REMEMBRANCE, APPRECIATION, GRATITUDE
BY JENNY PETERS
For award-winning actor Gary Sinise, Hollywood success was only his
life’s second act, following decades of being a teenage delinquent,
garage band rocker, and struggling actor. It was his breakout role
as wounded Vietnam soldier Lieutenant Dan Taylor in the 1994
hit Forrest Gump that made him a national name, confirmed by an
Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. After that,
his career skyrocketed, with Emmy, SAG, and Golden Globe wins to
follow for roles in film, television, and theater, like Mac Taylor on
CSI: NY and Jack Garrett on Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, and Ken
Mattingly in Apollo 13.
That time of coming of age, his years in Hollywood, and much more
are chronicled in Sinise’s new autobiography, Grateful American: A
Journey from Self to Service, published in February 2019 and a New
York Times bestseller. Co-written with Marcus Brotherton over
the course of a year, the book covers his life from conception (in
D.C.’s Anacostia) to today, with much of the emphasis on his very
personal shift in focus that began with his role as Lieutenant Dan and
intensified in the aftermath of 9/11, leading to his life’s third act —
supporting the men and women of the armed forces.
“As I worked on the book,” Sinise recounts, “I realized the
autobiography aspect of the book was really documenting how the
movie business, how the theater business, how the acting career
focus started to evolve into something different later on. That was
post-September 11, after I’d achieved a certain amount of success and
wanted to push into a more service-oriented focus in my life. That’s
why the subtitle of the book is ‘A Journey from Self to Service.’”
As with so many Americans, the attacks of that horrible day left a
significant impact on Sinise. “September 11 was a big turning point
in my life,” he recalls. “I called the chapter in the book, when I talk
about that event and what happened afterwards, ‘Turning Point,’
because it really was a moment where something shifted completely
in what I wanted to do and what I wanted to focus on. Having
veterans in my family, both my side of the family and my wife’s side,
and having met such extraordinary people serving our country, I just
knew after September 11 that there was a place for me in helping to
support these folks.”
CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
SUMMER 2019
7 FLYWASHINGTON.COM