The memoirs of Mary Rodgers—writer, composer, Broadway royalty, and “a woman who tried everything.” “What am I, bologna?” Mary Rodgers (1931–2014) often said. She was referring to being stuck in the middle of a talent sandwich: the daughter of one composer and the mother of another. And not just any composers. Her father was Richard Rodgers, perhaps the greatest American melodist; her son, Adam Guettel, a worthy successor. What that leaves out is Mary herself, also a composer, whose musical Once Upon a Mattress remains one of the rare revivable Broadway hits written by a woman. Shy is the story of how it all happened: how Mary grew from an angry child, constrained by privilege and a parent’s overwhelming gift, to become not just a theater figure in her own right but also a renowned author of books for young readers (including the classic Freaky Friday ) and, in a final grand turn, a doyenne of philanthropy and the chairman of the Juilliard School. But in telling these stories—with copious annotations, contradictions, and interruptions from Jesse Green, the chief theater critic of The New York Times — Shy also tells another, about a woman liberating herself from disapproving parents and pervasive sexism to find art and romance on her own terms. Whether writing for Judy Holliday or Rin Tin Tin, dating Hal Prince or falling for Stephen Sondheim over a game of chess at thirteen, Rodgers grabbed every chance possible—and then some. Both an eyewitness report from the golden age of American musical theater and a tale of a woman striving for a meaningful life, Shy is, above all, a chance to sit at the feet of the kind of woman they don’t make anymore—and never did. They make themselves.

The EGOT-winning composer of The Way We Were and A Chorus Line recounts his remarkable life from childhood to Broadway and Hollywood. The son of Jewish Viennese immigrants, six-year-old Marvin Hamlisch's early musical talent and discipline led him to Julliard, where he studied for more than a decade. From there, Hamlisch got his start as a rehearsal pianist for Funny Girl starring Barbra Streisand. He went on to co-create the classic American musical A Chorus Line and wrote the Oscar Award-winning musical score for The Way We Were . Hamlisch is one of only a handful of people to achieve EGOT status--winning an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony. In this autobiography, Hamlisch tells the tale of his life and career, revealing personal stories of his childhood, his marriage, and his friendships with stars including Liza Minnelli, Groucho Marx, and others. It offers an intimate view of his life and a compelling portrait of Broadway and Hollywood through the second half of the twentieth century.

“The Hollywood memoir that tells all . . . Sex. Drugs. Greed. Why, it sounds just like a movie.”— The New York Times Every memoir claims to bare it all, but Julia Phillips’s actually does. This is an addictive, gloves-off exposé from the producer of the classic films The Sting, Taxi Driver, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind —and the first woman ever to win an Academy Award for Best Picture—who made her name in Hollywood during the halcyon seventies and the yuppie-infested eighties and lived to tell the tale. Wickedly funny and surprisingly moving, You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again takes you on a trip through the dream-manufacturing capital of the world and into the vortex of drug addiction and rehab on the arm of one who saw it all, did it all, and took her leave. Praise for You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again “One of the most honest books ever written about one of the most dishonest towns ever created.” — The Boston Globe “Gossip too hot for even the National Enquirer . . . Julia Phillips is not so much Hollywood’s Boswell as its Dante.” — Los Angeles Magazine “A blistering look at La La Land.” —USA Today “One of the nastiest, tastiest tell-alls in showbiz history.” —People

From award-winning actress Illeana Douglas comes a memoir about learning to survive in Hollywood while staying true to her quirky vision of the world. In 1969 Illeana Douglas' parents saw the film Easy Rider and were transformed. Taking Dennis Hopper's words, "That's what it's all about man" to heart, they abandoned their comfortable upper middle class life and gave Illeana a childhood filled with hippies, goats, free spirits, and free love. Illeana writes, "Since it was all out of my control, I began to think of my life as a movie, with a Dennis Hopper-like father at the center of it." I Blame Dennis Hopper is a testament to the power of art and the tenacity of passion. It is a rollicking, funny, at times tender exploration of the way movies can change our lives. With crackling humor and a full heart, Douglas describes how a good Liza Minnelli impression helped her land her first gig and how Rudy Valley taught her the meaning of being a show biz trouper. From her first experience being on set with her grandfather and mentor-two-time Academy Award-winning actor Melvyn Douglas-to the moment she was discovered by Martin Scorsese for her blood-curdling scream and cast in her first film, to starring in movies alongside Robert DeNiro, Nicole Kidman, and Ethan Hawke, to becoming an award winning writer, director and producer in her own right, I Blame Dennis Hopper is an irresistible love letter to movies and filmmaking. Writing from the perspective of the ultimate show business fan, Douglas packs each page with hilarious anecdotes, bizarre coincidences, and fateful meetings that seem, well, right out of a plot of a movie. I Blame Dennis Hopper is the story of one woman's experience in show business, but it is also a genuine reminder of why we all love the movies: for the glitz, the glamor, the sweat, passion, humor, and escape they offer us all.

Millions of adult Americans will fondly remember such entertaining movies as Carousel, The Jackpot, and There's No Business Like Show Business. Phoebe and Henry Ephron, who wrote the screenplays for these and other films, were a unique team in that they used their special talents, working with dozens of great names of screen and stage, to create everything from the comic to the somber under circumstances both humorous and quite the opposite. Whether they were working on a Carousel, starring Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae or a new What Price Glory, or Fred Astaire's Daddy Long Legs, the Ephrons were always learning something new and exciting about a magical assortment of people (Henry remembers the famous director John Ford the day he was faulted by his producer for being two days behind in shooting a film. He tore up six pages and said: "Tell the SOB I'm six days ahead!") This is also a story of the thirty-seven-year marriage of two people who started out with very little, realized their dreams of having a play produced on Broadway, and then went to Hollywood, where they wrote major scripts for some of the biggest stars. Woven throughout the story is the family element of raising four daughters in the make-believe atmosphere of Southern California. As the two Ephrons worried about the work they'd done on one major script, the make-believe turning into a glorious reprieve when it was reported to them that Darryl Zanuck had just told a friend, "I'll never know how the Ephrons took that old chestnut and turned it into this great screenplay." Here, a professional storyteller is at his best in a personal narrative which also brings onstage a fascinating supporting cast.

"It's about time a book came out about one of the most talented and beloved performers in the American theater. Charlotte is the consummate actress, comedienne, entertainer. Her work on stage and screen is always hilarious and somehow also gets you right in the gut. Her story is every bit as brilliant. Read it and smile." -Comedy Legend, Carl Reiner "To think of Charlotte Rae is to smile. Consequently, when I began to read "The Facts of My Life," I was unprepared for the emotional impact it would have on me. By the time I finished the first chapter, dealing as it does with her severely troubled son Andy, I was in tears. "As an old friend of Charlotte's, I thought I knew her fairly well. But as I read on, I discovered that the 'facts of her life' were constantly surprising (as well as amusing and engrossing)! There is so much that I don't know about Charlotte and so much that I now want to know, when the book is finally completed and published, I'll be first in line to get my copy!" -Sheldon Harnick (Composer, Fiddler on the Roof) Charlotte Rae's career spans more than seventy years, from the golden age of television to Shakespeare in the Park, the New York Cabaret scene of the late 1940's and 50's to her hit series, The Facts of Life and well beyond. Off stage and screen, Charlotte's life has been one of joy and challenge, raising an autistic son, coming to terms with alcoholism, the heartache of a broken marriage, the revelation of a gay husband and the sudden challenge of facing middle-age with financial and emotional uncertainties-an crisis she ultimately turned into the determination that brought her stardom. The Facts of My Life is the first opportunity for Charlotte fans to explore the fascinating story of her extraordinary life: poignant and hilarious, a story of courage and triumph, one that speaks for a generation of women breaking barriers, taking on challenges, overcoming personal tragedy, and paving the way for others.

Spanning centuries and continents, Mamet uses war and its players to explore, among other themes, redemption and forgiveness as they unfold in the context of conflict in the form of three novellas. In The Redwing , the first of the three novellas, a 19th Century Secret Service naval officer turned prisoner, then novelist and finally memoirist recounts his own transformations during the course of his service and imprisonment. The protagonist in Notes on Plain Warfare examines religion through the prism of the American Indian wars. Finally, The Handle and the Hold is a vivid, dialogue-driven tale of two ex-military men who steal a plane in the month before the Israeli War of Independence. Finely wrought, Mamet eloquently depicts the psychological brutality conflict raises in the landscape of the mind.

A new collection of immersive essays from the most acclaimed editor of the second half of the twentieth century This new collection from the legendary editor Robert Gottlieb features twenty or so pieces he’s written mostly for The New York Review of Books , ranging from reconsiderations of American writers such as Dorothy Parker, Thornton Wilder, Thomas Wolfe (“genius”), and James Jones, to Leonard Bernstein, Lorenz Hart, Lady Diana Cooper (“the most beautiful girl in the world”), the actor-assassin John Wilkes Booth, the scandalous movie star Mary Astor, and not-yet president Donald Trump. The writings compiled here are as various as they are provocative: an extended probe into the world of post-death experiences; a sharp look at the biopics of transcendent figures such as Shakespeare, Molière, and Austen; a soap opera-ish movie account of an alleged affair between Chanel and Stravinsky; and a copious sampling of the dance reviews he’s been writing for The New York Observer for close to twenty years. A worthy successor to his expansive 2011 collection, Lives and Letters , and his admired 2016 memoir, Avid Reader , Near-Death Experiences displays the same insight and intellectual curiosity that have made Gottlieb, in the words of The New York Times ’s Dwight Garner, “the most acclaimed editor of the second half of the twentieth century.”

In a memoir by turns moving, tragic, and hilarious, Jerry Lewis recounts with crystal clarity every step of his fifty-year friendship with Dean Martin. They were the unlikeliest of pairs—a handsome crooner and a skinny monkey, an Italian from Steubenville, Ohio, and a Jew from Newark, N.J.. Before they teamed up, Dean Martin seemed destined for a mediocre career as a nightclub singer, and Jerry Lewis was dressing up as Carmen Miranda and miming records on stage. But the moment they got together, something clicked—something miraculous—and audiences saw it at once. Before long, they were as big as Elvis or the Beatles would be after them, creating hysteria wherever they went and grabbing an unprecedented hold over every entertainment outlet of the era: radio, television, movies, stage shows, and nightclubs. Martin and Lewis were a national craze, an American institution. The millions flowed in, seemingly without end—and then, on July 24, 1956, ten years after it all started, it ended suddenly. After that traumatic day, the two wouldn’t speak again for twenty years. And while both went on to forge triumphant individual careers—Martin as a movie and television star, recording artist, and nightclub luminary (and charter member of the Rat Pack); Lewis as the groundbreaking writer, producer, director, and star of a series of hugely successful movie comedies—their parting left a hole in the national psyche, as well as in each man’s heart. In Dean & Me , Lewis makes a convincing case for Martin as one of the great—and most underrated—comic talents of our era. But what comes across most powerfully in this definitive memoir is the depth of love Lewis felt for his partner, and which his partner felt for him: truly a love to last for all time.

Completed before he died, thirty years ago, this is the newly discovered autobiography of one of the most influential comedians of recent times, Marty Feldman. Marty was a professional writer, and considered himself a writer first, and an actor second. Feldman created a number of immensely successful and influential shows such as Marty, The Frost Report and sketches for Monty Python. He was one of the most essential creative forces in British comedy embodied also by his close friends and creative partners from Beyond the Fringe (especially Peter Cook and Dudley Moore) and Monty Python (especially John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Eric Idle). Marty played the fool, often very happily and with tremendous talent and volcanic, anarchic energy, for his entire life. His face is what many people most immediately remember. It was a face that David Frost, one of his bosses, characterized as 'too grotesque' for television -- see what Feldman has to say about Frost, and Francis Bacon, and John Lennon... Marty Feldman finished, and set aside eYE Marty soon before traveling to Mexico to shoot his final film. He did not know that he would die there, although he certainly felt he might die soon, and was haunted by the notion. The book is exactly as Feldman wrote it: Mark Flanagan had it transcribed, with even the photos inserted where Feldman had noted they should go. Hilarious, deeply charming, aphoristic, ironic, charged throughout with lust for life and filled with scenes of great vanished eras and and portraits of other performers and friends, eYE Marty is the amazing discovery of the story of a man who was at the heart of the British comedy revolution.

Kenneth Turan brings to life the extraordinary partnership of Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg and their role in creating the film industry as we know it "Sharply observant."--Farran Smith Nehme, Wall Street Journal A New Yorker Best Book of the Year One was a tough junkman's son, the other a cosseted mama's boy, but they dreamed the same mighty dream: that the right movies could make a profit and change both the culture and individual lives. Sharing a religion and an evangelical zeal for film, Louis B. Mayer (1884-1957) and Irving Thalberg (1899-1936) were unlikely partners in one of the most significant collaborations in movie history. Over the course of their decade-long relationship, as key players at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and major players in Hollywood, they joined forces in redefining and mastering the template for the film industry. Mayer, older by more than a dozen years, was the business-minded face of the studio, while Thalberg worked closely with the creative corps, especially writers; together they rarely set a foot wrong. And while Mayer initially viewed Thalberg as the son he never had, the two would go from passionate friends to near enemies before Thalberg's shocking death at the age of thirty-seven. In the first joint biography of the two men in fifty years, film critic Kenneth Turan traces their fraught relationship while examining the complicated history of Jewish identity in Hollywood.

Larry Gelbart is the comic genius who developed M*A*S*H for TV, one of the longest-running, most beloved series in history; he was a much-admired member of that memorable gaggle of writers who worked for Sid Caesar, which also included Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Woody Allen, and Neil Simon; and he's written successful movies like Tootsie and Oh, God!, smash hits for Broadway, including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and City of Angels, TV comedy-dramas like Barbarians at the Gate and Weapons of Mass Distraction, and more. His book now adds to the fun. Part memoir, part sampler, part love letter, Gelbart tells of writing radio comedy at age sixteen for Danny Thomas--and later for Bob Hope, Jack Paar, and Red Buttons; he offers behind-the-set stories about Milton Berle, George C. Scott, and George Burns, "Klinger" and "Radar" and "Father Mulcahy"; and he lets us know about the places he's lived and how he's lived and what he's learned while doing so. Not everything is played for laughs. Some of Laughing Matters is serious--Gelbart is a wit, not a gag writer, and he cares deeply about writing. Some is touching--for instance, his account of the last days of M*A*S*H. His sketches of comedy performers and writers are "elegant," said Publishers Weekly in an early review, his sense of form original. He's won Emmys, Tonys, and Peabody awards, he's twice been nominated for an Academy Award, and now, in print, he may well win your heart. A lot of funny things happened on the way to this book--and you'll be hugely entertained.

The complete memoirs of Neil Simon, the greatest—and most successful—American playwright of all time, the author of such iconic works as Lost in Yonkers , The Odd Couple , Biloxi Blues , and The Goodbye Girl , now with an insightful Introduction by Nathan Lane. This omnibus edition combines Neil Simon’s two memoirs, Rewrites and The Play Goes On , into one volume that spans his extraordinary five-decade career in theater, television, and film. Rewrites takes Simon through his first love, his first play, and his first brush with failure. There is the humor of growing up in Washington Heights (the inspiration for his play Brighton Beach Memoirs ) where, despite his parents’ rocky marriage and many separations, he learned to see the funny side of family drama, as when his mother thought she saw a body on the floor in their apartment—and it turned out to be the clothes his father discarded in the hallway after a night of carousing. He describes his marriage to his beloved wife, Joan, and writes lucidly about the pain of losing her to cancer. The Play Goes On adds to his life’s story, as he wins the Pulitzer Prize and reflects with humor and insight on his tumultuous life and meteoric career. “Neil Simon’s terrific memoirs are worth revisiting” ( New York Post ). Now, with the whole story in one place, he traces the history of modern entertainment over the last fifty years as seen through the eyes of a man who started life the son of a garment salesman and became the greatest—and most successful—American playwright of all time.

Here are Groucho's improbable tales of true romance, narrated with his characteristic panache and illustrated with splendid New Yorker -esque cartoons.

The world of comedy and comedians of the last five decades. By the man the New York Times calls a comic institution himself, the only comedian (twenty-six years in stand-up) to have made Elie Wiesel laugh, as well as having appeared on The Tonight Show (140 times, second only to Bob Hope, but who's counting). From the director of TV comedy series Mad About You, Seinfeld, Friends, Weeds and Curb Your Enthusiasm . Larry David: "I'm lucky. I know and love David Steinberg. You don't. Now's your chance. Don't blow it! "David has always been a comedy hero to me. One of his many gifts is the ability to inspire funny people to be even funnier, as you will discover in this truly hilarious, insightful book." --Martin Short From David Steinberg, a rabbi's son from Winnipeg, Canada, who at age fifteen enrolled at Hebrew Theological College in Chicago (the rabbinate wasn't for him) and four years later, entered the master's program in English literature at the University of Chicago, until he saw Lenny Bruce, the Blue Boy of Comedy, the coolest guy Steinberg had ever seen, and joined Chicago's Second City improvisational group, becoming, instead, the comedian's comedian, director, actor, working with, inspired by, teaching, and learning from the most celebrated, admired, complicated comedians, then and now--a funny, moving, provocative, insightful look into the soul, wit, and bite of comedy and comedians--a universe unto itself--of the last half-century. From the greats: George Burns, Lenny Bruce, Sid Caesar, Lucille Ball, Mel Brooks, and Carl Reiner, et al., to the newer greats: Carol Burnett, Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin, Billy Crystal, Bob Newhart, and the man for all comedy, Martin (Marty) Short; to the greats of right now: Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Wanda Sykes; and more . . . Steinberg, through stories, reminiscences, tales of directing, touring, performing, and, through the comedians themselves talking (from more than 75 interviews), makes clear why he loves comedy and comedians who have been by his side in his work, and in his life, for more than sixty years. Here are: Will Ferrell, Eric Idle, Whoopi Goldberg, Mike Myers, Groucho himself and the greatest of them all (at least of the last half century), Jonathan Winters . . .

To movie audiences, the work of Andrew Marton (born in Hungary in 1904) is memorable: the famous chariot race in Ben-Hur and the meticulously accurate Normandy invasion in The Longest Day are two of his important achievements. But because his credits were very often "Second Unit Director" or "Co-Director," Marton is often not immediately associated with his work. For the first time this oral history reveals just what were Andrew Marton's contributions to the cinema. This extensive interview, filled with great detail on how he did his movie magic, covers Marton's 55-year career. Technically clever, he always retained his humanity, humor, and humaneness.

KQED Radio's Michael Krasny is one of the country's leading interviewers of literary luminaries, a maestro for educated listeners who prefer their discourse high and civil. He is a writer's interviewer. But it didn't start out that way. In Off Mike , Krasny, host of one of public radio's most popular and intellectually compelling programs, talks of his strong desire to become a novelist in the footsteps of Bellow and Philip Roth, and then discovering his real talent as a communicator—a deft ability to draw others out as an interlocutor. In a mix of memoir and reportage, Krasny takes readers inside his world. He gives an account of the polarizing transformation of talk radio, from his early days at KGO commercial radio, through to his current role at NPR, where he manages to keep the flow of talk in his San Francisco based show animated and politically balanced. Forum fans and lovers of literature will be riveted by the insightful and amusing vignettes and behind the scenes accounts. They will get a taste of the sharp commentary from his encounters with panels of experts, and interviews with cultural and political personalities as well as writers.

The highly acclaimed debut is Devyani Saltzman's remarkable story of reconnecting with her mother, award-winning filmmaker Deepa Mehta, in India and Sri Lanka during the production of the Oscar®-nominated film Water. In Shooting Water , Devyani Saltzman recounts her experience straddling the separate worlds of her divorced parents in Canada and India—navigating between two religions (Hindu and Jewish), two traditions, two cultures, and two people—belonging to both and to neither at once. This cross-cultural memoir chronicles her life-changing experiences in India and Sri Lanka, the struggle to produce the controversial Oscar®-nominated film, and the emergence of a deeper understanding between mother and daughter. This trade paperback edition features a reading group guide that includes an interview with the author and discussion questions. 16 black-and-white photos, maps.

A finalist for the 2017 George Freedley Memorial Award "A compelling, absolutely unputdownable story . . . And, in case you're wondering, yes, the book is funny. In places, very funny. A remarkable story, magnificently told." -- Booklist In this richly reported, scene-driven narrative, Sam Wasson charts the meteoric rise of improv from its unlikely beginnings in McCarthy-era Chicago. We witness the chance meeting between Mike Nichols and Elaine May, hang out at the after-hours bar where Dan Aykroyd hosted friends like John Belushi, Bill Murray, and Gilda Radner, and go behind the scenes of cultural landmarks from The Graduate to The Colbert Report . Along the way, we befriend pioneers such as Harold Ramis, Chevy Chase, Steve Carell, Amy Poehler, Alan Arkin, Tina Fey, Judd Apatow, and many others. Wasson shows why improv deserves to be considered the great American art form of the last half century. " One of the most important stories in American popular culture . . . Wasson may be the first author to explain [improv's] entire history . . . For that reason alone, it's a valuable book . " -- New York Times Book Review "A compelling history . . . It holds the element of surprise--true to the spirit of its subject." -- Entertainment Weekly

"Telling Larry Charles's life story is telling the story of modern American comedy. Over the last 40 years, few comedians have been a part of so many iconic, beloved projects. Larry was one of the original writers and producers on the first five seasons of Seinfeld, directed over 20 episodes each of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Entourage, and served as the showrunner for Mad About You. His film directing credits include Borat, Bruno, and The Dictator, Bill Maher's Religulous, and Bob Dylan's Masked and Anonymous. In Comedy Samurai, Charles pulls back the curtain on the making of his successful projects, offering often sharp, never-before-told anecdotes about Jerry Seinfeld, Sacha Baron Cohen, Bill Maher, Nic Cage, Mel Brooks, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, and Larry David, among many others. Perfect for fans of Seinfeldia and lovers of comedy in general, Larry promises to offer new insights into and about many of the most beloved shows, films, and actors of all time"--