Seinfeld: The Making of an American Icon
by Jerry Oppenheimer

List Price: $25.95
Our Price: $6.49
You Save: $19.46 (75%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions

Book Summary Information

Book Reviews of Seinfeld: The Making of an American Icon

Book Review: Enoyable though unflattering portrait of Seinfeld
Summary: 5 Stars

The beginning of the book was of particular attention to me,
in that I grew up in Freeport, Long Island--no too far from
where he did (Massapequa) . . . he, like me, was also
the son of a salesman . . . but that's about the end of
our similarities.

Seinfeld went on to become an enormously successful
stand-up comedian, long before he cocreated in the late
80s what is considered to be most brilliant and successful
must-see TV sitcom in the history of the medium . . . during
that time, he developed a series of relationship with both
men and women that made for reading that was quite
captivating.

I also learned about a comedy strike that helped
its participants get paid for the first time . . . previously,
they had only paid a performer if he or she was the
headliner . . . Jay Leno, a key participant in the work stoppage, helped get a settlement as a result of having posed as being near death (when hit by a thug) . . . in reality, he was fine--but did not want anybody else to know that fact.

There were several memorable passages; among them:
[Mike Costanza, a college friend, describing a scam they both ran]
" 'Hi, Mr. Cohen, this is Mike Davis from Ambet Lighting,
you remember us--w're the handicapped Vietnam veterans with
the lighting company.' Then one of us would drop the phone
on the floor, step on it like ten times, pick it up and bang it
against the desk, and then pick up the phone again and say,
'Mr. Cohen, are you still there? You know it's hard to get
used to these hooks, but I have these two cases of light
bulbs for you.' "

[from his first performance on the TONIGHT SHOW]
He did a bit about TV weather reports. "This is really
helpful," he said. "A photograph of Earth comes from
ten thousand miles away. Can you tell if you should
take a picture from that shot? He did a bit about a
perplexed driver looking under the hood of his broken-down
car. "What are you looking for?" Jerry asked. "Whatever's
wrong, you can't fix it. You stand there looking for something
incredibly, obviously wrong--something so simple even you
can handle it--a giant on-off switch." Off-camera, Johnny
was laughing, especially when Jerry did his riff about

GUINNESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS heaviest man,
Bob Hughes. What would happen, Jerry wondered, if he lost
a few hundred pounds? "What would his friends say? You're
a rail, baby, look at you!"

[Jerry asserted that he lost money on every investment]
"People always tell me, 'You should have your money
working for you.' Well, from now on, I've decided I'll
do the work, I'm going to let my money relax."

Summary of Seinfeld: The Making of an American Icon

Because of a carefully honed publicity machine, and through savvy marketing, millions of rabid Seinfeld fans are convinced that the TV Jerry and the real-life Jerry are one and the same. But that's not the case.

From the time Jerry was a lonely, bashful, introverted kid hiding out in his blue plaid-wallpapered bedroom in his parents' modest house on Long Island in the 1960s, he had an unlikely dream: To become one of America's best-known and most popular standup comics ever. Home alone, he watched his comedic idols on a small, fuzzied-image black-and-white TV, or listened to them on his scratchy portable hi-fi -- Abbott and Costello, Bill Cosby, among others.

Seinfeld: The Making of an American Icon is the never-before-told story of how Jerry made his dream come true -- of how this very ambitious, extremely driven, compulsively perfectionistic son of a Jewish sign peddler who once hustled bogus holy water from Lourdes carefully worked his way up through the knock-down-drag-out world of stand-up comedy as it began to explode in the mid-1970s, and how he went on to cocreate in the late 80s what is considered to be the most brilliant and successful must-see TV sitcom in the history of the medium.

From the start, Jerry has been extremely private about all aspects of his personal life. But now this very complex and enigmatic funnyman is revealed, sometimes as loving, compassionate, and sensitive, other times as dark and steely. But always fascinating.

For more than a year, bestselling investigative biographer Jerry Oppenheimer conducted in-depth interviews with scores of Jerry's closest friends, family members, business associates, lovers, and fellow comedians who spoke candidly and on the record for the first time, painting a riveting portrait of the beloved and talented comedian.

This is a book about Seinfeld the man, not Seinfeld the show. It also is a sweeping look at the very serious, often degrading big-money world of standup comedy and network TV, where some die and others, like Jerry Seinfeld, become royalty. Seinfeld: The Making of an American Icon is no laughing matter.

Entertainers Books

• Books > Subjects > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature
• Leaders & Notable People > Rich & Famous