Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life | 
| Author: Steve Martin
Publisher: Scribner
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  186 reviews
Sales Rank: 3668
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 x 1
ISBN: 1416553649
Dewey Decimal Number: 792.7028092
EAN: 9781416553649
ASIN: 1416553649
Publication Date: November 20, 2007
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Book Description
At age 10, Steve Martin got a job selling guidebooks at the newly opened Disneyland. In the decade that followed, he worked in Disney's magic shop, print shop, and theater, and developed his own magic/comedy act. By age 20, studying poetry and philosophy on the side, he was performing a dozen times a week, most often at the Disney rival, Knott's Berry Farm. Obsession is a substitute for talent, he has said, and Steve Martin's focus and daring--his sheer tenacity--are truly stunning. He writes about making the very tough decision to sacrifice everything not original in his act, and about lucking into a job writing for The Smothers Brothers Show. He writes about mentors, girlfriends, his complex relationship with his parents and sister, and about some of his great peers in comedy--Dan Ackroyd, Lorne Michaels, Carl Reiner, Johnny Carson. He writes about fear, anxiety and loneliness. And he writes about how he figured out what worked on stage. This book is a memoir, but it is also an illuminating guidebook to stand-up from one of our two or three greatest comedians. Though Martin is reticent about his personal life, he is also stunningly deft, and manages to give readers a feeling of intimacy and candor. Illustrated throughout with black and white photographs collected by Martin, this book is instantly compelling visually and a spectacularly good read.
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Three Bonus Deleted Passages from Steve Martin's Born Standing Up
 On Returning to Disneyland
Ten years later, after the Beatles, drugs, and Vietnam had changed the entire tenor of American life, I returned to the magic shop at Disneyland and stood as a stranger. As I looked around the eerily familiar room another first came over me, a previously unknown emotion, one that was to have a curious force over me for the rest my life: the longing tug of nostalgia. Looking at the counter where I pitched Svengali Decks and the Incredible Shrinking Die, I was awash with the recollection of indelible nights where the sky was blown open by fireworks and big band sounds drifted through trees strung with fairy lights. I remembered my youth, when every moment was crisply present, when heartbreak and joy replaced each other quickly, fully and without trauma. Even now when I visit Disneyland, I am steeped in melancholy, because a corporation has preserved my nostalgia impeccably. Every nail and screw is the same, and Disneyland looks as new now as it did then. The paint is fresh, and the only wear allowed is faux. In fact, only I have changed. In the dream-like world of childhood memories, so often vague and imprecise, Disneyland remains for me not only vivid in memory, but vivid in fact. On Meeting Diane Hall
During the day, I attended Santa Ana Junior College, taking drama classes and pursuing an unexpected interest in English poetry from Donne to Eliot. I would occasionally assist on a college stage production--never appearing in one--as a member of the crew. Years later I was looking through a box of memorabilia and noticed a silk-screened playbill of the musical Carousel, May, 1964, which listed me as a stagehand. The lead actress was Diane Hall. Something connected and I remembered that Diane Keaton's name was once Hall, (hence, Annie Hall). I confirmed with her that she was in that production. Neither of us remembers meeting the other, yet we must have worked in proximity. More evidence that I was a wallflower. Decades later, we ended up "making love" on the floor of a movie set on Father of the Bride. On the Kennedy Assassination
One Friday in 1963, I had finished a class and was about to drive to Knott's Berry Farm for the afternoon shows when I saw a clump of agitated students across the campus. I asked someone what was going on. "They're saying that the president's been shot." I drove across town to Knott's and punched radio buttons. I could hear the scheduled programs clicking off and being replaced by live broadcasts. Assassination seemed so ancient and inconceivable, I was sure that someone would soon correct the erroneous report. President Kennedy died that day and I didn't know that news could be taken so personally by a nation. Sitting backstage, watching the Birdcage's black-and-white TV drone out the increasingly grave report, we were all mute. We assumed the performance that night would be canceled, but as show time neared, word came down that we were going on. We couldn't fathom why; we believed no one would show up, much less enjoy us. I still can't explain the psychology, why the very full house that night was able to roar with laughter. The obvious must be correct: our silly show was providing some kind of balm that soothed the ache. In 2003 I hosted the Oscars on the particular weekend that the United States invaded Iraq. The news was grim and just hours before the show I flipped on the TV and saw a report, subsequently proven false, that our captive soldiers were being beheaded. I quickly turned the TV off, sick. I knew, from my experience forty years earlier with the Kennedy assassination, what my job was, and I harbored a secret knowledge that the audience would laugh. I also felt that soldiers who might be watching would be tuning in to see the Oscars and all its hoopla, not a cheerless comedian doing what he doesn't do best. I decided to acknowledge the circumstances early in the show and then get on with the jokes. The academy had announced that the show would "cut back on the glitz." I walked out for the opening monologue, took a look around the stage at the dazzling, swirling staircases, mirrored curtains and polished floor, and simply said, "I'm glad they cut back on the glitz." It got a laugh of relief and the show could go on.
More from Steve Martin
Praise for Born Standing Up
"[A] lean, incisive new book about the trajectory of [Martin's] life in comedy...Born Standing Up does a sharp-witted job of breaking down the step-by-step process that brought Steve Martin from Disneyland, where he spent his version of a Dickensian childhood as a schoolboy employee, to both the pinnacle of stardom and the brink of disaster...tightly focused...Born Standing Up is a surprising book: smart, serious, heartfelt and confessional without being maudlin." --Janet Maslin, The New York Times "Absolutely magnificent. One of the best books about comedy and being a comedian ever written." --Jerry Seinfeld, GQ "The writing is evocative, unflinching and cool. When Martin takes a scalpel to his life, what you feel is the precision of the surgeon more than the primal scream of the unanaesthetized patient...Born Standing Up is neither fanfare nor confession. It gives off a vibe of rigorous honesty. With lots of laughs." --Richard Corliss, Time Magazine "A spare, unexpectedly resonant remembrance of things past…Martin's one true subject is the evolution of his comedy--the transcendent moments...A smart, gentlemanly, modest book…winning." --Jeff Giles, Entertainment Weekly, EW Pick: A "A charming memoir tracking what the great comic characterizes as his 'war years.' Martin offers an eloquent and exacting account... [and] approaches his subjects with generosity, warmth and integrity." --Kirkus Reviews "Sure to delight fans and create new ones." --Laura Mathews, Good Housekeeping "What fun to discover the humble beginnings of some of his iconic personas...inspiring." --Rachel Rosenblit, Elle "The archetypical story of the underdog's rise and a particularly American story...beautifully written, honest, engaging, and quietly brave." --Frederic Tuten, Bomb Magazine "Son, you have an ob-leek sense of humor." --Elvis Presley
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| Customer Reviews: Read 181 more reviews...
 What am I missing? July 11, 2008
Having just finished Steve Martin's "Born Standing Up" I can't for the life of me understand the 5 star rating that so many people have given it. His breathless staccato writing style is a far cry from great literature and reads more like a fleshed out resume than an actual autobiography. I found it mildly interesting but kept waiting for it to get better. I'm still waiting. Mercifully, at least it's a slim volume and I bought it used so not much time or money spent. I can neither recommend it nor caution one to stay away. Just don't pay retail.
 highly recommended July 9, 2008
I've read complaints about the length (of lack thereof). I found the book to be compelling & very well-edited. It's an insightful look behind the scenes of a comic's life & shatters the myth of the overnight success story. It's well worth your time.
An insider view of a meteoric rise July 7, 2008
Finding someone in this country who doesn't know of Steve Martin would be a chore that I'd prefer not to attempt to undertake. What's the point of finding someone who has been living under a rock for the last thirty years?
Being the age that I am, my introduction to Steve Martin was most likely through an appearance on The Muppet Show. Not long after, I found that my father had a Steve Martin album, A Wild and Crazy Guy, which concluded with the memorable "King Tut." Thus, before I really understood that there was such a thing as "stand-up comedy," I was vaguely aware that the Steve Martin I would soon begin to see in movies was a performer of some sort.
Born Standing Up is Steve Martin's memoir of his years as a stand-up comedian: "not an autobiography but a biography, because I am writing about someone I used to know." The narrative begins in the summer of 1965, when Steve Martin was just about to begin his life as a performer.
We're then taken back to 1950, when the Martin family moved with five-year-old Steve from Waco, Texas to Hollywood. We're then given a view into life at home and especially the cool and complex relationship between Glenn Martin and his son.
At age ten, Steve Martin secured a job selling guidebooks at Disneyland, where he could study performers plying their craft daily. Securing a position in a magic shop at Disneyland proved crucial. The hours spent demonstrating magic tricks to tourists stopping in the shop led to the development of some skill that led to performances. Changes in the magic shop proved fortunate, helping to move Steve Martin in the direction of comedy.
It has long been said that fortune favors the bold. Fortune has indeed smiled upon Steve Martin. He was bold, developing an act that was hardly conventional even for a time when unconventional was the standard convention for performers. To this, we see more added, the sort of effort and attention to detail that I would sum up succinctly in the word professional. He recorded himself for later listening. He paid attention to himself, how his props, body, and words went together. He watched how different material would work for various audiences. And he practiced, taking on a grueling schedule, show after show, day in an day out.
Finally, Steve Martin made the bigtime. It was then that he decided that he was going to get out of stand-up comedy. The thought is perhaps incomprehensible to some: why leave what you love doing when you're able at the top of the game? Another question is raised: does it follow that you wind up doing what you love simply by virtue of finding success in doing what you love? Put another way, if you love to be bold and original, can you be bold and original when most of the country is repeating catchphrases that come from your act?
Steve Martin is a man of many talents. That writing is among his talents helps to make Born Standing Up a pleasurable read, one that like much of his work also leaves room for reflection after the initial response has subsided.
 Martin Takes A Very Serious Look Back and Doesn't See Much Funny About It July 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Steve Martin has written a surprisingly sad look back at his life that glosses over most of the major things he is known for while focusing on his dysfuncational family, his inabilities with women and his bad relationship with his father. The book is not very funny, a bit depressing and not as revealing as you would hope an autobiography would be.
The book is very short--at 200 double-spaced pages it takes only a couple hours to read--and the first half of the book is devoted to his life to age 22. He then quickly goes through his early TV years without really telling any stories about the famous people he worked with, then doesn't get to his movie career until 20 pages before the end. He doesn't mention his marriage--but doesn't once alude to his divorce. And doesn't mention anything about family except his distant parents and sister.
It sounds like he just look through some old scrapbooks and started writing his minimal recollections of what happened 40 to 50 years ago. There aren't a lot of details and little insight into how he developed his comedy. Jerry Seinfeld writes on the back cover that it's "One of the best books about comedy and being a comedian ever written," but that is so far from the truth that it's doubtful that Seinfeld even read the book.
There are a few interesting tidbits--like his continued crush on his first girlfriend, who turns out to be Christian prayer book author Stormie Omartian. And some of the photos in the book are great inclusions. Plus Martin opens up about his serious anxiety disorder, which leads him to come across as aloof when he is being interviewed on talk shows.
But this is not a book about his entire career--it's a book about his recollections of being a stand-up comedian decades ago, so there is almost nothing in it from the past 30 years. If you are looking for inside stories about Saturday Night Live or Sonny & Cher or his movie successes you won't find them here--just a rather sad story of a man who never really got his dad's approval, who concludes that true comedy is really very serious.
a wonderful look at the magic of comedy June 28, 2008
this book was a delight, a fascinating look at the way Martin developed his craft. For anyone who loves comedy or anyone who does public speaking it is a great primer.
Martin is a gifted writer and observer of life, and this book reflects both of those gifts
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