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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 792.760973
EAN: 9781586483173
Edition: 1
ISBN: 158648317X
Label: PublicAffairs
Manufacturer: PublicAffairs
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 304
Publication Date: August 25, 2009
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Studio: PublicAffairs
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Letterman, Leno, Robin Williams, Andy Kaufman, Richard Lewis, Garry Shandling, and many other soon-to-be-stars were once young, broke, and funny in 1970s L.A. They were also friends...until one event changed everything.
I'm Dying Up Here chronicles the collective coming of age of the standup comedians who defined American humor during the past three decades. Born early in the Baby Boom, they grew up watching The Tonight Show, went to school during Viet Nam and Watergate, migrated en masse to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s and created an artistic community unlike any before or since. They were arguably the funniest people of their generation, living in a late-night world of sex, drugs, dreams and laughter. For one brief shining moment, standup comics were as revered as rock stars. It was Comedy Camelot but, of course, it couldn't last. In the late 1970s William Knoedelseder was a cub reporter assigned to cover the burgeoning local comedy scene for the Los Angeles Times. He wrote the first major newspaper profiles of Leno, Letterman, Andy Kaufman, and others. He got to know many of them well. And so he covered the scene too when the comedians-who were not paid for performing at the career-making-or-breaking venue called The Comedy Store-tried to change an exploitative system and incidentally tore apart their own close-knit community.
Now Knoedelseder has gone back to interview the major participants to tell the whole story of that golden age and of the strike that ended it. Full of revealing portraits of many of the best-known comedic talents of our age, I'm Dying Up Here is also a poignant tale of the price of success and the terrible cost of failure-professional and moral.
Average Rating: 
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I'M DYING UP HERE: HEARTBREAK AND HIGH TIMES IN STAND-UP COMEDY'S GOLDEN ERA is a fine pick for any library strong in comedy history and shows. It comes from a reporter who wrote the first major newspaper profiles of several future stars and influential club owners, and tells the story of the rise of the golden age of comedy and the strike that ended it. Entertainment libraries will find this a popular history.
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What a great book. If you have any interest in stand-up comedy, you will love this well written book. I love the subject of stand-up comedy and am a big Letterman and Leno fan and thought I knew all these stories. I was wrong. This book would make a great movie!!
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This book tells the story of the stand-up comics who exploded on the American scene in the 1960s---a group comprised of quirky, funny, even weird people on a shared mission to make us laugh. They are the courageous stand alone-stand-up artists of comedy.
The stories of all of them are chronicled here -- those who made the big time and are rich,famous, and still working today; those whose names you might remember, but have faded away; and many you have never heard of. All launched their careers at the Improv in New York and polished their art in at The Comedy Store in L.A. Their goal was to be invited to do five minutes on television's Tonite Show with Johnny Carson. Those who made Johnny laugh inevitibly went on to fame and fortune. Some eventually succumed to heartbreak, drugs, and even suicide. It is a five star plus read.
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The early 5 star reviews are in sync with my own reading of the book. Whenever an era of significant creativity takes place, the value of having an up close report is very valuable. If there had been a Knoedelseder during the Globe years of 1599-1609, we'd have a deeper view of what a repertory company with Shakespeare might have actually been like. American Eras like the Group Theater years of 1930-1940, or the Abstract Expressionists years of 1955-1965, or the overlapping Golden Years of Television, all centered in New York, have been well documented in the literature.
The American Golden Era in Stand-Up comedy, 1974-1984 in Los Angeles, ranks with the earlier periods in terms of cultural impact or influence, but - till this book - it has not been as well documented. This book should serve as a standard in the research canon, as well as a readable introduction for the curious.
I am familiar with the locales and many of the institutions discussed. This report on young laugh-seekers, in late teens and twenties,who gave all to have a national voice, is compelling and informative. That these comics would become - decades later - dominant voices of the culture, makes this book particularly valuable and its author particularly prescient.
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This book does a wonderful job of humanizing people we know only as performers - David Letterman, Tom Dreesen, Richard Lewis and many other well-known comedians. You see them off stage, as real people in real and often difficult situations. It's also one of the best books I've ever read about the cut-throat business side of "show business." If you have any interest at all in the history of stand-up comedy (not how to do it - you won't find that here) and what makes comedians do what they do, I highly recommend this book. If you're looking for laughs, you'll find a few here, but there are equal parts tragedy, so don't pick it up expecting big yuks on every page.
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