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Title details for My Anecdotal Life by Carl Reiner - Available

My Anecdotal Life

A Memoir

by Carl Reiner
Carl Reiner
Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
2 of 2 copies available
More than once, friends of Carl Reiner said, "You ought to write those things down." And at the age of eighty, Carl finally did. In this funny and engaging memoir, Reiner recounts his show business life in short comic takes. After answering an ad for free acting classes, he forsook a budding vocation as a machinist for an acting career. Reiner recalls the highlights of the succeeding decades: his first sweaty audition—impersonating a dog impersonating movie stars; his forays into the theater; his work on Your Show of Shows and The Dick Van Dyke Show during TV's golden days; and his long friendship and collaboration with Mel Brooks, which gave birth to the Two Thousand Year Old Man.

Ann Bancroft, Johnny Carson, Sid Caesar, Cary Grant, Jean Renoir, Mickey Rooney, Dinah Shore, Mary Tyler Moore–the list goes on and on–also appear in what Reiner calls the "literary variety show" that captures the highs and lows of his extraordinary life. Through it all, Reiner displays the wit and warmth that made him one of the most beloved figures in the entertainment business. Read by Reiner himself, this charming memoir will delight anyone who wants a behind-the-scenes look at five decades of Hollywood and television history.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    July 1, 2003

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781597776967
      • File size: 182814 KB
      • Duration: 06:20:51

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 14, 2003
      Reiner (Enter Laughing), creator and co-star of the Dick Van Dyke Show
      as well as the director of many film comedies, has collected here some memories of his long career. In short takes, he revisits his first jobs running entertainment programs at senior camps, his first breaks into show business, his favorite dinner parties, his most memorable faux pas and his great times with other grand old men of comedy, from George Jessel to Mel Brooks. He intersperses career tales with family vignettes: short but touching accounts of his father's inventions, his mother's illiteracy and his brother's final illness. While most of Reiner's ventures were, by his account, smash successes, he includes a few mishaps—like the time he arrived a day early for his high school's Hall of Fame ceremony—in keeping with his epigraph, "Inviting people to laugh with you while you are laughing at yourself is a good thing to do. You may be the fool but you're the fool in charge." Hearing a story about something that people found funny, however, is not the same as hearing a funny story. Reiner, who's now 81, spends most of this book patting himself on the back for all the things that went so well in his life. Fans will enjoy it, although for real laughs they'll do better renting Where's Poppa?
      at the video store. (May)Forecast:Reiner's planned appearances at BEA and the
      Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, along with advance praise from Mel Brooks, should drum up interest from old-time comedy fans.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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