Product Description

The Emmy and Grammy Award-winner's candid, spectacularly amusing memoir of his years in stand-up

In the mid-seventies, Steve Martin exploded onto the comedy scene. By 1978 he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. Born Standing Up is, in his own words, the story of "why I did stand-up and why I walked away."

At age ten Martin started his career at Disneyland, selling guidebooks in the newly opened theme park. In the decade that followed, he worked in the Disney magic shop and the Bird Cage Theatre at Knott's Berry Farm, performing his first magic/comedy act a dozen times a week. The story of these years, during which he practiced and honed his craft, is moving and revelatory.

Martin illuminates the sacrifice, discipline and originality that made him an icon and informs his work to this day. To be this good, to perform so frequently, was isolating and lonely. It took Martin decades to reconnect with his parents and sister, and he tells that story with great tenderness. Martin also paints a portrait of his times: the era of free love and protests against the war in Vietnam, the heady irreverence of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late sixties, and the transformative new voice of Saturday Night Live in the seventies.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2741 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Amazon.com Review
At age 10, Steve Martin got a job selling guidebooks at the newly opened Disneyland. In the decade that followed, he worked in Disney's magic shop, print shop, and theater, and developed his own magic/comedy act. By age 20, studying poetry and philosophy on the side, he was performing a dozen times a week, most often at the Disney rival, Knott's Berry Farm. Obsession is a substitute for talent, he has said, and Steve Martin's focus and daring--his sheer tenacity--are truly stunning. He writes about making the very tough decision to sacrifice everything not original in his act, and about lucking into a job writing for The Smothers Brothers Show. He writes about mentors, girlfriends, his complex relationship with his parents and sister, and about some of his great peers in comedy--Dan Ackroyd, Lorne Michaels, Carl Reiner, Johnny Carson. He writes about fear, anxiety and loneliness. And he writes about how he figured out what worked on stage.

This book is a memoir, but it is also an illuminating guidebook to stand-up from one of our two or three greatest comedians. Though Martin is reticent about his personal life, he is also stunningly deft, and manages to give readers a feeling of intimacy and candor. Illustrated throughout with black and white photographs collected by Martin, this book is instantly compelling visually and a spectacularly good read.


Amazon.com Exclusive
Three Bonus Deleted Passages from Steve Martin's Born Standing Up

On Returning to Disneyland
Ten years later, after the Beatles, drugs, and Vietnam had changed the entire tenor of American life, I returned to the magic shop at Disneyland and stood as a stranger. As I looked around the eerily familiar room another first came over me, a previously unknown emotion, one that was to have a curious force over me for the rest my life: the longing tug of nostalgia. Looking at the counter where I pitched Svengali Decks and the Incredible Shrinking Die, I was awash with the recollection of indelible nights where the sky was blown open by fireworks and big band sounds drifted through trees strung with fairy lights. I remembered my youth, when every moment was crisply present, when heartbreak and joy replaced each other quickly, fully and without trauma. Even now when I visit Disneyland, I am steeped in melancholy, because a corporation has preserved my nostalgia impeccably. Every nail and screw is the same, and Disneyland looks as new now as it did then. The paint is fresh, and the only wear allowed is faux. In fact, only I have changed. In the dream-like world of childhood memories, so often vague and imprecise, Disneyland remains for me not only vivid in memory, but vivid in fact.

On Meeting Diane Hall
During the day, I attended Santa Ana Junior College, taking drama classes and pursuing an unexpected interest in English poetry from Donne to Eliot. I would occasionally assist on a college stage production--never appearing in one--as a member of the crew. Years later I was looking through a box of memorabilia and noticed a silk-screened playbill of the musical Carousel, May, 1964, which listed me as a stagehand. The lead actress was Diane Hall. Something connected and I remembered that Diane Keaton's name was once Hall, (hence, Annie Hall). I confirmed with her that she was in that production. Neither of us remembers meeting the other, yet we must have worked in proximity. More evidence that I was a wallflower. Decades later, we ended up "making love" on the floor of a movie set on Father of the Bride.

On the Kennedy Assassination
One Friday in 1963, I had finished a class and was about to drive to Knott's Berry Farm for the afternoon shows when I saw a clump of agitated students across the campus. I asked someone what was going on. "They're saying that the president's been shot."

I drove across town to Knott's and punched radio buttons. I could hear the scheduled programs clicking off and being replaced by live broadcasts. Assassination seemed so ancient and inconceivable, I was sure that someone would soon correct the erroneous report. President Kennedy died that day and I didn't know that news could be taken so personally by a nation. Sitting backstage, watching the Birdcage's black-and-white TV drone out the increasingly grave report, we were all mute. We assumed the performance that night would be canceled, but as show time neared, word came down that we were going on. We couldn't fathom why; we believed no one would show up, much less enjoy us. I still can't explain the psychology, why the very full house that night was able to roar with laughter. The obvious must be correct: our silly show was providing some kind of balm that soothed the ache.

In 2003 I hosted the Oscars on the particular weekend that the United States invaded Iraq. The news was grim and just hours before the show I flipped on the TV and saw a report, subsequently proven false, that our captive soldiers were being beheaded. I quickly turned the TV off, sick. I knew, from my experience forty years earlier with the Kennedy assassination, what my job was, and I harbored a secret knowledge that the audience would laugh. I also felt that soldiers who might be watching would be tuning in to see the Oscars and all its hoopla, not a cheerless comedian doing what he doesn’t do best. I decided to acknowledge the circumstances early in the show and then get on with the jokes. The academy had announced that the show would "cut back on the glitz." I walked out for the opening monologue, took a look around the stage at the dazzling, swirling staircases, mirrored curtains and polished floor, and simply said, "I'm glad they cut back on the glitz." It got a laugh of relief and the show could go on.

More from Steve Martin

The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z!

Shopgirl

The Pleasure of My Company

Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Other Plays

Pure Drivel

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Praise for Born Standing Up
"[A] lean, incisive new book about the trajectory of [Martin's] life in comedy...Born Standing Up does a sharp-witted job of breaking down the step-by-step process that brought Steve Martin from Disneyland, where he spent his version of a Dickensian childhood as a schoolboy employee, to both the pinnacle of stardom and the brink of disaster...tightly focused...Born Standing Up is a surprising book: smart, serious, heartfelt and confessional without being maudlin." --Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"Absolutely magnificent. One of the best books about comedy and being a comedian ever written." --Jerry Seinfeld, GQ

"The writing is evocative, unflinching and cool. When Martin takes a scalpel to his life, what you feel is the precision of the surgeon more than the primal scream of the unanaesthetized patient...Born Standing Up is neither fanfare nor confession. It gives off a vibe of rigorous honesty. With lots of laughs." --Richard Corliss, Time Magazine

"A spare, unexpectedly resonant remembrance of things past…Martin's one true subject is the evolution of his comedy--the transcendent moments...A smart, gentlemanly, modest book…winning." --Jeff Giles, Entertainment Weekly, EW Pick: A

"A charming memoir tracking what the great comic characterizes as his 'war years.' Martin offers an eloquent and exacting account... [and] approaches his subjects with generosity, warmth and integrity." --Kirkus Reviews

"Sure to delight fans and create new ones." --Laura Mathews, Good Housekeeping

"What fun to discover the humble beginnings of some of his iconic personas...inspiring." --Rachel Rosenblit, Elle

"The archetypical story of the underdog's rise and a particularly American story...beautifully written, honest, engaging, and quietly brave." --Frederic Tuten, Bomb Magazine

"Son, you have an ob-leek sense of humor." --Elvis Presley

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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Neatly combining his personal and professional worlds, beloved comedian, filmmaker, author, magician and banjoist Martin (Pure Drivel) chronicles his life as a gifted young comedian in this evocative, heartfelt memoir, which proves less wild and crazy than wise and considerate-though no less funny for it. The typically reticent performer shares rarely disclosed memories of childhood-his father, a failed actor, harbored increasing anger toward his son through the years-and the anxiety attacks that plagued him for some two decades, along with his early success as a television comedy writer, first for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and the evolution of his stand-up routine. Sharp insight accompanies stories of his first adult gig (at an empty San Francisco coffee house), his pioneering "no punch lines" style ("My goal was to make the audience laugh but leave them unable to describe what it was that had made them laugh"), appearances on programs like The Steve Allen Show and breakthrough moments with small, confused audiences. Though vivid and entertaining throughout, Martin doesn't dish any behind-the-scenes dirt from Saturday Night Live or The Tonight Show; rather, he's warm and generous toward everyone in his life, including girlfriends and colleagues. Tellingly, this intimate early career recap ends not with Martin's decision to give up live performance or his film debut The Jerk, but with a visit to his parents and Knott's Berry Bird Cage Farm, where he first performed as a teenager.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
It’s hard to believe that it’s been a quarter century since Steve Martin packed the props and walked away from a stunningly successful turn in stand-up. His career as a popular actor, a critically lauded writer (Shopgirl), and a dramatist has since flourished, of course. But readers hoping for vintage Martin can get a quick fix with Born Standing Up. While the memoir may not be as salacious as fans expect or as riotously funny as an arrow through the head, Martin writes with the wisdom of experience (don’t miss a remarkable meeting with Elvis Presley after a 1971 show) as he recounts his development into one of the most popular and original comedians of his generation.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Customer Reviews

Good Read!!
I've been a fan of Steve Martin's since I was a little girl. My mom had the extreme pleasure of seeing him perform his stand up at Universal Studios in the 70's. (opening act was the Blues Brothers) He has always been, to me, full of wonderful humor and as an author is absolutley superb. He is definatley a man of many talents and it shows in his acting, writing, banjo playing, etc. This book was a very intersting peek into the great mind of Mr. Martin's.

Boring
I will agree with others that Steve Martin knows how to write. But, I am sorry, I thought this book was painfully boring.

Big Laughs, Big Heart
I adore Steve Martin's work. I grew up watching his brilliantly nonsensical movies informed by classic literature and art. I revel in his physical comedy, and I had a good time watching Picasso at the Lapin Agile. Don't tell anyone, but as kids, my brother and I watched Three Amigos more than Sesame Street, and Lucky Day was our favorite.

I didn't know why until I read this book.

If you want to know more about the history of American stand up comedy and its transition from stages to screen, or Disneyland, or magic shops, or Orange County, California, there's plenty for you in this book. And there's so much more. Martin shares his journey to stardom - which turns out to be a series of peaks and valleys, gaining elevation with each iteration.

Of course, his self-deprecating humor is where it all starts: "persistence is a great substitute for talent" he tells us. And I enjoyed the stories about how he developed and tested material. The real message of the book comes through in Martin's own self-awareness. He writes about his anxiety attacks, his brilliant strategy for handling hecklers (which I will be using in a meeting tomorrow!), his rocky relationship with his father, the healing powers of Carl Reiner, and what is was like to be with each of his parents as they died.

If you only read a few pages (come on, read the whole book!), read the first and last chapters. In the first chapter, you'll hear a clearly-defined writer's voice that is recognizably Steve Martin's, distilling the details of the book into refined, compact punches of truth. In the final chapter, you'll read a little about his resolution with his parents. And if you read the chapters in between, you'll know a little more about how a person makes the journey from an isolating childhood to exchanging words of love with his father as a man.

If he's willing to share, I hope to learn more about the post-stand up years in the next book.

I couldn't put this book down. It was an easy read - I bought it yesterday morning and am writing this review tonight. I think I continue to delight in Steve Martin's work because it exemplifies something he said of Carl Reiner in the book: "He had an entrenched sense of glee."