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Gerald Nachman

Right Here on Our Stage Tonight!

Ed Sullivan's America

An Ahmanson Foundation Book in the Humanities
Buy Hardcover
$29.95, £20.95 hardcover

9780520258679

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472 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 40 b/w photographs
November 2009, Available worldwide
Also in: American Studies
Before the advent of cable and its hundreds of channels, before iPods and the Internet, three television networks ruled America's evenings. And for twenty-three years, Ed Sullivan, the Broadway gossip columnist turned awkward emcee, ruled Sunday nights. It was Sullivan's genius to take a worn-out stage genre-vaudeville-and transform it into the TV variety show, a format that was to dominate for decades. Right Here on Our Stage Tonight! tells the complete saga of The Ed Sullivan Show and, through the voices of some 60 stars interviewed for the book, brings to life the most beloved, diverse, multi-cultural, and influential variety hour ever to air. Gerald Nachman takes us through those years, from the earliest dog acts and jugglers to Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and beyond. Sullivan was the first TV impresario to feature black performers on a regular basis-including Nat King Cole, Pearl Bailey, James Brown, and Richard Pryor-challenging his conservative audience and his own traditional tastes, and changing the face of American popular culture along the way. No other TV show ever cut such a broad swath through our national life or cast such a long shadow, nor has there ever been another show like it. Nachman's compulsively readable history, illustrated with classic photographs and chocked with colorful anecdotes, reanimates The Ed Sullivan Show for a new generation.
"This work is a 'don't miss' of nostalgia and tells the unusual tale of how one of the weirdest guys ever in the outskirts of journalism scored to become one of the weirdest guys ever in the outskirts of early '60s television."—wowOwow.com

"A fun, affectionate portrayal of the showman. A long time in coming, it's the tome that Sullivan always deserved."

Playbill
"Nachman provides a three-dimensional portrait of the man and the show that were part of our national consciousness for over two decades. This is a detailed analysis on why Sullivan mattered; Nachman is a natural storyteller and very good in explaining the full context of Sullivan's accomplishments. For veteran viewers it is a pleasant reminder of the years watching Sullivan on Sunday nights. For novices it is a nuanced description of Sullivan's America. Nachman's style is always accessible, and will surely be a delight for anyone interested in popular culture to read."—Ron Simon, Curator of Television and Radio, The Paley Center for Media

"For me, Gerald Nachman never misses. Right Here on Our Stage Tonight! is a shining gem; reporting in engrossing detail and lively style the life and career of one of the oddest men ever to so lavishly succeed in a crazy business. One of those rare books you can keep on the bedside table, open it anywhere, and be highly entertained. As Ed might have said, 'Don't miss it if you can.'"—Dick Cavett, talk show host and online columnist for NYTimes/Opinion
Introduction: Theme Music

Part One. No-Talent Host Tames the One-Eyed Beast

1. Out of the Paley-ozoic Ooze
2. Battle of the Videoville Titans-Berle, Godfrey, and Sullivan
3. A Live Broadway Column Every Sunday Night
4. The $375 Extravaganza
5. Very Critical Condition
6. The Magic of Sullivision

Part Two. How to Succeed in Show Business without Really Talking

7. From Small-Town Sportswriter to Manhattan Sport
8. He's Just an Ink-Stained Broadway Baby
9. Toast of the Nation
10. It's the World, on Line One
11. Sacred Sunday Rite
12. Not Quite All in the Family
13. Extended Family

Part Three. Inside the Star-Making Machine

14. Herding Comedians
15. Backstage Life (and Death)
16. Give My Regards to La Scala
17. Elvis Has Entered the Building
18. Newspaper Wads at Fifty Paces-a Few Off-Camera Feuds
19. Embracing Blacks, Caving In to McCarthyism

Part Four. Rescued by Rock 'n' Roll

20. The Son-in-Law Also Rises
21. "And Now-the Beatles!"
22. The Showman without a Country
23. Echoes and Afterimages

Bibliography
Interviews
Acknowledgments
Index
Photographs follow page
Gerald Nachman is the author of Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 60s and Raised on Radio (UC Press) among other books.
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