Jokes are always funniest when played on oneself.Feels like this is more like a biography than an autobiography as often it feels like these events happened to someone else or that I was in a dream.Was seeking comic originality and fame came as a byproduct.Enjoyment during performing was rare but after the show had long hours of elation or misery Gained the ability to have his mouth in the present and his mind on the future, observing the audience and the past and understanding where to go and when.Spent 18 years in stand up comedy - 10 years learning, 4 years refining and 4 in wild success.Born Standing Up is a superb testament to the sheer tenacity, focus, and daring of one of the greatest and most iconoclastic comedians of all time. Throughout the text, Martin has placed photographs, many never seen before. Martin also paints a portrait of his times-the era of free love and protests against the war in Vietnam, the heady irreverence of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late sixties, and the transformative new voice of Saturday Night Live in the seventies.

It took Martin decades to reconnect with his parents and sister, and he tells that story with great tenderness. To be this good, to perform so frequently, was isolating and lonely. Martin illuminates the sacrifice, discipline, and originality that made him an icon and informs his work to this day. The dedication to excellence and innovation is formed at an astonishingly early age and never wavers or wanes. The story of these years, during which he practiced and honed his craft, is moving and revelatory. In the decade that followed, he worked in the Disney magic shop and the Bird Cage Theatre at Knott’s Berry Farm, performing his first magic/comedy act a dozen times a week. His memoir of his years in stand-up is candid, spectacularly amusing, and beautifully written.Īt age ten Martin started his career at Disneyland, selling guidebooks in the newly opened theme park. This book is, in his own words, the story of “why I did stand-up and why I walked away.”Įmmy and Grammy Award–winner, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Martin has always been a writer. By 1978 he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In the mid-seventies, Steve Martin exploded onto the comedy scene. The riveting, mega-bestselling, beloved and highly acclaimed memoir of a man, a vocation, and an era named one of the ten best nonfiction titles of the year by Time and Entertainment Weekly.

Born standing up autobiography