Everyone Loves Steve Martin

Inside Comedy: The Soul, Wit, and Bite of Comedy and Comedians of the Last Five Decades by David Steinberg (Alfred A. Knopf, 2021)

David Steinberg had the unbelieveable luck to be born at the right time, and more often than not, be in the right place.  The Canada-born comic/writer/director/host got into the business in the mid-60s, putting him at the cusp of seismic change in comedy and society.  Many of the most successful comics of the 1940s and 50s were still alive and active, and the comics who would upend the safe domesticity-based style of comedy and slapstick were on the rise.  Steinberg had unprecedented access to the biggest names on both sides, and, disappointingly,  we find out very little more than one could reading their biographies, autobiographies, and other non-fiction about the comedy in the 20th century and beyond (Recommended: David Bianculli's Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour).

Steinberg's writing is breezy, charming, humble, and funny.  I imagine him sitting like Groucho in his later years (or "Bernstein" in Citizen Kane) with a beret and lap robe, offering anecdotes about a particular comic or a particular time.  Nearly everybody who is or was somebody gets a mention.  For example, on one page (p. 33), you'll find Carly Simon, Dan Sullivan (reviewer), Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Harry Kalcheim (agent), Alan Arkin, David Geffen, Cis Corman (casting director), Mike Nichols, Tony Bill, Dustin Hoffman, Sidney Poitier, Robert Alan Aurthur (screenwriter), and Walter and Carol Matthau.  However, that is one of the pages where you'll also find one of the more interesting anecdotes where Geffen, then a junior agent, discourages Steinberg from reading for a part in a certain Mike Nichols movie, because "They're not going to go with a little Jew like you; they're going to go with a tall guy like Tony Bill.  So don't even bother."  (In the end, we know who got the part in The Graduate and it wasn't Tony Bill.)

Some folks get more "real estate" than others, and we get warm and funny stories about Lily Tomlin, Robin Williams, Bob Einstein, Larry David, Martin Short, and Billy Crystal, for example.  And the most often mentioned performer in terms of admiration is Steve Martin.  Practically everyone loves and/or was influenced by him.

Inside Comedy would have benefitted greatly from better editing as there are sentences that repeat in later paragraphs, and an occasional typo, the most egregious being, "By 1957, Marty (Short) joined SCTV."  That would've been impossible on two levels:  Martin Short was 7 years old in 1957 and SCTV didn't exist until 1976.

I so much wanted to love this book (Steinberg was a pre-teen crush), but the best I can muster is "like."  It's a great book for those just dipping their toe in the comedy pool because they learn who's who very quickly, and for those who like to spend some time in the hot tub of nostalgia.