Engaging insights into the business of televising live events, with special appeal for sports enthusiasts.
The celebrated TV executive reflects on his illustrious career.
From co-creating Saturday Night Live with Lorne Michaels to his lengthy tenure as head of NBC Sports, leading Olympics coverage and creating Football Night in America, among other notable achievements, Ebersol (b. 1947) enjoyed a remarkably successful run working in the TV industry. The author entertainingly recounts inside stories about working in this fast-paced environment, especially as the business of televising live sporting events was rapidly building into a lucrative, global enterprise. After his early apprenticeship as an Olympics researcher, Ebersol landed the enviable role of assistant to “the legendary” Roone Arledge at ABC Sports. “Roone was my original model of what a leader and innovator looked like in the media world,” writes the author. “As a visionary, he was brilliant and ambitious, forever hungry for the next great idea, ever unwilling to compromise. And just as important, as a manager, he was always willing to rely on the star members of his team to see his plans through.” Ebersol provides countless examples of how Arledge’s key strengths would influence his ambitions and decisions and help mold his own leadership style. The author is an amiable storyteller, and he shares lively insights into the negotiations and personal dynamics that helped shape the many blockbuster business deals that transpired throughout his career, whether they involved the NFL, NBA, or professional wrestling. Along the way, he offers numerous sketches of a nice variety of larger-than-life personalities that crossed his path, from Michaels and Eddie Murphy to John Madden, Michael Phelps, and Peyton Manning. Ever the diplomatic executive, Ebersol resists making negative comments about anyone within these pages. On the personal side, he writes affectionately of his enduring marriage to actor Susan St. James and recounts the tragic details of a 2004 plane crash in which he lost his youngest son, Teddy, and suffered his own serious injuries.
Engaging insights into the business of televising live events, with special appeal for sports enthusiasts.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982194-46-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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