- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: It Books (May 13 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0066211077
- ISBN-13: 978-0066211077
- Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 15.7 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 544 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #506,382 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
A Vegas headliner for 20-plus years, Dangerfield became a huge comedic success while maintaining his image as a hassled everyman. He is, says Carrey, "as funny as a carbon-based life form can be." After writing I Couldn't Stand My Wife's Cooking, So I Opened a Restaurant; I Don't Get No Respect; and No Respect, he now presents this anecdotal autobiography, effectively blending honesty and humor. He was born Jacob Cohen in 1921 to a vaudevillian father constantly on the road and a "coldhearted," "selfish" mother: "I guess that's why I went into show business—to get some love." As Jack Roy, he began performing in his teens, struggled in clubs across the country but quit in 1949 to spend 12 years as an aluminum-siding salesman. At 40, he changed his name and his act: "I was older and wiser, yeah, but I was funnier too." In a major comeback, he made 70 Tonight Show appearances and opened his own nightclub in 1969, followed by TV specials and commercials, albums and hit movies. Writing with hip, showbiz savvy and a backstage bawdiness, he regales with tales of Lenny Bruce, Andy Kaufman and many more, and devotes full chapters to sex and drugs. Sidebar jokes, relevant to the text, appear throughout, along with cartoons and b&w photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Book Description
I tell ya, nothin' goes right.Last week I found a guy'swallet ... Inside was a pictureof my two kids.
Anybody can repeat a Rodney Dangerfield joke, but nobody can tell one like the man himself. That's because his humor, built on the premise that he "don't get no respect," is drawn from a life so hard that the only way to survive was to laugh at it -- though all the drugs and hookers certainly didn't hurt.
In It's Not Easy Bein' Me, Dangerfield comes clean (even if he still works blue) about his brutal life and the unlikely triumph he made out of it. His father was in vaudeville, and his mother was from hell, which is why a young Jack Roy grabbed a mike and got up on a stage straight out of high school. He was looking for laughs, some approval ... and a few easy women. He struggled for years, getting by but never getting over, playing dives and opening for strippers, hypnotists, and snake charmers.Then at thirty, Dangerfield walked away from all that glamour. He quit show business, got a "real" job -- as an aluminum-siding salesman -- and started raising a family in Englewood, New Jersey. He was out of comedy for twelve unhappy years, but all the while he was writing jokes, scheming, and dreaming of his comeback.
Eventually, he changed his act, changed his name, and changed American comedy forever. He developed one of the most popular characters in all of show business -- the poor schnook who gets no respect. Not from his parents,his wife, his kids, not even from his physician,Dr. Vinnie Boombatz.
But his millions of fans not only respected him, they loved him, reciting dozens of his jokes from memory and quoting chapter and verse from Caddyshack, the movie that made Dangerfield into a comedic superstar. Today, Dangerfield stands as a true pillar of American comedy (though at eighty-two, he says, he's crumbling a little) and after the life he's led, it's amazing he's standing at all.
Wild, hip, and hilarious, It's Not Easy Being Me is like having a front-row seat to the ultimate Rodney Dangerfield performance, where the jokes come at a hundred miles an hour and the outrageous stories go on forever.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Roy and Arthur was a vaudeville comedy team. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Roy and Arthur was a vaudeville comedy team. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
the king,
By
Ce commentaire est de: It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime Of No Respect But Plenty Of Sex (Paperback)
i think it took rodney dying to realize what we had, the man is the king of comedy forever, his best movies are his worst movies, in my eyes - meet wally sparks and easy money, where he just beez rodney and we laugh, im gonna miss that guy
5.0 out of 5 stars
TONS OF JOKES MIXED INTO AN INTERESTING LIFE STORY!,
By Steve Nakamoto - Author of Talk Like A Winner... (Huntington Beach, California USA) - See all my reviews
Ce commentaire est de: It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime Of No Respect But Plenty Of Sex (Hardcover)
I saw Rodney a couple of years ago in the Salt Lake City airport sitting in a chair waiting for his flight to LAX with his wife. He looked old and frail, but I gave him a wave and he gave me back a wink with his trademark okay sign. That was very cool.So when I bought this book I was really looking forward to an interesting read....and I found it. This book has a tons of jokes that are used to separate his stories (and he's got a lot of them) within the chapters. I now realize how hard he worked and really how little he received back in terms of material riches. (He only received $35,000 for Caddyshack with no residuals!) There are so many funny stories about show business, struggling as a comedian, sex, women, drugs, his youth, his health, friends, marriage, and of course, not getting any respect. I know that Rodney may not be with us very long as he is in his 80's and dealing with health issues, but I feel lucky to have seen him since the Ed Sullivan days, through the Johnny Carson years, the Miller Lite Beer commercials, the hilarious movies, and up to my incident at the Salt Lake City airport. Here's a real success story in disguise from a kind man who has made us all laugh for decades. This book adds so much to my appreciation of this humble and very human man. I'm going to watch "Back To School" and "Caddyshack" again soon. Thanks Rodney. You have my respect.
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Collection of One-Liners,
By
Ce commentaire est de: It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime Of No Respect But Plenty Of Sex (Hardcover)
The exciting aspect of this book is that it was authored exclusively by Rodney Dangerfield. When you read this volume you cannot help but hear Rodney Dangerfield's voice telling his story. From Dangerfield's New York childhood to his surgeries in California, this book encompasses the life of a man who made a career commanding "No Respect." The book is lighthearted and very funny. There are some lessons on life as well. Though I thoroughly enjoyed the autobiography I also found it lacked detail -- or should I say it whetted my appetite for more. Reading the book it appeared that the chapters were directly transcribed from random notes or dictation recordings. It is difficult to follow Dangerfield's career progression as the story jumps back and forth in time more often than Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughter House Five." Many of Dangerfield's recollections are not dated and I was often left wondering exactly when an event occurred. More importantly, Dangerfield introduces subjects about his very interesting life that beg additional detail. For example, his reminiscences of movies such "Caddy Shack," "Easy Money," and "Back to School" easily deserved entire chapters, but were relegated to a handful of sentences. Likewise he discusses his decade-long show business hiatus in order to sell aluminum siding, but the home improvement segment of his life is only a scattered reference throughout the book. The bottom line is that in the future there is an opportunity for Rodney Dangerfield to reissue an "Author's Cut" of this book that would lengthen the work ten fold. Still, I found it humorous reading and look forward to the availability of the audio-CD, only if narrated by the author.
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