WOOT--I was just wondering what the status of this was--and luckily it's on Amazon Canada. I don't have an e-reader, but I downloaded the Kindle free PC reader, and have already flipped through--looks really detailed! I know what I'll be doing tonight.

Youa lready read it all?

what I read so far yes

Thank you for the heads up. I have to pace myself. This is so delicious I could gobble it up in one sitting. I do not hand out praise easily, so you can believe me when I tell you what a marvelous job Jeff Giles did with this book. It is what we dreamed of so many times before with other authors. I am astonished at how much time was devoted to the early years. I expected the book to be another venue in which to pimp Todd and Blair et al. I was proven wrong. I love the candor of actors...finally!

Julie Montogomery on producer Joe Stuart: He was horrifying.

Erika Slezak on George Reinholt: George left screaming down the hall, "This show will be off the air in three months." Bye, George. In those days, he was crazy

Ellen Holly on Jacquie Courtney: The only way you could tell which was the evil Jacquie was by who was wearing the wig.

Erika Slezak on Arthur Burghardt: He thought he was this big, hot [!@#$%^&*] guy.

Producer Don Wallace on Agnes Nixon: She hates writers.

I love it!

I thought it glossed a bit over the interregnum years post-Malone and pre-Carlivati, and I would've liked a bit more on the state of the show near the end, the Todds, etc. - I also thought it was a pity Susan Haskell wasn't interviewed, along with Florencia Lozano. But overall it is just a fantastic read. So much is in there.

Burghardt sounds like a nightmare, but his comments about Holly's complaints vs. his generation years before hit hard.

Edited September 11, 201312 yr by Vee

This is also exactly right, from Tim Stickney - it's what I was saying years and years ago, when they decided the only answer to any diversity issue on the show was Antonio and Cristian all day everyday. The reasoning was obvious. (And I was pissed when they had him as a father to a grown woman, too.)

What ABC discovered through their research, and what helped speed my decline as a viable member of the cast, was that even though there was a sizable component of the audience that was racist, a lot of those people didn't count Latinos as black people - so you could put a Latino with a white woman and nobody would start burning crosses. The end result was that the Vega brothers dated everybody, while R.J. got old and turned into a grandfather. I was told I had a daughter coming onto the show - I didn't get to audition with her, but I wasn't worried. I was thinking she'd be 16, 17, maybe. She showed up as a grown woman and I'm like, "Wait a minute! How old am I?"

Also an amusing aside about the dreadful Tobias Truvillion (Vincent) when he discusses Sean Ringgold. I also remember the dreadful "passing the torch" scenes he mentions, and I was livid at the time:

We didn't work together much at all, but I love Sean because he takes his work seriously. He was never supposed to get to talk. [laughs] I mean, the first time I saw him he was Tobias Truvillion's henchman, and they brought me in for a few scenes because they were getting rid of me and bringing in the character (Vincent) they were counting on to be the "new R.J." Well, not all actors work hard.

Edited September 11, 201312 yr by Vee

I appreciate his candor. It was pretty obvious by the mid-90s ABC had decided black characters were superfluous and pointless. Why am I not surprised they met this conclusion through focus groups.

So the guy who played Vincent just phoned it in and that's why they got rid of him?

I don't know what he did, but he was absolutely terrible.

The book is incredibly candid, and it is full of copious detail on the early years. You really need to read it, virtually everything is quotable.

Wow.. I can imagine what's being said about the Rauch, Gottlieb, Phelps and Tomlin years

I don't have Kindle but if I ever see it cheap anywhere I will try to get it.

You can download a free kindle player for your computer through Amazon--that's what I did.

However, I'm gonna order a print edition at 14 bucks--frustratingly you have to use Createspace which is Amazon's sister site that produces on demand paperback books, CDs and DVDs. from his fb page it sounds like the author doesn't have--and probably won't have an official print publisher, so you're not gonna find it cheap in stores....

I bought this and I like the he said/she said parts. There is sequence a bit in where Ellen Holly has a problem with a producer because she liked the previous producer and then has a problem with the casting of the actor, and then they go interview the actor about it. It sounds like the studio of the early 1970s was a wonderful place, almost a repertory theater atmosphere.

I WANNA READ THIS!

Also, do they interview Andrea Evans at all during the book? I would love to hear about her comments.........I'm curious if Ellen Holly had anything to say about her, since Tina's story was front and center when Holly was phased out of the show.....

Edited September 11, 201312 yr by YRfan23

I bought this and I like the he said/she said parts.

I concur. Oral histories are wonderful because you are blessed with both sides of the same story and can decide for yourself how much, if any, you can believe from either side. I feel that the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle. This provided me so much more insight into Ellen Holly's plight than her autobiography. Clearly, racism existed there, but as much as I detest Burghardt, I agree with him about Ellen's anger/paranoia. I seriously doubt Erika Slezak referred to Holly and Hayman as "those two black b--ches."

I don't have Kindle but if I ever see it cheap anywhere I will try to get it.

If U have an I or smart phone, U can download the Amazon Kindle App (Its Free) & then buy the book thru that app. It costs 4.99

IIRC, Andrea refused to be interviewed. That surprised me, given that she had long since returned to the show.

I am halfway though it and Ellen Holly burned a LOT of bridges....