Tambor - Are you anybody?: a memoir

Copyright 2017 by Molly Productions, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

crownpublishing.com

Crown Archetype and colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Alan Zweibel and Garry Shandling (lyrics) and Joey Carbone (music) for permission to use the lyrics of Its Garry Shandlings Show, the theme to the show of the same name, on .

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN9780451496355

Ebook ISBN9780451496379

Illustrations by Ben Barnes

Cover design by Christopher Brand

Cover photograph by Maarten de Boer / Getty

Additional photography credits can be found on .

v4.1

a

To Kasiayou raise me up.

Its going to happen for you,
but its going to happen very, very late.

JAMES BARTON HILL READING JEFFREY TAMBOR S PALM, WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY , 1969

Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we really are and become it.

STEVEN PRESSFIELD , THE WAR OF ART

O CTOBER 6, 2015

Mr. Joseph Veltre

The Gersh Agency

New York, NY

Dear Joe,

I got a call from a Tricia Bocowski (sp?) at some publishing house. Apparently, someone on her staff was at my lecture in Boston and thoughtare you sitting down?I should write a book. She knew about Skylight Books in Los Angeles, too. Maybe she thinks my co-owning a bookstore qualifies me to write one?

Love,

Jeffrey

O CTOBER 10, 2015

Ms. Joanna Burstein

The Burstein Company

Pacific Palisades, CA

Dear Joannie,

Yes, I know, but as I told Joe, lets send Tricia a kind note and tell her thank you for the books she senta truckload arrived last week, all memoirs and biographies. I think shes trying to tell me any asshole can write one of thesebut no thanks. I love to read them, but writing them, thats for the pros.

Love and lunch,

Jeffrey

O CTOBER 22, 2015

Mr. Joseph Veltre

The Gersh Agency

New York, NY

Dear Joe,

I think a meeting is a waste of everyones time. I have four little ones at home from eleven years down to six-year-old twins. I have no time, not even for sex.

But just for shits and giggles, how much do people make writing these things?

Yes to lunch. Anytime.

Love,

Blossom

P.S. Another shipment of books arrived. Its getting a little much.

N OVEMBER 13, 2015

Ms. Tricia Boczkowski

Crown Archetype

New York, NY

Dear Trish,

Thank you for all the books. The third box was really unexpected.

I too enjoyed our meeting. I am so excited Jill Soloway is writing a book for you. But Jill is an accomplished writer.

The following is a short list of what I am:

1. Actor

2. Husband

3. Daddy

4. Grandparent

5. Lecturer

6. Bookstore co-owner

Short list of what I am not:

1. Writer

My wife is Polish, too.

With love,

Jeffrey

N OVEMBER 22, 2015

Ms. Leslie Siebert

The Gersh Agency

Los Angeles, CA

Leslie,

I know youve been out of the loop, but the people at Crown are at me to write a memoir. Part of the problem in writing such a thing is that, along with lifetime achievement awards, it makes one feel the end is drawing near.

Someone at Dunkin Donuts the other day asked me if I was still acting. When I told them about Transparent, they told me they hadnt watched it but love Curb Your Enthusiasm.

None of this gives me much impetus to sit down and write.

Thoughts?

Love,

Blossom

D ECEMBER 1, 2015

Mr. Joseph Veltre

The Gersh Agency

New York, NY

URGENT

Dear Joe,

Now listen. I have no room for the boxes of books they keep sending. You know I have a huge hard-on for anything having to do with literature, but this is getting weird. Ive donated them to the Lewisboro library for their fair coming up next month.

Joe, I want to be very clear: I dont want these people near me.

Love,

Blossom

D ECEMBER 18, 2015

Dear Molly,

Keep an eye out. Im sending you a shitload of books. Dont even ask, just start reading or donate them to the New York Public Library.

There are a lot of memoirs. Frank Langellas book is fun and inventive and short. John Cleese is daunting and as thick as a telephone bookand apparently its only Part I. The fella from the Rolling Stones, although I dont know the music, I love his candor. Did he have help? Lithgow always comes through, and BruceBruuuuuuce! (advance readers copy)very thoughtful and moving. Also telephone-book size.

All of these were to give me insight and courage to write. Then I read Tina Fey. It and she are perfection. I vowed never to write a word.

Enjoy the shipment.

Love,

Dad

J ANUARY 8, 2016

Dear Todd,

Thanks for your call. I never check my home line, ever, so I fear this message is way, way late and Im verging on rude. Im sorry I hurt your feelings. Im so sorry, I cant have coffee with you. But you see I dont live in Los Angeles anymore, havent for four years now. We are in northern Westchester, upstate.

I am writing a book for Crown and my coffee days are few and far between, except for the thousands of cups I have been making with my Keurig. Have you tried Dunkin Donuts Dark Roast? Yummy, and one cup is equivalent to twenty direct slaps across the face.

Im sitting in a coffee shop upstate as I type this. Its ten oclock, and Im the only man in the place. The others are caffeinated mothers who have just dropped their children off at school. There are whoops of laughter now and then. The next table is talking about where to get the best burrata.

So thank you, Todd, but I cant do coffee for a bit. As I said, I am writing a book.

Love,

Jeffrey

Red Bowtie

I grew up in San Francisco, a magical place. Our first house was on Thirty-First Street, which meant we were thirty-one blocks and change from the Pacific Ocean. It was foggy every morning, clear or overcast and sixty degrees every afternoon, and the fog rolled back in on the dot at 5:00 p.m. The fog was moody and lovely and taught me to love inclement weather. Thats why Los Angeles and I never got along; its sunny all the time. I am the Jewish son of Russian Hungarian parents. I cant have sunny all the time.