A surprisingly charmless memoir by the longtime Carol Burnett Show costar and recent talk show host. The story of Lawrence's big break is a quintessential show-biz fairy tale. As a high school student, she sent a fan letter to Carol Burnett noting that everyone always commented on her resemblance to the actress. On a whim, Burnett came to see Lawrence in a Fireman's Ball beauty contest and eventually offered the 18- year-old a job on her new television variety program. Over The Carol Burnett Show's 11-year run, the hard-working Lawrence became a skillful supporting player and created at least one characterization—Mama in the ``Family'' sketches—that can justifiably be called classic. Given the rare good luck Lawrence generally encountered, it is particularly strange to find a large streak of anger and tell-all nastiness in her autobiography. She is especially bitter about her parents and sister, whom she savages at Roseanne-like length. Her mother's cruelty, her father's weakness, her sister's jealousy—the list goes on and on. But she also snipes at many co-workers, including Harvey Korman, whom she first praises for teaching her all she knows about comedy, then denigrates as a hopeless neurotic who was almost impossible to work with (she even notes in a superfluous aside that his wife had an affair with New York City Ballet dancer Edward Villella). Lawrence does have some kind words for a few—most notably Al Shultz, her husband of many years, and Burnett, who is otherwise a shadowy presence here—but a section at the book's close praising people she cares about seems too little, too late. The book is dedicated to Lawrence's fans, who may be startled by the woman they discover within. (32 pages b&w photos, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-684-80286-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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