So Far, So Funny: My Life In Show Business [Hardcover]

Hal Kanter (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Hal Kanter...has created comic plots and jokes for almost every luminary in television and film. ...a joy to read" -- The Berkshire Eagle

"Kanter recalls his life and career as a writer in his must-read book" -- Daily Variety

"a rare and evocative autobiography, one that walks you leisurely through the American entertainment century by the elbow, stopping every paragraph or two to whap you on the funny bone. Hal Kanter's book is filled with witty ironies, laugh-out-loud descriptions, deft one-liners, some well-placed locker room epithets and an inveterate sense of sheer humor" -- DGA Magazine

"hugely entertaining. ...a must-read" -- Past Times

"if you know any-one in need of a laugh, this book will do the trick" -- Beverly Hills Courier

"if you love old time radio and like to laugh, this book's for you" -- The Illustrated Press

"the career of Hal Kanter is a fascinating one, and it is recounted here with truth and with humor...truly amazing...a wealth of detail" -- Classic Images

About the Author

Hal Kanter continues to write, produce and direct in Encino, California. He has cowritten 28 Academy Awards shows.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 308 pages
• Publisher: Mcfarland & Co Inc Pub (December 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786404833
• ISBN-13: 978-0786404834
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,724,232 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and Irreverent, March 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: So Far, So Funny: My Life In Show Business (Hardcover)

So Far, So Funny is a fascinating and irreverent look at show business over the last 60 years. Author Hal Kanter's experience spans radio, TV and movies during the Golden Age of each medium. Kanter's dry wit never turns brittle as he guides the reader anecdotally through his career as comedy writer, director and producer. Never at a loss for words, most of them funny, Kanter drops more Hollywood names than Elia Kazan. Among my favorites is his anecdote of the dapper character actor Adolph Menjou whose arrogance apparently was matched by his abilities. Kanter sums up his own life (and his book) in his comment about his friend and colleague George Gobel: "He spent 60 years, man and boy, exercising his gift to amuse- or at the least, to keep us from getting sullen". No one can read So Far, So Funny and remain sullen.

Ellen Fremadon

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a remarkable book, January 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: So Far, So Funny: My Life In Show Business (Hardcover)

"SO FAR, SO FUNNY (My Life In Show Business)" by Hal Kanter Published by McFarland & Co. (320 pp. $35 library binding; photos, index) Reviewed by Page Turner ========================================================================

Every generation or so, a new comic voice is enlisted in a pantheon of American humorists that include Mark Twain, Will Rogers and Fred Allen. Now comes a laugh-a-paragraph memoir from veteran comedy writer Hal Kanter, who says modestly that he has often been compared unfavorably with these giants. But his fresh, impudent memoir of growing up in the Deep South and fleeing from the Shallow North will alter that comparison. For Kanter has helped keep the world laughing for at least 60 years through radio, movies, TV and speaking out loud in public. SO FAR, SO FUNNY covers Kanter's life from his birth in Savannah, Georgia, through his first work as an adolescent cartoonist in New York to a second career as a journalist before arriving, at the age of 18, on the doorstep of his ultimate profession as a multiple Emmy Award winning and big-screen writer, director and producer. In unadorned prose, peppered with droll observations and wit, he writes of the celebrated people he has worked with. One gets the feeling that while journalist Kanter missed nothing, gentleman Kanter reports only part of what amused him, leaving us wanting more. The book is populated with people of prominence in both the lively arts and deadly politics: Elvis and Madonna; Hope and Crosby, Olsen and Johnson, Martin and Lewis; Wendell Willkie, Adlai Stevenson and Walter Mondale, Groucho and Tallulah, Gable and Gobel, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller and Carl Sandburg. Al Jolson, Ed Wynn; Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock and George Cukor; Diahann Carroll, Peggy Lee, Barbra Streisand and many others listed in an 18-page index. The reader accompanies Kanter backstage to several of the 28 Oscar shows to which he contributed more than his scripts. Having served as the warm-up speaker on a dozen Academy Awards, he gives us insider moments that bring more laughs than some of the shows themselves. Even when the author faces a life-threatening medical problem, he finds ways to amuse his doctors and keep his family's spirits high. SO FAR, SO FUNNY will keep yours up, too. It's a memorable read. ======