A simple but often fascinating look at TV history through the eyes of one of the medium’s seminal figures.
Longtime comedy writer/producer Peppiatt (1927–2012) looks back on his life as one of the busiest men in TV history.
Born in Canada just as the Roaring ’20s abruptly segued into the Great Depression, the author graduated from the University of Toronto and, after graduation, much to his father’s chagrin, took a menial job at a local radio station. From there, he gradually worked his way into writing scripts for radio. By 1952, he was a TV writer for the fledgling Canadian Broadcasting Company. By 1958, he and his writing partner John Aylesworth were in New York writing for popular singer/show host Steve Lawrence. During the next 20 or so years, Peppiatt and Aylesworth crisscrossed the country from New York to LA, writing and producing one variety show after another, including Sonny and Cher, the Steve Allen Show, Hullabaloo and even the countrified TV smash Hee Haw. Peppiatt was the classic raised-in-the-Depression workaholic, but he eventually had to choose between marriage to his work or to his wife—of course, it didn't help that his first wife was a jealous harpy who resented his success even as she embraced its fruits. Banal domestic turmoil aside, though, there are plenty of memorable moments here, especially when Peppiatt finds himself having to deal with drama queens like Julie Andrews, Judy Garland, Cher, Doris Day and others. Peppiatt’s prose is conversational and classy, although, disappointingly, there are few clear examples of his professional comedic style.
A simple but often fascinating look at TV history through the eyes of one of the medium’s seminal figures.Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-77041-157-9
Page Count: 300
Publisher: ECW Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
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
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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