I'm Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High Times in Stand-up Comedy's Golden Era [Hardcover]

William Knoedelseder (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 25, 2009

In the mid-1970s, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Andy Kaufman, Richard Lewis, Robin Williams, Elayne Boosler, Tom Dreesen, and several hundred other shameless showoffs and incorrigible cutups from across the country migrated en masse to Los Angeles, the new home of Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. There, in a late-night world of sex, drugs, dreams and laughter, they created an artistic community unlike any before or since. It was Comedy Camelot—but it couldn’t last.

William Knoedelseder was then a cub reporter covering the burgeoning local comedy scene for the Los Angeles Times. He wrote the first major newspaper profiles of several of the future stars. And he was there when the comedians—who were not paid by the clubs where they performed— tried to change the system and incidentally tore apart their own close-knit community. In I’m Dying Up Here he tells the whole story of that golden age, of the strike that ended it, and of how those days still resonate in the lives of those who were there. As comedy clubs and cable TV began to boom, many would achieve stardom.... but success had its price.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In 1978, Knoedelseder (Stiffed: A True Story of MCA, the Music Business, and the Mafia) was a journalist assigned to cover newcomers transforming the comedy clubs: For the next two years, I had stage-side seats at the best show in show business.... I met and wrote about Jay Leno, David Letterman and Richard Lewis before the world knew who they were. Mitzi Shore, recently labeled the Norma Desmond of Comedy by the Los Angeles Times, took over L.A.'s Comedy Store in 1973 with a no-pay policy because she saw it as a training ground, a workshop, a college. It became a focal point for local comics, including Lewis, his friend Steve Lubetkin, Elayne Boosler, Tom Dreesen, Letterman, Leno and many more. Some were in desperate circumstances, surviving by living in their cars and eating bar condiments. Driving a silver Jaguar to her massive, cash-generating laugh factory, Shore was seen as cunningly manipulative, and her unfair payment policies led to an organized strike in 1979 by the CFC (Comedians for Compensation). This confrontation of comics vs. club owner (Not... one... red... fucking... cent) is the core of the book, with the suicide of Lubetkin taking the tone from comedy to tragedy. Filmmakers will eye this as a potential property similar to Bill Carter's The Late Shift (1996), about Letterman and Leno. Knoedelseder skillfully layers powerful dramatic details, and readers will shelve the book alongside those other key classics on comedy: Steve Allen's The Funny Men and Janet Coleman's The Compass. (Aug. 24)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Publishers Weekly, STARRED review
“Knoedelseder skillfully layers powerful dramatic details, and readers will shelve the book alongside those other key classics on comedy.”

Shelf Awareness
“A revealing and entertaining look at the 1970s Los Angeles comedy scene and the labor dispute that ended its most glorious era.”

Booklist
“Fact-packed, highly readable history… peppered with plenty of portraits of struggling young comics, some destined for national fame, others headed to obscurity and, in a few cases, early death.”

Buffalo News
“One of the most eye-opening and informative books ever written about standup comedy…One of the books of the year for any student of American television and pop culture…A little-known story has now been told very well in perfect context. And when you finish the book you may feel as if you finally understand every comedian you see on TV for the first time.”

Daily Variety
“A lively new book…Knoedelseder reminds us that comedy is a dicey calling.”

New York Times Book Review
“Illuminating”

Irish Times
“Knoedelseder, who was around in those days as a reporter on the Los Angeles Times, interweaves the fascinating stories of the tragic, unknown Lubetkin and the performers who were to become household names, set against the basic contradictions of working the Comedy Store.”

Dallas Morning News
“Written with a journalist's strong narrative sense, I'm Dying Up Here chronicles the tight-knit community of artists who cracked open the world of funny entertainment and the event that shattered their camaraderie...Knoedelseder's ability to sniff out the human stories behind the headlines is what makes this rowdy chapter in stand-up such a good read. It's a bittersweet tale told with humor and economy.”

DigitalCity.com
“I’m Dying Up Here lays bare the bad and the ugly of Hollywood; from what good there was, like primordial muck, emerged the funniest guys and gals around.”

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: PublicAffairs; 1 edition (August 25, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158648317X
• ISBN-13: 978-1586483173
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #679,112 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You'll Come For Letterman & Leno, But Stay for Lubetkin, Boosler & Shore, September 6, 2009

By 

Buffster (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I'm Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High Times in Stand-up Comedy's Golden Era (Hardcover)

How did this story go untold for so long? Before some of America's best known comics were household names in homes like yours, they were household names in but their own homes. That is, they were nobodies. And most of those homes were hovels. This book tells the largely untold story of how they -- or at least many of them -- made it big while turning standup into a business and art form as culturally vital as rock and roll. Though you'll instantly key in on people like Robin Williams and Richard Lewis, after but a few pages you'll feel like you're best friends with a lot of people that I at least had never heard of, and root for them in their many battles against unfair working conditions, addiction and changing tastes. Author Knoedelseder is a reader's writer --he respects your intelligence and your time. He's got a witty, engaging style that makes you feel like you're chatting over a beer or cup of coffee and the writing is super tight. Not a wasted word. You won't be able to put this one down.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fun and fascinating read!, August 25, 2009

By 

jdavisstein (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I'm Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High Times in Stand-up Comedy's Golden Era (Hardcover)

I really enjoyed this book. It's about a labor dispute in 70's in Hollywood, the twist is that the disputers are a bunch of stand-up comedians, many of whom will become famous. It's a treat to see them young and struggling and to get the inside story on relationships between people who have since become iconic. All of the characters,even the unknowns (at least to me), are colorful and the plot reads like a novel.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I'm Dying Up Here - William Knoedelseder (Public Affairs), December 31, 2009

By 

BlogOnBooks "BlogOnBooks" (Los Angeles CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I'm Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High Times in Stand-up Comedy's Golden Era (Hardcover)

When the Tonight Show moved its base of operations from New York to Los Angeles in 1972, the world of comedy was completely upended. Instead of working out their routines at NY nightclubs, any up-and-coming comedian worth his salt had to relocate to LA as well. Why? Because, in those days the Tonight Show was considered an unavoidable rite-of-passage for any comic who aspired to bigger things like Vegas, record albums or TV and movie stardom. The stars who received Johnny Carson's nod of approval, were often invited back and would eventually become household names in their own right. Jay Leno, David Letterman, Robin Williams and others would all be beneficiaries of the move in years to come.
In order to get `discovered', these comics needed a platform to woodshed their material and to get in the field-of-view of the show's cadre of talent scouts.
Enter the Comedy Store.
As a reporter for the Comedy Beat of the prodigious Los Angeles Times, Bill Knoedelseder had a ringside seat for the development of the LA comedy scene emerging at the Sunset Strip nightery as well as it's Melrose counterpart, Budd Friedman's Improv. Between the two clubs passed nearly all of the renowned comedians of the 70s thru 90s. Richard Pryor, Jimmie Walker, Leno, Williams, Andy Kaufman, Sam Kinison, Richard Lewis, Elayne Boosler and dozens more all worked out at the club in it's heyday.
Trouble was, the club's legendary owner, Mitzi Shore (yes, Pauly's mom) never believed in paying the talent. "It's a showcase room," Shore would insist, not a place for comedians to earn a living. Eventually, Shore's policy would blow up in her face as the comics formed their own `union' and tried to boycott the club in an effort to gain at least a meager stipend from the dictatorial Shore.
It is, in fact, the story of the Comedy Store and it's remuneration policy that takes up the bulk of Knoedelseder's book. Nearly every detail of the strike is outlined here including the suicidal death of despondent comedian Steve Lubetkin, who jumped off the roof of the Hyatt Hotel next door to the club in a fit of depression.
All in all, Knoedelseder's account of the LA comedy scene of the era is as complete as one could ever expect from a book on the subject. The fact that there is not much humor in a book about comedy is a bit lacking, but perhaps given the psychological profile often associated with comedians, not such a surprise.