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American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince
American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince
	Promotional poster (with Italianamerican)
Directed by	Martin Scorsese
Written by	Julia Cameron (treatment); Mardik Martin (treatment);
Produced by	Bert Lovitt
Starring	Steven Prince; Martin Scorsese; George Memmoli;
Cinematography	Michael Chapman
Edited by	Amy Jones; Bert Lovitt;
Distributed by	New Empire Films
Release date	October 1978;
Running time	55 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$155,000

American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince is a 1978 documentary directed by Martin Scorsese.^[2] Its subject is Scorsese's friend Steven Prince, known for his small role as Easy Andy, the gun salesman in Taxi Driver. Prince is a raconteur who tells stories about various events in his life.

The Neil Young song "Time Fades Away" is featured in the film.^[3]

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

Synopsis

Martin Scorsese and a small group of friends gather in a living room in Los Angeles with the charismatic Steven Prince. Over the course of the evening, Scorsese films Prince talking about various events in his life with a mixture of humor and gravitas. Prince recalls stories such as being a former drug addict, a road manager for Neil Diamond, and a traumatic event in which he witnessed a boy die by accidental electrocution. Scorsese intersperses home movies of Prince as a child as he talks about his family.

When talking of his years as a heroin addict, he recalls Neil Diamond offering to help Prince get clean, but he refused. Later, however, Prince goes through recovery and remembers being shocked to learn he had a green ceiling in his home. He never noticed before because his eyelids had always been half-closed as an effect of the heroin.

Prince recalls 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.