Bruce Kimmel has managed to eke out a career in one form of show business or another for over forty years. A successful Grammy-nominated record producer, Kimmel began his show business journey as an actor, in a time when being a young up-and-coming thespian was fun, thrilling, and when anything seemed possible. It was a different world for a young actor in the 1970s, and Kimmels journey is paved with laughs, tears, success, and an amazing cast of players. At twenty-seven, he wrote, co-directed, and starred in a film that would become a major cult success, The First Nudie Musical. He did TV pilots, guest shots, series, plays. He met and worked with incredible people. It was the kind of time we will never see again. And then things changed. The nature of the business changed. And the path to dealing with those changesgetting older, trying to survive in an ever increasingly negative and cutthroat worldbecomes a story of reinvention and rebirth. Through it all, Kimmel tells his tale with wit, candor, affection, and self-effacing honesty. Enjoy being the fly on the wall as Kimmel hangs out with Elsa Lanchester, Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy; goes to Grouchos house and plays the piano for him; works with Shirley Jones, David Cassidy, Susan Dey on The Partridge Family. We observe his long friendship with Cindy Williams, watch as he works with screen legends Patricia Neal, Jean Simmons, Leslie Nielsen, Patrick Macnee, Bud Cort, and Geraldine Fitzgerald, and as he hangs out with Hugh Hefner at the Playboy mansion., Bruce Kimmels showbiz tales are loaded with laughs, wide-eyed wonder, and heart.

The Long-Awaited, Enormously Entertaining Memoir by One of the Great Artists of Our Time—Now a New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, and Publisher’s Weekly Bestseller. In this candid and often hilarious memoir, the celebrated director, comedian, writer, and actor offers a comprehensive, personal look at his tumultuous life. Beginning with his Brooklyn childhood and his stint as a writer for the Sid Caesar variety show in the early days of television, working alongside comedy greats, Allen tells of his difficult early days doing standup before he achieved recognition and success. With his unique storytelling pizzazz, he recounts his departure into moviemaking, with such slapstick comedies as Take the Money and Run, and revisits his entire, sixty-year-long, and enormously productive career as a writer and director, from his classics Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Annie and Her Sisters to his most recent films, including Midnight in Paris. Along the way, he discusses his marriages, his romances and famous friendships, his jazz playing, and his books and plays. We learn about his demons, his mistakes, his successes, and those he loved, worked with, and learned from in equal measure. This is a hugely entertaining, deeply honest, rich and brilliant self-portrait of a celebrated artist who is ranked among the greatest filmmakers of our time.

During the 1970s, Larry Cohen's name was often linked with the new wave of independent film directors, such as Wes Craven, Brian DePalma and Tobe Hooper, whose early work promised a revitalization of a classical Hollywood tradition. But while Craven, DePalma and Hooper gained entry to the Hollywood studio system, Cohen remained on the margins, producing a wide variety of independent films that have influenced filmmakers and television directors alike.Cohen's best known works are Black Caesar and It's Alive, but many of his other films have been marginalized by critics and have suffered from limited theatrical release. His films are often iconoclastic, criticizing American society in the same vein as Robert Aldrich and Sam Fuller. Part One of this book focuses on his films and television work and Part Two consists of an extensive interview with Cohen and several of his collaborators, including James Dixon, Michael Moriarty and Janelle Cohen. A comprehensive filmography of Cohen's work is also provided.