Just Outside the Spotlight: Growing Up with Eileen Heckart [Hardcover]

Luke Yankee (Author), Mary Tyler Moore (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2006

• Renowned character actress Heckart knew everybody in Hollywood—and her son spills
the stories she could never tell

• Juicy tidbits about Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, Lucille Ball, Paul Newman, Bette Davis, Ethel Merman, and dozens of others

• Part memoir, part scrapbook, part scandal sheet—unusual and enjoyable

• Book has been endorsed by more than a dozen celebs, including Ellen DeGeneres, Betty White, Goldie Hawn, and Joanne Woodward



Rex Reed called this memoir of award-winning character actress Eileen Heckart “touching, hilarious, enthralling”—and readers everywhere will call it fabulous! Written by Heckart’s son, this unusual biography tells all the tales that Heckart heard and saw in her fifty-year career in movies, theater, and TV. Oscar-, Emmy-, and Tony-winning actress Heckart, she of the foghorn voice and forward-leaning gait, worked with most of the greatest stars of the twentieth century. Wait till you read the one about Dietrich and—wait, can’t tell that one here. Or the one about—nope, not that one either. Oh, well. Just Outside the Spotlight is a remarkable memoir, packed with heartwarming family photos and never-before-seen images of stars, and with unforgettable anecdotes.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Luke Yankee (yes, it’s his real name), the son of Eileen Heckart, has directed,
produced, taught, lectured, and acted throughout the country. Currently he is touring in Diva Dish, a one-man multimedia show featuring show-biz anecdotes, rare stills, and video footage that was the inspiration for this book, He lives in Long Beach, CA.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 314 pages
• Publisher: Back Stage Books (May 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0823078884
• ISBN-13: 978-0823078882
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 0.9 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,177,057 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Luke Yankee is an author, actor, director, playwright, teacher and producer. He has directed on and off Broadway and at regonal theatres throughout the US and abroad. He has assistant directed six Broadway shows and sreved as artistic director of two regional theaters. he is currently touring the country with "Diva Dish!" his multimedia, one-man show, which was the inspiration for his first book, "Just Outside The Spotlight."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tough Cookie, Great Book, May 2, 2006

By 

Priam Farll - See all my reviews

This review is from: Just Outside the Spotlight: Growing Up with Eileen Heckart (Hardcover)

Luke Yankee has written a fine show business biography, but with a unique universality that will appeal to anyone interested in family dynamics. Written with love, sensitivity, humor, warmth and a wisdom born of experience (and therapy), Yankee goes to both the light and dark places to tell his story. We come to know the author, his family and most particularly his mother, actress Eileen Heckart. Some stories are laugh-out-loud hilarious. Some are open-mouth shocking. Some break your heart. Some offer encouragement to carry on through rough times. Perhaps the book should have been titled "Tough Cookie," because Eileen Heckart was a tough, act-then-think, cigarette-smoking, opinionated actress and mother. Yankee acknowledges all this. After all, he experienced it first hand. But he also understood his mother as a vulnerable, loving, intelligent, passionate woman. There isn't a single uninteresting page in the book. It's greatest sadness is that in the end Eileen Heckart dies (am I giving something away here?) and we feel like we're losing a friend whom we love and know well, warts and all. Highly recommended.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Terrific Tribute!!, April 25, 2006

By 

K. Smith (Bridgeport, CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Just Outside the Spotlight: Growing Up with Eileen Heckart (Hardcover)

"Just Outside the Spotlight" is an amusing, revealing book that courses through the life of Eileen Heckart, discussing the idiosyncracies and attributes of those around her, with whom she shared life behind the scenes of the theatre experience.
Luke Yankee succinctly portrays his mother as the consummate professional, her story shows her passion for life, which permeates through her "tough love" approach to caring for her family, her art and her beliefs. It is absolutely marvelous to read such an honest work!!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WHAT A WONDERFUL BOOK, March 21, 2006

By 

Peter Goldman (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Just Outside the Spotlight: Growing Up with Eileen Heckart (Hardcover)

I found Luke Yankee's "Just Outside the Spotlight: : Growing Up With Eileen Heckart" compulsively readable. This is far from your typical "Star Bio." Luke Yankee, son of stage and screen legend Eileen Heckart, could have gone the easy route with just anecdote after anecdote of growing up surrounded by Broadway and Hollywood royalty. While the book is full of unforgettable stories of mixing drinks for Ethel Merman as a pre-teen and the like,"Just Outside the Spotlight: : Growing Up With Eileen Heckart" is so much more than that. Yankee gives a sensitive no holds barred account of his life coming from such a colorful world. While the book gives a wonderful and fitting tribute to his mother, it is also an extremely candid look at the challenges a child can face coming from such an extrodinary background. Both hilarious and touching, this is a story that will appeal not only to fans of Heckert and show business, but to anyone who has gone through the bittersweet experience of growing up.