Acting Foolish (Paperback)

When someone asks me what I do for a living. I tell them "I entertain people." Calling myself an actor would be too immodest. Rarely do I spare them the anarchic and usually hilarious accounts of what it has been like to survive for forty one years in the movies, television, and my first love, the American Theater. During that time I have persevered through a minefield of theatrical personalities, not excluding my parents, in order to emerge the man I am today: a closet optimist, easily fooled, addicted to tall sexy women and serious enough to make thousands of people laugh at any given time. (As long as I have the right material.) ACTING FOOLISH, explores my journey with the people I have been blessed to be associated with. What Zero Mostel, Neil Simon, Groucho Marx, Nathan Lane, Joseph Papp, David Burns, Harold Prince, Sidney Lumet, Rita Moreno, Mickey Rooney, Agnes DeMille, Henry Fonda, Mel Brooks, Richard Dreyfuss, Stella Adler, Sam Levene and Alan Arkin all have in common is the blessing and curse of being born with the creative gene. It is a life where only a degree of politeness is advisable. Everytime you think you've seen it all, you are reminded you will always be a virgin. ACTING FOOLISH is the story of larger than life people who have dedicated their lives to telling the story well. How it's done is not always pretty, but to quote the great Stella Adler: "It's better to be interesting than be real."