Shrapnel of the Soul and Redemption

From first time authors Pepper Martin and Penny Lane

Pepper began his life's work as a professional wrestler in the early 1950s, a sports career which spanned twenty years in the United States, Canada and Japan. He became a successful working Hollywood actor, a career which represented forty seven of his years . He met Penny, who was a personal manager and publicist in Los Angeles in the 1970s. Penny had created and was promoting the Penthouse Pets charity softball team for the magazine in 1977 and asked Pepper to coach the models through a winning season. Lane went on to create her own company , The Hollywood Cover Girls softball team. They were actresses and models who played warm up games against the media before regularly scheduled games of the major and minor leagues throughout the U.S. and Canada. Their national charity was The Ronald Mc Donald House wherever they played.

The team was the second national promotion on the baseball circuit at the time, second only to Ted Ciannoulas, The San Diego Chicken.The Cover Girls ended their summer season each year by joining their military attache for a month long tour of our bases in the Asian Pacific theater.

Although Pepper had read, performed and written many scripts throughout his life and Penny had written copy for her business and bios for her clients, none of the above prepared them for writing this book. " We both agree says Lane, that had we known what the physical and emotional process would be, writing on a daily basis, we probably would not have attempted it. However, ignorance is sometimes blissful and ultimately productive. Not wanting to leave one thought out,one story out, one dear friend to be discounted, we wound up with 230,000 words !

The real work began in editing to remove the redundancy and all the stories which were meaningful to us...( but you really had to be there in order to enjoy them) The technical aspect of the movie business was always funny to us in the telling, but we found it challenging to show the humor of it in print..( It was a great cause for celebration when we nailed it. )

Pepper is often asked in interviews if he found the process of writing his life story cathartic. He always says that it was reminiscent , but most all of his life's issues had been addressed beforehand.I am personally astonished that he was able to remember every aspect of his life in such detail

Yes,it was a roller coaster ride at times but as we put "our Baby" on the open market to be analyzed, criticized and hopefully enjoyed, we believe the writing process brought us to great friendship and understanding of each other We're grateful for the experience and hope you find it" a heck of a read" Pepper Martin and Penny Lane.

Images from a recent book signing !

-- Pepper Martin and Penny Lane