Talk Show: Confrontations, Pointed Commentary, and Off-Screen Secrets

By Dick Cavett

Book Overview

"There's never been a talk show to equal Dick Cavett's... It's a pleasure to relive much of it in this wonderful book."--Woody Allen

For years, Dick Cavett played host to the nation's most famous personalities on his late-night talk show. In this humorous and evocative book, we get to hear Cavett's best tales, as he recounts great moments with the legendary entertainers who crossed his path and offers his own trenchant commentary on contemporary American culture and politics. Pull up a chair and listen to Cavett's stories about one-upping Bette Davis, testifying on behalf of John Lennon, confronting Richard Nixon, scheming with John Updike, befriending William F. Buckley, and palling around with Groucho Marx. Sprinkled in are tales of his childhood in Nebraska in the 1940s and 1950s, where he honed his sense of comic timing and his love of magic.

Cavett is also a wry cultural observer, looking at America today and pointing out the foibles that we so often fail to notice about ourselves. And don't even get him started on politicians. A generation of Americans ended their evenings in Dick Cavett's company; Talk Show is a way to welcome him back.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312610521
• ISBN13: 9780312610524
• Release Date: November 2011
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Love Cavett But Not Best Effort

Been a Cavett fan since the 70s and for the most part he can do no wrong, but after some time this collection of short columns becomes a little tiring, a little repetitive, and often too familiar as he rekindles many topics and tales found in his far superior 'Cavett' book of the 70s (with Chris Porterfield). Don't get me wrong, you get plenty of the Cavett wit and subtle slings and arrows, plus some fine celebrity gossip (as ever, Groucho Marx is his personal god, which is fine) -- I've just read better efforts from him. Cavett is still probably the only figure I get a laugh from when he insists how much smarter and intellectual he is than anyone else -- that's just his M.O. and surely what made him one of the best-ever when it came to leading an interview. Next to Carson, of course. A worthy purchase, just not his best.