Product Description

Steve Martin has been an international star for over thirty years. Here, for the first time, he looks back to the beginning of his career and charmingly evokes the young man he once was. Born in Texas but raised in California, Steve was seduced early by the comedy shows that played on the radio when the family travelled back and forth to visit relatives. When Disneyland opened just a couple of miles away from home, an enchanted Steve was given his first chance to learn magic and entertain an audience. He describes how he noted the reaction to each joke in a ledger - 'big laugh' or 'quiet' - and assiduously studied the acts of colleagues, stealing jokes when needed. With superb detail, Steve recreates the world of small, dark clubs and the fear and exhilaration of standing in the spotlight. While a philosophy student at UCLA, he worked hard at local clubs honing his comedy and slowly attracting a following until he was picked up to write for TV. From here on, Steve Martin became an acclaimed comedian, packing out venues nationwide. One night, however, he noticed empty seats and realised he had 'reached the top of the rollercoaster'.B ORN STANDING UP is a funny and riveting chronicle of how Steve Martin became the comedy genius we now know and is also a fascinating portrait of an era.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8753 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Customer Reviews

Origins of Creativity and Notes from the Star Track
Born Standing Up will be of most interest to young people who want to create a career performing in stand-up comedy. I was fascinated by Steve Martin's recollections of the lessons he learned at the magic shop in Disneyland and in performing at the Bird Cage Theater at Knott's Berry Farm. Both places were favorite haunts of mine while he was doing his apprenticeship, and I'm sure I saw him perform but don't remember him. Knowing a lot about both places, it made it easier for me to appreciate the other steps he took to develop an act and to become recognized. His description of being on the Tonight Show was a good lesson in patience . . . the first dozen or so appearances don't do a thing for your career.

Having seen him perform, I could never figure out why he chose to do the self-deprecating bit and wear a white suit. Now I know how all that came about. It was definitely interesting.

But if you want to know a lot more about Steve Martin, the man, and his daily thoughts and challenges . . . this book will leave you disappointed.

At times I felt like I was reading a book about how to plan a career rather than an autobiography -- especially towards the end when he explained how heavy touring while you are hot makes it inevitable that you won't develop the new material you need to stay hot. I guess there's a reason why Bob Hope always had so many writers working for him.

I haven't always enjoyed Steve Martin's humor, and I found myself wondering over some examples of what was great about his humor. If you aren't a big fan of Steve Martin's or don't want to be a stand-up comedian, you might find it wisest to skip this book. It's probably a two or three star effort for you.

Absolutely Charming
I loved this book. I had no idea Steven Martin was such a wonderful writer. It's not a long read, wish there had been more, but didn't feel the slightest cheated. I absolutely enjoyed the journey he took us, the reader, on. It was personal, insightful, funny, rueful, behind-the-scenes and made me feel I had sat down and had a really good getting-to-know-you chat with this man. Great photos too. I've been a fan since just before he hit it B I G - I'm happy to say I was at the Amphitheatre show he mentioned. I always looked forward to his SNL appearances, and his films. I had the impression he was rather distant and cold as a person. But reading this you realise the depth and warmth there - and that he was always just protecting his sanity during the extreme craziness of the "Wild and Crazy Guy" and "Well Excuuuse Me" era. Highly recommended IF you are a Steve Martin fan.

Well, Ecuuuse Me
"Even for readers already familiar with Mr. Martin's solemn side, "Born "Standing Up" is a surprising book: smart, serious, heartfelt and confessional without being maudlin. Decades after the fact he looks back at a period of invention and innovation, marveling at the thought that his efforts might have led absolutely nowhere if they had not wildly succeeded. While there is much to validate his sense of having been lucky, nobody put it better than Elvis Presley, whom Mr. Martin once encountered backstage when both were enjoying the status of show-business kings. "Son," he says Presley told him, "you have an ob-leek sense of humor." Janet Maslin

The wild and crazy guy known to us from Saturday Night Live, is in reality a straight square guy. His performance dress is a pressed suit and smartly parted hair. In fact when Steve Martin was in college his intellectual pursuit was philosophy where he garnered 'A's'. He deplored the wearing of jeans, and he gave up his one hippiness, smoking marijuana-it caused him anxiety. He was born near Disneyland, and the years of his youth were not happy ones. His father was a businessman who had yearned to be in show business. He gave up that life because he needed to earn a living for his family, and in doing so he gave up his dream. He was a man with little humor and rarely paid attention to Steve. It was Steve's mother who was the light and love. Her greatest love was shopping and when she died, Steve and his sister buried her facing a shopping mall.

Steve's early years started by working with magicians and he would fastidiously copy down every magic act. He worked at Disneyland and knotts Berry Farm for most of his youth, and then he was ready to move on. He moved to San Francisco to do comedy. One of his first jobs was to bring in people for an audience at a club. He entered this foray at the beginning years of Hippydom and though he was never really part of this era he enjoyed it. He gradually built up his stand-up comedy act. He appeared on Johnny Carson many times. His act was so strange that Johnny relegated him to appear with his stand-ins. After Steve made a hit on 'Saturday Night Live' and in his stand-up routine Johnny welcomed him back to the prime time. Steve realized that when his 'gigs' became so large that he could not bring the audience into the street he realized stand-up was over for him. He has appeared in many 'family films, written several books and still has a comedy routine. His life has become exactly what he wants it to be.

"Martin's memoir will similarly confuse those who come to it looking for laughs. It is a mostly unfunny yet oddly stirring book about the comedian's early life, beginning with his boyhood before moving through his 20s and on up to 1982. Having watched him make a career out of mixed cues, out of blending lofty ideas with physical comedy, Martin's audience can get confused. He once predicted that if he withheld a punch line long enough, "the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation. And so, having been conditioned by the first 20 years of his career, we have a Pavlovian response to the mere sight of him: We laugh. Even if it is out of desperation, it's no less sweet. " Erika Schickel

An insightful book and look into the stand-up life of Steve Martin.
Highly Recommended. prisrob 12-03-07

The Alphabet from A to Y With Bonus Letter Z!

PLEASURE OF MY COMPANY, THE: A NOVELLA