Tom Shales - Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, as Told By Its Stars, Writers and Guests

Copyright 2002 by Thomas W. Shales and Jimmy the Writer, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Little, Brown and Company

Hachette Book Group USA

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New York, NY 10017

Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com.

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to realpersons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

First eBook Edition: November 2008

ISBN: 978-0-316-04582-7

Applause for
TOM SHALES and JAMES ANDREW MILLERs

LIVE FROM NEW YORK

An Entertainment Weekly Best of 2002 selection
Chosen by the Chicago Tribune as one of the Best Books of the year
A Hot Read in Rolling Stone

Live from New York feels like the party to which weve waited to be invited for years, the one where everyone is free to dish and tell all.

Gene Seymour, Chicago Sun-Times

Live from New York captures page after page of witty and wonderful recollections .An engaging oral history and a gold mine for serious SNL fans, the book is also compelling reading for those with a casual curiosity about the show, its battles with censors, the backstage addictions, the drunken hosts, and the perpetual cycle of creative boom, bust, and boom.

Eric Boehlert, Salon.com

A guilty pleasure of the highest order . Funnier, sadder, seedier, more moving, more alive than Saturday Night Live itself . Live from New York shines.

Lev Grossman, Time

The juiciest treasure trove of backstage gossip, sex, and drugs since The Andy Warhol Diaries . Scandals, infighting, and plenty of showbiz dirt make this a guilty-pleasure page-turner from start to finish.

Publishers Weekly

An exhaustive oral history of twenty-seven years of backstage squabbles, freaked-out hosts, meddling network suits, score-settling malcontents, and nostalgic revisionists, not to mention the drugs, feuds, and affairs . Although authorized, the book is censored less than the show itself.

Phil Kloer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The straight dope is intoxicating, illuminating, befuddling, and appropriately wildly funny and ultimately addictive . Live from New York is a big book, but the rich voices make it compelling. Its over way too soon.

James Norton, Flak

Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller have crafted an irresistible read. By gathering quotes from all the principals and using only the occasional italicized paragraph for subject mortar, the authors defy a reader not to turn a page and see whats next.You have to give big credit to the authors for figuring out the people involved were eloquent and forthright enough to be able to tell the tale themselves . There is something memorable on nearly every page.

John Smyntek, Cincinnati Enquirer

A word-of-mouth masterpiece.

Ed Bark, Dallas Morning News

Reads like a backstage confidential. Live from New York isnt just straight from the horses mouth. Here, the stable spills while the many perspectives are adeptly shaped by Shales and Miller. This may be entertainment history but it reads like live from Studio 8H.

Sherryl Connelly, New York Daily News

The most definitive record yet of NBCs Saturday Night Live, the TV comedy program that redefined our popular culture.

Monica Collins, Boston Herald

Dozens of now-famous comedians have been part of the SNL crew over the years; this oral history reveals them in stories, behind-the-scenes gossip, feuds, and secrets. The book will delight fans of the show.

Nan Goldberg, Newark Sunday Star-Ledger

Pure, unadulterated, delicious dish on the show that revolutionized TV comedy and American pop culture.

Hartford Courant

As documentation of TV history, this is a treasure. For SNL fans and observers of pop culture, its a candid, gossipy, and fun read.

Michael Long, Weekly Standard

Illuminating.A great read.A chatty, catty, mostly fascinating talkfest. For those who love their entertainment tomes full of juicy gossip and backstage dirt, there is perhaps no greater pleasure this fall than Live from New York.

Omar L. Gallaga, Austin American-Statesman

The juicy anecdotes and downright insults make the book so addictive.

Mark Bazer, New York Post

A book that moves briskly and consistently entertains. The story is, inevitably, one of alternating triumph and heartbreak. This is one reason the oral-history format works one writers triumph might be another cast members heartbreak, and we get to hear both. Besides, most of these people are articulately funny by trade.

Rob Walker, Newsday

If youve ever been a fan of Saturday Night Live, or if you have a taste for showbiz gossip, Live from New York makes for engaging reading.

Andy Smith, Providence Journal

Shales and Miller interviewed people who have worked on the show, and allowed them to speak for themselves. They describe a frenetic, competitive, ego-filled atmosphere in which young actors and writers danced wildly on the cutting edge of comedy.If youre an SNL fan, its hard to put down.

Anne Stephenson, Arizona Republic

An irresistible read for anyone interested in the history of television or just the perversity of human nature. Quotes from the twenty-seven-year-old shows principals provide surprises on every page.

Detroit Free Press

Refreshing vibrant entrancing and instructive.To reduce this superbly executed oral history to a list of potential National Enquirer headlines is to do it, and reading itself, a disservice. Through interviews with almost all of the principals and a knack for making their quotes play off of one another, Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller paint a detailed landscape portrait of what has become an American cultural icon, one that will guide any attentive reader to a fuller understanding of comedy, TV, and the culture itself.

Steve Johnson, Chicago Tribune

For longtime fans of Saturday Night Live who have always wanted a window into the shows unique atmosphere, its hard to imagine a better guide.

Eric Deggans, St. Petersburg Times

A behind-the-laughs history of Saturday Night Live. Live from New York is an oral history compiled with occasional pert interstitial chronology added by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller. They have crafted a constantly entertaining and instructive document; among its many virtues, Live from New York is a better manual on how a business really works than all those cheeseball who-moved-my-Camembert books smushed together. Thats because Shales and Miller havent just interviewed the stars; nor have they merely come up with the most thorough examinations to date of the haunting, untimely deaths of John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Chris Farley, and Phil Hartman no small feat, to be sure. Rather, Shales and Miller dig deeper, seeking out generations of SNL writers and producers, NBC TV executives, and guest hosts. Most important, theyve quizzed the shows creator, Lorne Michaels, and thoroughly debriefed nearly everyone involved about the pull at once Zen-like and paternal that this tidy, deadpan Canadian has exerted on so many people. Whoever Daddy Michaels really is, what he did was create one of the most interesting examples of survival and invention in the history of the medium, and