Table of Contents
Praise for
IM DYING UP HERE
by William Knoedelseder
Written with a journalists strong narrative sense, Im Dying Up Here chronicles the tight-knit community of artists who cracked open the world of funny entertainment and the event that shattered their camaraderie.... Knoedelseders ability to sniff out the human stories behind the headlines is what makes this rowdy chapter in stand-up such a good read. Its a bittersweet tale told with humor and economy.
Dallas Morning News
Full of dishy, I-was-there detail about people who went on to become famousand occasionally richbeing funny on TV.
Washington Post
Knoedelseder skillfully layers powerful dramatic details, and readers will shelve the book alongside those other key classics on comedy.
Publishers Weekly, starred review
A revealing and entertaining look at the 1970s Los Angeles comedy scene and the labor dispute that ended its most glorious era.
Shelf Awareness
In Im Dying Up Here, his candid look at standup comedys 1970s golden age, ex-Los Angeles Times reporter William Knoedelseder says boomers raised on Milton Berle and Henny Youngman began seeking their own countercultural heroes of humor. They found themLetterman and Leno, Richard Lewis and Andy Kaufmanworking for free at the showcase Comedy Store on Sunset Strip. But then came a laughter stoppage: The unpaid comedians went on strike in 1979, and a troubled comic named Steve Lubetkin killed himself. The funny business, we learn, is deadly serious.
AARP The Magazine
One of the most eye-opening and informative books ever written about standup comedy.... One of the books of the year for any student of American television and pop culture.... A little-known story has now been told very well in perfect context. And when you finish the book you may feel as if you finally understand every comedian you see on TV for the first time.
Buffalo News
A lively new book.... Knoedelseder reminds us that comedy is a dicey calling.
Daily Variety
Fact-packed, highly readable history... peppered with plenty of portraits of struggling young comics, some destined for national fame, others headed to obscurity and, in a few cases, early death.
Booklist
Illuminating.
New York Times Book Review
Always amusing and deftly writtenKnoedelseder is a good reporter and a self-effacing writer happy to turn the spotlight over to comedians, who relish it. He captures the frenetic atmosphere that comics create and the tangy camaraderie of can-you-top-this all-nighters at Canters deli on Fairfax.
Palm Beach Post
An important contribution to Americas cultural historyand a helluva good read by an outstanding reporter.
Huntington News
Knoedelseder, who was around in those days as a reporter on the Los Angeles Times, interweaves the fascinating stories of the tragic, unknown Lubetkin and the performers who were to become household names, set against the basic contradictions of working the Comedy Store.
Irish Times
Im Dying Up Here lays bare the bad and the ugly of Hollywood; from what good there was, like primordial muck, emerged the funniest guys and gals around.
DigitalCity.com
This book is a biography of Comedy... the story of how the stand up comedy world migrated from New York City to Los Angeles, from the small, dark clubs where most of the great comedians got their start to the stage of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson where careers were literally made or broken based on one 5-minute set on the show.... So well written and important that it should not only be read, but should be developed into a movie or a mini-series in the next few years.
Artoftalk.tv
Dedicated to the memory of
Irv Letofsky and Howard Brandy,
and to the girl of my dreams.
Acknowledgments
I started doing the research for this book thirty-one years ago, when my editor at the Los Angeles Times, Irv Letofsky, called me into his office and said there was something happening on the local comedy club scene that had the feel of Greenwich Village in the early 1960s. He thought stand-up comedy was about to explode nationally in the hands of a new crop of young performers working at the Comedy Store and the Improvisation. He thought the Times should establish a comedy beat. Was I interested?
For the next two years, I had stage-side seats at the best show in show business. I was at the Comedy Store the week that Robin Williams first erupted on to the LA scene, and I spent a quiet afternoon at the beach with him in his final hours of obscurity before Mork & Mindy hit the air. I sat slack jawed one evening as Andy Kaufman performed his entire stage act, complete with three costume changes, for an audience of two on the patio of my house and then wanted to wrestle my eight-months-pregnant wife. I spent a surreal night on the town with Kaufmans alter ego, Tony Clifton, and was present on the set the day Clifton was fired from his guest-starring role in Taxi and then wrestled off the Paramount Studios lot by security guards. I met and wrote about Jay Leno, David Letterman, and Richard Lewis before the world knew who they were. I watched the funniest people of my generation get up on stage alone and try and fail and triumph. And I laughed my ass off.
I am grateful for the help and inspiration provided by the following people: Jimmy Aleck, Dottie Archibald, Alison Arngrim, Jo Anne Astrow, Mike Binder, Steve Bluestein, Elayne Boosler, the late Bernie Brillstein, Ken Browning, Johnny Dark, Lue Deck, Tom DeLisle, the late Estelle Endler, Ellen Farley, Budd Friedman, Gallagher, Argus Hamilton, Charlie Hill, Jeff Jampol, Bill Kirchenbauer, Jay Leno, Mark Lonow, Barry and Ginny Lubetkin, Jamie Masada, Dennis McDougal, Barbara McGraw, John Mettler, the late George Miller, Judy Orbach, Susan (Evans) Richmond, Phil Alden Robinson, Brad Sanders, Ross Schafer, George Shapiro, Mitzi Shore, Wil Shriner, the late John Stewart, Susan Sweetzer, Bennett Tramer, Marsha Warfield, Ellis Weiner, Dr. Robert Winter, Ann Woody, Bob Zmuda, Brian Ann Zoccola, and Alan Zwiebel.
I would like to offer special thanks to the following:
Tom Dreesen for his generosity and many, many hours of time
my friend and brother Richard Lewis for that and so much more beyond this book
my dear friend and agent for life, Alice Martell, for always believing
all the people at PublicAffairs, especially founder and editor at large, Peter Osnos, and my very cool editor, Lisa Kaufman, for their saintlike patience
Dayan Ballweg, for his encouragement and great title
and most of all my familyBryn, Matt, Colin, and Hallefor their unquestioning love and support as I struggled to figure things out and find my way back to where I always should have been.
Prologue: A True Comic
They slipped into the nightclub quietly, one by one, stepping carefully at first as their eyes adjusted from the bright afternoon light outside: a soft parade of mostly middle-aged comics come to pay their respects to a fallen comrade.