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Sit, Ubu, Sit: How I Went from Brooklyn to Hollywood with the Same Woman, the Same Dog, and a Lot Less Hair
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From Publishers Weekly
Goldberg, a TV scriptwriter and producer, fondly recalls his rocky, improbable route to Hollywood success, including the people who helped him along the way. Funny, dry and self-deprecating, Goldberg cuts swiftly through the years, from the mid-1950s growing up in a loving extended Jewish family in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, to his scruffy vagabonding in 1972 in Europe with his pregnant girlfriend, Diana, and their canny Labrador dog, Ubu. He sold his first scripts to TV shows in the 1970s, prompting his move from New York to California with Diana, who opened a day-care center. Goldberg took a class with scriptwriter Nate Monaster, who motivated him and helped submit his work to Los Angeles producers. Soon enough, Goldberg's scripts for the Bob Newhart Show, the Tony Randall Show and the MTM empire gave him the clout to start his own company, UBU (named for the beloved dog he eventually gave away, by the by), launching such pilots as Family Ties for the networks. Indeed, Goldberg's memoir is a kind of love letter to longtime partner Diana as well as to Michael J. Fox, with whom he later worked on Spin City. His professed guilt for making fistfuls of money while making people laugh renders this work effortlessly likable. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
“Very funny. Very touching . . . and not a lot of big words. Gary is many things: a great boss, a smart writer, a very good basketball player . . . and now an even better author.”
—George Clooney
“Sit, Ubu, Sit is a poignant, hilarious, humble book—but at its heart a true love story. I couldn’t put it down.”—Julia Louis-Dreyfus
“Gary David Goldberg has a heart the size of Brooklyn, and you’ll feel it beating on each and every page of this sweet, beautifully written love story.”
—Claire Cook, author of Must Love Dogs and Life’s a Beach
“Full of love and laughter . . . Reading Sit, Ubu, Sit is like the best walk in the park on the most beautiful day of the year with your best dog, friend, or lover. You never want the experience to end.”
—Pat Mitchell, President and CEO, The Paley Center for Media
“Funny, dry, and self-deprecating...A love letter to longtime partner Diana as well as Michael J. Fox....Effortlessly likable.”
—Publishers Weekly
22/09/2008
There are essentially two problems with this book. It is so engrossing it's hard to put down and you will get nothing else done. Two if you read it in public, as I did the first time, you will alter between laughing and crying so much that people will think you're a manic-depressive. Other than that you are good to go.
18/02/2008
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I was never a big fan of Gary Goldberg's TV shows -- "Family Ties," "Spin City" -- only because I haven't been too big of a TV fan in general. I am, however, a huge fan of funny, compelling, compassionate writing, and I couldn't read Goldberg's book fast enough. This is a clever, laugh-out-loud book that also can double as a primer on the insider's world of writing for network TV. I loved the way Goldberg played with chronology, switching back and forth in time, creating separate storylines that are each fascinating in its own way. My one fear was that, in the early chapters, Goldberg seems to live a charmed existence. Everything he touches turns to gold. Of course, outside of Donald Trump's wigmaker, no one escapes bad news for long, and the second half of the book finds Goldberg, his family, and his best TV friend, Michael J. Fox, all being severly tested. Throughout, Goldberg maintains his sense of humor as if that charmed existence of his had never been shaken to its core. Of course, the problem with racing through such a delightfully humane memoir is that I'm left without the pleasure of its company all too soon. Sigh!
09/02/2008
Gary David Goldberg is the creator/co-creator of three major television series. Two of them were smash hits; the third was one of the best shows ever on and thus, almost papers... unidentified and uncaptioned). This is a fine reading experience. One can only wish that the publishing attained even half the level of the writing.
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