My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business
A Memoir
-
- USD 8.99
-
- USD 8.99
Descripción editorial
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The legendary Hollywood star of classic films and TV shows such as The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bye Bye Birdie, and Mary Poppins shares intimate stories from six decades of his renowned career.
“Earnest, funny, and appealing . . . captures the essence of an eventful life lived on and off the small screen.”—The Washington Post
With a foreword by Carl Reiner
Dick Van Dyke, indisputably one of the greats of the golden age of television, is admired and beloved by audiences the world over for his beaming smile, physical dexterity, impeccable comic timing, ridiculous stunts, and unforgettable screen roles.
His trailblazing television program, The Dick Van Dyke Show, was one of the most popular sitcoms of the 1960s and introduced another major television star, Mary Tyler Moore. But Dick Van Dyke was also an enormously engaging movie star whose films, including Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, have been discovered by a new generation of fans and are as cherished today as they were when they first appeared. Who doesn’t know the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?
My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business is a colorful, loving, richly detailed look at the decades of a multilayered life, written by a performer who still thinks of himself as a “simple song-and-dance man,” but who is, in every sense of the word, a classic entertainer.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this intimate, honest memoir by TV's favorite Mr. Nice Guy, good husband, and loving father, we discover that though his persona was not an act, Van Dyke battled alcohol addiction and left a long-term marriage while struggling to maintain his image as a man of principle and values. Growing up in the Midwest, healthy and happy, Van Dyke founds his niche early with radio, then as a nightclub comedian in L.A. With no acting or dance or music training, he landed a role in Broadway's Bye Bye, Birdie and later on in the film (he provides some fun stories about Ann-Margret, Paul Lynde, and Maureen Stapleton). It was Carl Reiner who made him a household name with The Dick Van Dyke Show which was based on reality, with many scenarios from the actors' actual lives. Along the road to success with such films as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins, Van Dyke discusses his social drinking as a problem, and treatment, which he ultimately revealed at a D.C. press conference with other high-profile recovering alcoholics. He reminds us there are happy clowns and sad clowns: "The public saw a smiling, nimble-footed performer while my family and friends were served up a more contemplative loner, a man who many said was hard to know."
