DIESEL FUELED; WITH THE RELEASE OF HIS NEW MOVIE, THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS, VIN DIESEL REVS UP TO BECOME HOLLYWOOD'S LEADING MAN OF STYLE.

Daily News Record, June, 2001 by Romero, Elena

Vin Diesel's mother gave him a book that changed his life, and that book was called Feature Films at Used Car Prices.

For about a decade the native New Yorker was determined to make a name for himself in Hollywood. He auditioned for roles during the day and worked as a bouncer at night. But eventually Diesel grew tired of the rejection and decided, with inspiration from that fateful book, to create One Race, his own production company. As luck would have it, his first film, Multi-Facial (1995), was seen by Steven Spielberg, who cast him as Private Adrian Caparzo in Saving Private Ryan in 1998.

Diesel didn't have to ask any questions. "I didn't even see the script until I boarded the plane to Ireland," he recalls. As he had hoped, the Ryan role led to...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.