Book description
He's one of America's most recognisable and acclaimed actors-a star
on Broadway, an Oscar nominee for The Aviator, and the only person to
ever win Emmys for acting, writing, and directing during his eleven
years on M*A*S*H. Now Alan Alda has written a memoir as elegant,
funny, and affecting as his greatest performances. 'My mother didn't
try to stab my father until I was six,' begins Alan Alda's
irresistible story. The son of a popular actor and a loving, but
mentally ill mother, he spent his early childhood backstage in the
erotic and comic world of burlesque and went on after early struggles
to achieve extraordinary success in his profession.
Yet Never Have Your Dog Stuffed is not a memoir of show
business ups and downs. It is a moving and funny story of a boy
growing into a man who then realizes he has only begun to grow. It is
the story of turning points in his life, events that would make him
what he is - if only he could survive them.
From the moment as a boy when his dead dog is returned from the
taxidermist's shop with a hideous expression on his face, and he
learns that death can't be undone, to the decades-long effort to find
compassion for the mother he lived with but never knew, to his
acceptance of his father in him, personally and professionally, he
learns the hard way that change, uncertainty and transformation are
what life is made of, and the good life is made of welcoming them.
Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, filled with curiosity about
Nature, good humour and honesty, is the crowning achievement of an
actor, author, and director, but surprisingly, it is the story of a
life more filled with turbulence and laughter than any he's ever
played on the stage or screen.
Alan Alda played 'Hawkeye' Pierce for eleven years in the television
series
M*A*S*H
and has acted in, written, and directed many feature films. He has
starred often on Broadway and his avid interest in science has led to
his hosting PBS's
Scientific American Frontiers
for eleven years. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 2005 and has
been nominated for thirty EMMY awards. He is married to children's book
author/photographer, Arlene Alda. They have three grown children and
seven grandchildren.
