The New York Post - October 19, 2006 from Cindy Adams' column

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Ellen Burstyn, Oscar winner, Tony winner, everything winner, has written the autobio “Lessons in Becoming Myself,” Riverhead Books. Out Tuesday, it gets six pages in November’s Oprah magazine. And it’s a killer. The lady carries more emotional baggage than a cargo container.

For openers, a domineering mother. Father who abused her. Packed off to a Catholic boarding school at age 6. She eventually leaves home on a bus arriving in New York with 45 cents. At 23, she begins psychotherapy. From there it’s three name changes, two husbands, two divorces, a third husband who commits suicide and, along the line, an abortion, a boy child adoption and a continuing spiritual journey in Sufi, some mystic something where she is given a fourth name, Hadiya. It means “she who is guided.”

Says Ellen: “This book took seven years. I was finally able to write it because all my life I’ve kept diaries. Rereading them was hard. I was reluctant to deal with my personal life in public and didn’t know how honest to be. There was so much shame in my learning process. Eventually, I realized everybody has something . . . some feelings they’re hiding . . . and maybe I’m not all that different.”

“I didn’t shed tears. I felt sympathy for this green girl going through so many experiences with such little ability to understand. I wanted to pull her into the future. This book was a kind of guide for me. A realization of the acorn inside the oak tree.”

And then said Ellen Burstyn, who took a Buddhist journey into Tibet with Uma Thurman’s father, Robert, “There is no wisdom without forgiveness.”