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Lunch » Tags » Books » Reviews » The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Commedians in America

The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Commedians in America

2 Ratings: 4.5

Surprise Stories from the Souls Behind the Smiles

Table of Contents: Introduction : the world of Jewish comedians -- 1. The golden door and the velvet curtain, 1890-1930 -- 1. The land of hope and tears : comedians and immigrant America -- 2. Curtain up and curtain down : the … see full wiki

Tags: Books, Nonfiction, Comedians, Funny People, Jewish Comedians, Entertainers

Author: Lawrence J. Epstein

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Date Published: February 24, 2010

1 review about The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Commedians...

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Surprise Stories from the Souls Behind the Smiles of Jewish Comedians

Aug 14, 2009

by NYWriterBarbaraGarro

Rating:

Learn who's Jewish and who's not, who pretended not to be Jewish and who led with Jewishness. Learn who had it really, really tough and who had it relatively easy. Discover who could work together and who couldn't. Get the skinny on some really poor, skinny comedians. Rodney Dangerfield's true story seemed stranger than fiction. Find out who smacked Sinatra with a pie and got away with it. Find out how Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis really got together. Be privy to literally dozens of stories about famous people and get the history of radio, movies and television as a bonus.

I ended up liking some people Lawrence J. Epstein presented here I didn't before know well enough to like before I read this book. Some overt dishonesty shocked me. All the stories were at least interesting, many exciting and a few really disgusting.

What more could you possibly ask of one book? Thanks Lawrence!

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