Customer Reviews

Name Dropping

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was stuck in the airport waiting for a flight. I picked up King's book and was hysterical laughing outloud!! It kept me entertained throughout!!! I highly recommend it. It's entertaining, cleverly written, and fast moving!

The first time I'd ever even heard of Alan King (aka the rich guy who gets killed in Rush Hour 2) was when my family rented the movie Sunshine State, in which plays a hyperbolic golfer.

A few months afterward, I came across this book. For a Catskill comic who fought and clawed his way out of a shabby Brooklyn apartment and made it big, he's awfully nice. A lifelong democrat, King Still has some nice words for the conservative bigshots of his time. One might assume King's description of comedian Joe E. Lewis applies to King himself: "If you'd mentioned Hitler to him, he'd say, "So he made a few mistakes." The one person King can NOT tolerate is his nemesis, Al Jolson, who once dared to sit through the former's performance with his back turned.

Compared to today, the dirt Alan King dishes is pretty tame, and he knows it. The chapters of this book are divided according to the many hats he has worn, whether they be struggling comic, sports nut, Vegas lounge lizard, Kennedy groupie, Broadway producer, actor, and aggravating husband to Jeanette (who also gets a turn at the wheel toward the end, when Alan hands over the narrative to her).

In a reflection of our cynical age, modern comedy is based around on schadenfreude, bathroom humor, and abusing the weak. Those things are completely alien to King's world; groups like the Friars Club -- a fraternity of hard-drinking, idiosyncratic stand-up comics -- mocked other showbiz figures, but even then the humor was paternal, reverent even. (Then again, considering the friends Frank Sinatra had, it was probably wise not to belittle him). If you have an interest in salty veterans of swing era, or comedians in the vein of Bob Hope, I would definitely pick this up.

Alan King has had such an interesting life which he shares with his readers! The book is a Winner!