Tag Archives: autobiography
The Things They Hold Precious
Another excerpt from If I Knew Then What I Know Now– So What? by Estelle Getty, ©1988: As a student of human nature, I love to people-watch. It’s also essential to my craft– I’ll pick things up I see on the street and incorporate them into my roles. It was my idea, for instance, for …
Noah’s Ark Syndrome
Excerpted from If I Knew Then What I Know Now– So What? by Estelle Getty, ©1988: I’ve always felt that loneliness, not age, is the real killer. I get a lot of letters from women who tell me how difficult life is– they’re widowed and alone and scared and sick– and the show (The Golden …
Dorothy
In this excerpt from his autobiography Have Tux, Will Tavel, ©1954, Bob Hope is discussing the successful Road To… movie series: When Bing (Crosby) and I are working out our lines for the next take, she (Dorothy Lamour) just stands there and listens. Once in a while she’ll say, “How about a line for me?” …
3
Three autobiographies I’ve read that made me intensely dislike the author: Time Enough To Win by Roger Staubach Have Tux, Will Travel by Bob Hope It’s in the Book, Bob by Bob Eubanks
Subtle
From Bob Hope’s autobiography Have Tux, Will Tavel, ©1954: I’d discovered that I was a success if could lead with a joke the audience didn’t grab right away– a good, solid, big joke with a certain amount of subtlety to it, one that would challenge the audience and let them know right away that they …
The Persistence Of
Rod McKuen’s father abandoned his mother before he was born, and in the early 1970s McKuen hired a team of private investigators to find him. The search is documented in the autobiographical Finding My Father: One Man’s Search for Identity, ©1976. One fascinating aspect of the search was how poor people’s memories are. Four women …
A Lesson in Genetics
In this excerpt from Blue Highways © 1982, author William Least Heat Moon recalls a conversation in the Desert Den Bar in Hachita, New Mexico: (Bartender) Mrs. (Virginia) Been turned to me. “He’s a real cowboy. Horse, lasso, branding iron.” “Not many of us left except you count the ones that tells you they’s cowboys. …
Gone From View
When Paul Simon’s mother died, this is the note Art Garfunkel sent him: To Paul from Art: We’re out under the stars now, the harbor we came from is gone from view. Excerpted from Art Garfunkel’s autobiographical What Is It All But Luminous / notes from an Underground Man ©2017
Not Supposed To Do
This poem, excerpted from Art Garfunkel’s autobiographical What Is It All But Luminous / notes from an Underground Man ©2017, reminds me of the playfulness of Shel Silverstein: Today I’ll judge my books by their covers. I’ll watch a pot, count unhatched chicks, I’ll fix the unbroken, hold secret gods divine. A thousand fine soldiers, …
’69
Excerpted from Art Garfunkel’s autobiographical What Is It All But Luminous / notes from an Underground Man ©2017: In May of ’69… Paul’s writing changed from “I know your part’ll go fine”– words of a deep friendship (The Only Living Boy in New York)– to “Why don’t you write me?”– words of frustration. So many …
