American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince

American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince is a 1978 documentary directed by Martin Scorsese. Its subject is Scorsese's friend Steven Prince, best known for his small role as Easy Andy, the gun salesman in Taxi Driver. Prince is a raconteur telling stories about his life as an ex-drug addict and a road manager for Neil Diamond. Scorsese intersperses home movies of Prince as a child as he talks about his family. When talking of his years as a heroin addict, Prince tells a story about injecting adrenaline into the heart of a woman who overdosed, with the help of a medical dictionary and a Magic Marker. This story was re-enacted by Quentin Tarantino in his screenplay for Pulp Fiction. Prince also tells a story about his days working at a gas station, and having to shoot a man he caught stealing tires, after the man pulled out a knife and tried to attack him. This story was retold in the Richard Linklater film Waking Life.

The Neil Young song "Time Fades Away" is featured during the film's closing credits.

A sequel, American Prince, was released in 2009 and was directed by Tommy Pallotta.

Famous quotes containing the words american, profile and/or prince:

    A certain secret jealousy of the British Minister is always lurking in the breast of every American Senator, if he is truly democratic; for democracy, rightly understood, is the government of the people, by the people, for the benefit of Senators, and there is always a danger that the British Minister may not understand this political principle as he should.
    Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)

    Expecting rain, the profile of a day
    Wears its soul like a hat....
    John Ashbery (b. 1927)

    The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)