Born Standing Up Steve Martin

I’ve always been a Steve Martin fan. So I guess that makes me somewhat biased with this review. I thoroughly enjoyed his story. At only 208 pages, there’s not an awful lot of detail, but there’s enough to fill in the blanks. Where did the ‘wild & crazy’ comedy come from. While all the other comedians of the day were doing topical humour, or political humour, or one-liners, Steve Martin was out there making it up as he went along.

 This is a book about how comedy is a serious business. Martin explains philosophically & logically where it came from. Make no mistake, this is a bright guy. In developing his act, he seriously studied the mechanics of comedy. How & why, wearing a balloon hat was funny. He figured out that just a goofy set of balloons on his head, or bunny ears, or an arrow through his head, wasn’t necessarily funny. But if he could convince the audience that he honestly believed it was funny, it would work. And it did.

 It all began with gigs at Disneyland & Knott’s Berry farm, doing a magic act. From there, he graduated to the hipper clubs in Los Angeles. All the while, he studied & honed the act. Eventually, the magic act was dropped, the white suit & banjo was added & he established his trademark style. From the smaller clubs, he moved onto TV, & his list of TV credits is quite impressive. A writer & performer on the Smothers Brothers show, Sonny & Cher, the Dean Martin show, and then onto the big late night talk shows, Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin (Johnny ‘got it’, Merv didn’t have a clue what he was doing).  He eventually tires of doing stand-up & goes into the movies & becomes even bigger. All the while, he’s dissecting, analyzing what he’s doing & why it’s working (or not).

 He writes the book just as he builds his act, very methodically. He throws in enough one-liners to keep it light-‘I think communication is so fisbern…I just found out I’m vain. I thought that song was about me’.

 It’s all here. It’s a smart book, a serious book, and an entertaining one. Beneath it all, he’s not really a wild & crazy guy, but he makes us think he is. And that’s his secret. And if you don’t like it….”well, excuuuuuuuse me!!”