George Hamilton Says He Had to Re-Read His Own Biography After Waking Up from Surgery ‘Not Knowing Who I Was’

The 87-year-old actor is known for playing Count Dracula in ‘Love at First Bite’

NEED TO KNOW

• George Hamilton recently opened up about an operation that left him “not knowing who I was” and forced him to revisit his own life 
• The 87-year-old actor, known for films including Love at First Bite and Zorro, The Gay Blade, said his memoir and childhood memories helped him reconnect with himself
• The experience ultimately made Hamilton value kindness, good manners and optimism above all else

George Hamilton has spent much of his life navigating Hollywood, high-profile romances and the kind of public image that made his famously bronzed appearance part of his identity. Now 87, the actor has reached a point in life where memories, values and the person behind the public persona have taken on a deeper meaning.

In a recent interview with Page Six, he opened up about an operation he underwent around four or five years ago that left him “not knowing who I was.” Despite doctors telling him the condition would last only a few days, Hamilton said it ultimately took years to work through the experience, forcing him to revisit his own history in an effort to understand himself again.

“I had to read my own biography to learn who I was,” Hamilton told the outlet. “And I had to think, ‘Do I like this person?’ I read it through several times and looked at things from my past and I wasn’t sure if I had done them.”

By 2008, Hamilton had already put his life on paper with his memoir, Don’t Mind If I Do: My Adventures in Hollywood, but the book took on a very different significance when he needed it to help reconnect with his own past.

Looking back through his story meant confronting memories and experiences that suddenly felt unfamiliar, while also discovering which parts of his life remained most meaningful to him.

Interestingly, the memories that returned most vividly were not necessarily tied to his years in Hollywood. Instead, Hamilton found himself remembering childhood and the lessons he associated with that period, like “kindness” and “resiliency.”

That return to earlier memories also helped Hamilton reconsider what he values after a lifetime spent in the public eye — qualities that he tells Page Six cannot be measured by fame or material success.

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“Other things have come and gone, but kindness and good manners and optimism and belief in something more important than our egos is something people probably don’t think I think about, but it’s most important to me at this age,” he explained.

For Hamilton, the loss of his memory ultimately sharpened his perspective on what makes a life meaningful. “You realize those are the things that are the valuable things in life once you have lived it,” he told the outlet. “You don’t want to learn it too late.”

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