If you consider Dean Martin a comedian as well as a singer, I thoroughly enjoyed Nick Tosches’ biography Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams.
I think they’re memoirs rather than autobiographical, and it’s been 40 years since I read them so they might have aged poorly (I have no idea), but David Niven’s The Moon’s A Balloon and Bring On The Empty Horses were delightful.
I go through a ton of audiobooks, and I’ve listened to a number of autobiographies. The best ones are, not surprisingly, by comedians.
My favorites:
Bossypants, by Tina Fay
My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business by Dick Van Dyke
(not for the content, but for the sheer optimism of his world view)
Almost Interesting, by David Spade
(Not wild about any of his movies, but he can tell a story!)
My least favorites:
Martin Short’s (innumerable not-all-that-interesting stories that’d start with whose yacht he was on for what party and which B-List Glitterati of the 80s were there… got a bit dreary)
My Squirrel Days, by Ellie Kemper
(Sorry, Ell, loved you in The Office and the first few episodes of Kimmy Schmidt, but this book jumped around like an ADHD dog going “Squirrel!”)
I quite enjoyed Bob Hope’s Don’t Shoot, It’s Only Me! - it starts off as an fairly standard (albeit very jokey) autobiography. but mostly focusses on his WW2 USO travels, which I found much more interesting than the usual ‘Hollywood Party’ reminisces.
- Obvious warning* Some of the attitudes expressed in the book (particularly in relation to women) date back to the 1940s.
Never heard of that one. I’ll definitely look for this. Thanks!
If it was the '40s, don’t you mean “in relation to dames”?
Dolls? Chicks? Gals?
This reminds me that, quite a while back, I listened to the (probably abridged) audio version of Jay Leno’s Leading With My Chin and was surprised at how good it was. Jay’s a good raconteur, a side of him that didn’t really come out in his Tonight Show hosting gig.
The book was published in 1990. But like many others of his generation, Hope always lived in the 40s, when he was at his peak. And the book was written by Mel Shavelson, who started working for Hope in 1938. (Technically, all of Hope’s books were written by his writers, who even got credit about half the time. The rear flap of this book reads, “This is his eighth book. He plans to read the other seven when he gets time.” It might be that this is one time the old joke is actually true.)
Lots and lots of dames, and one transvestite, prompting his listeners to go “jeez Bob, maybe that’s one story you’d want to keep to yourself!”