainly having been molested repeatedly as a child traumatizes her and creates a pall over her entire life, but most of her other wounds seem to be self-inflicted. Growing up, her family life was not warm and nurturing, but her parents were fairly affluent and not abusive. Emotionally, however, Peggy was not well-balanced, probably suffering from depression, and sought acceptance via sexual relationships that were not always healthy. My favorite part of the novel were the old photos—with Paul McCartney, with the Mod Squad cast members, with Terence Stamp, with Lou Adler, with Sammy Davis, Jr., and with her family. I was fascinated by all of these encounters and kept returning to the photo pages—not to see her companion but to see how she looked at the time. Her most fulfilling relationship was with her husband of 14 years, Quincy Jones, and I would expect his memoir to be even more captivating. The book is sort of a series of reminiscences with a slightly wavering timeline, and the writing is decent and flows nicely. Her life may have been tainted by sadness but it was never dull, and neither is this book.

[Jamie]

Refreshing

Extremely good read!! Full of truth, emotion and completeness. The honesty of this book wS refreshing, Peggy hid behind nothing and allowed herself as well as the reader to become and be vulnerable. The ability to connect with her story on so many different levels. I laughed, cried and just able to take it all in. All of what Peggy shared and permitted us to see and feel was nothing less than astounding!!! I enjoyed every aspect of this boos and if we are totally honest with ourselves there’s bits and pieces of our story intertwined with her story. I’m glad I took the opportunity to read this book, I was born in the sixties watching Mod Squad never knowing the person within the character of Julie Barnes. Thank you Peggy, thank you.

[Sandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a huge Mod Squad fan, I was so eager to read this. However, not the person I thought she would be. It was not really a kiss-and-tell book, she did not mention some names, but she did mention the big named people like Elvis and Sir Paul McCartney. I found those most interesting, especially Elvis. What a very sad life he led at the end. It made me feel bad for him. Here he had everything one could ever want in life but still had nothing. So sad.
I guess everybody has a story to tell, hers surprised me. I always thought she was so very cool in the '60s (and still think she's cool). But it ended up, she had nothing but issues just like the rest of us ordinary folks.

[carriedaway · Rating 3 out of 5]

Always fun to find out the real life of a TV character I wanted to emulate. Peggy Lipton had a more interesting life than Julie Barnes (yeah, oddly enough, not being fictional). I started off being somewhat snottily dismissive of her problems but came to genuinely admire her courage to face her demons.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this after seeing a short except on an Instagram post and am so glad I did. I don't know when I've read a memoir by anyone (esp a woman) who is so deeply aware (and accepting) of all her human flaws and so unapologetically matter of fact when discussing same. I fell in love with her and only wish she had fallen in love with herself sooner. What a surprise to learn that a woman who seemed to embody so much self-assurance was acutely anxious, insecure and (eventually) depressed for so much of her life.

One thing she could have explored more (to my thinking) is how being the "good girl" who never wanted to disappoint anyone led to so many unpleasant relationships with men (and/or relationships with unpleasant men). At times, I wanted to scream at her "just say NO, Peggy!" when she was careening headlong into another relationship that she clearly wasn't even interested in. I also wish she had worked through her issues while staying married to Quincy Jones, obviously the love of her life. But that's how it goes in the real world sometimes.

Very entertaining and structured in such a way that makes it very easy to breeze through it in a day or so. Recommend for anyone who loves a good tale (or twenty) of Hollywood encounters (in general), but especially hippie celebrities of the late 60s/early 70s.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

So sorry to hear about Peggy Lipton's death and the reason why i wanted to read about her life. A very honest book about who she was and the things she has done. Very self absorbed in her pity and making same mistake after same mistake. Mostly with married men which she never acknowledges as an awful thing to do to another woman. Still, she wasn't the golden angel i thought she was and thats ok. It's an honest look at an actress who's life was far from perfect. The book at times is short details. What happened to Earl and some of her other close friends. Jill, who was so important in her early life just kinda disappears only to be mentioned towards the end she died many years previous. Still a facinating read of a not so perfect person

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

#106 of 120 books pledged to read during 2018.

I didn't really watch "The Mod Squad" much, but I got interested in reading this book about Peggy Lipton primarily because I'd just finished a biography of Paul McCartney where the author says he and Peggy had had an affair in the early years of the Beatles' popularity, and also because I belatedly binge-watched all of "Parks and Recreation" on Netflix and found out Rashida Jones is Peggy's daughter. I enjoyed the book very much, although I think the McCartney affair was probably just a blip on Sir Paul's radar after reading Peggy's book.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know what to think about this book. Peggy Lipton was someone whose look on The Mod Squad motivated so many of us back in the 60s to imitate her look. But her life was not all roses, that's for sure. She had the oddest childhood and adolescence, was pretty wild for those days but as she told these wild tales I always felt there was an underlying sense of sadness. She never really got out of the way of herself.

[Cynthia Bemis Abrams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars only because Lipton clearly has thought a lot about her life and shared insights that go far beyond the usual celebrity memoir. I read this as research for my podcast, Advanced TV Herstory. I'm not sure I will ever quote from this book but Lipton provided some great context around Mod Squad's impact. Lipton's character Julie Barnes, coupled with Lipton's own brand of California, blonde and cool, captured a generation's imagination. And Susan Dey was right behind her!

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easy read

I enjoyed reading Peggy’s life story. I. Liked that it was easy to read and moved quickly. I gave it four stars instead of five because it was not as interesting toward the end of the book.

[patty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh

[Lenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good autobiography by Peggy Lipton.

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little hippy-trippy, but I always like Mod Squad and the book was decent.

[Annie Booker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peggy Lipton was always a favourite actress of mine and I was heartbroken when she died in 2019. Her book is beautiful, honest and thoughtful. I felt as if I knew her when I finished it.

[Lacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my, such a wonderful story and trip down memory lane and she does some name dropping.
I felt like I was growing up with her in Hollywood.
Very inspiring and interesting life!

[TrumanCoyote · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only real shortcoming here was that I never got much of a feeling for why her and Quincy split up.

[Ice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lipton's story is clichéd, and her writing's clunky to boot. But that's no matter, because the main reason readers will pick this book up is for its pages on the sexual encounters Lipton—who played the hip chick of TV's undercover Mod Squad in the late 1960s and early '70s—had with Paul McCartney and Elvis. Born in 1947 and raised on Long Island, Lipton was a model at 15 and had started acting classes by the time her family moved to California a few years later. Hanging out in Hollywood, Lipton soon became a mod version of the "it" girl. After ridding herself of her virginity, her first goal was to seduce McCartney. That accomplished, she slept with a series of alcoholic or abusive married men, meanwhile experimenting with a variety of drugs. Her psychedelic adventures with actor Terence Stamp were quintessential Haight-Ashbury; she even had a fling with Elvis: "He was a great kisser," she allows, "but that was about it." In 1974, she married musician Quincy Jones, who didn't want her to work. A full-time mom until their marriage fell apart, Lipton then struggled with depression and debilitating fatigue, finding strength from her guru, Gurumayi, from acting work and from her two beloved daughters. There's a lot of '60s and '70s color—joints smoked in the bathroom, an interracial marriage, a trip to an Indian ashram—but it all boils down to an old-fashioned kiss-and-tell. 16 b&w photos. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

What do Paul McCartney, Sammy Davis Jr., and Elvis Presley have in common? Peggy Lipton had sex with all of them. Well, Elvis was a little too pumped with drugs to really close the deal. Other high (and low) lights for this nice blond Jewish girl? Stardom on The Mod Squad, marriage to Quincy Jones, motherhood, spiritual journeys, and a return to television after the marriage broke up. Lipton is a virtual Zelig, in the background whenever stars gather from the 1970s on. But in this surprisingly readable memoir, she and her cowriters have managed to make her various encounters into more than mere name-dropping, with each short chapter becoming a small slice of her life. Alternating between tough and neurotic postures, Lipton describes her childhood sexual abuse, her drug use, the experience of raising biracial children, and in an extremely abrupt ending, her recent bout with colon cancer. Many readers will not have thought about Lipton for years, yet her story holds our attention both for the life it chronicles and the changing times it encompasses.

[Lori Michael Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not the sort of book I would normally give four stars to but when I read an autobiography, I want to know what their life was like. There are so many out there who write their autobiography and it's either unintelligible, (Steven Tyler,) or they just don't own up to anything. This one was highly readable, and Peggy Lipton left nothing to the imagination except maybe a few names. She had no problem naming others, Sir Paul McCartney, Elvis, Terence Stamp, Lou Adler, Etc. She laid herself out bare. She did not hold back about her drug use in the 60s and early 70s. She did not hold back on her sexapades during the same time. She did not hold back on all of the hurts of her childhood but I never felt she was using them as an excuse for her actions later on, just as an explanation. I also appreciate she spoke highly of Quincy Jones who I admire greatly. Not only did I originally Watch The Mod Squad but I own the DVD set and watch it at home occasionally. I remember thinking Julie was the coolest, but in reality the actress playing her, Peggy, was a little girl lost.
If you want to know about Peggy Lipton, Quincy Jones or life in the late 60s and early 70s, this book will not disappoint.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was kind of a disappointing memoir. The narrative mostly went from her young days to her older days but some of it jumped around in time, which made for an unusual timeline. For example, she wrote about her daughter's graduation from college and then went back to when the daughter was younger. It made it difficult to understand how long some of her periods of depression lasted, or even where she and her children were living. Sometimes I thought she was referring to something happening in LA only to read along and find out it was in NY. The structure was also weird in that one event might go over 3 chapters (and the chapters are very short, just a few pages each), and then the next chapter would include several events. Other than that, it was an interesting life. She lived the 60's Hollywood lifestyle of sex and drugs, which was surprising to me. As a kid watching the Mod Squad, of course I thought she must be leading a perfect, exemplary life like her cool character Julie Barnes. She had to deal with illnesses, family issues and life like everyone else. I felt like she was very honest in what she did share.

[LuAnn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked The Mod Squad when I was in High School. Who didn't want to look like Julie? But none of us had any idea back then what Peggy Lipton's life was really like. It all sounded so glamorous as she hung out with Paul McCartney and Elvis Presley, but as I read this autobiography, all I could think about was how sad. Even now, when she thinks she's gotten her life together, there is so much that she's still missing and I felt nothing but sorrow for her. Be warned of strong language and sexual details.

[Terri Palermo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was excited to find this book because I was a huge fan during my teens. Her life is/was fascinating but there was something I just couldn't put my finger on....something that grated on me, just below the surface. Nothing to do with the story - more in the way it's told. Sentence structure? Phrasing? I don't know. But I found myself growing more and more irritated while reading it. I'd love to know if anyone else notices this.....

[Cara St.Hilaire · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to read this because I've been fascinated by Peggy Lipton ever since she played the endearing character, Norma, on Twin Peaks. I must confess that the writing isn't anything special, but the story is. Peggy lead an intense life -- from being in the Mod Squad to becoming Paul McCarney's lover. It was a mistake to think that she was pure and innocent. She was quite promiscuous, she used drugs, she battled depression, and ended up truly finding herself eventually.

[Dawn D'Arcy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peggy Lipton was a, sort of, hero of mine when I was growing up and watching "The Mod Squad". This is an interesting read, if you're so inclined in the first place, but the last third of the book held me fully. It's a beautiful, honest walk, hand in hand, with a woman who's willing to share. There are parts that will stay with me forever.

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting life! Didn't know she dated Paul McCartney.

[Michele · Rating 3 out of 5]

77

[Shandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nice autobiographical story about the life of Peggy Lipton.