New Releases by Bill Zehme

The definitive biography of Johnny Carson, the entertainer who redefined late-night television and American culture, told through intimate insights and riveting accounts of his legendary career and complex personal life. In 2002, Bill Zehme landed one of the most coveted assignments for a magazine writer: an interview with Johnny Carson—the only one he’d granted since retiring from hosting The Tonight Show a decade earlier. Zehme was tapped for the Esquire feature story thanks to his years of legendary celebrity profiles, and the resulting piece portrayed Carson as more human being than American TV icon. Following Carson’s passing in 2005, Zehme embarked on an exhaustive nearly decade-long research journey, interviewing dozens of Carson’s colleagues and friends to craft this “immensely informative and insightful” (The Minnesota Star Tribune) biography, although his efforts were halted by a cancer diagnosis. When he died in 2023 his obituaries mentioned the Carson book, with New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman calling it “one of the great unfinished biographies.” Yet the hundreds of pages Zehme managed to complete are astounding both for the caliber of their writing and how they illuminate one of the most legendary talk show hosts of all time: A man who brought so much joy and laughter to so many millions, but was himself exceedingly shy and private. Zehme traces Carson’s rise from a magic-obsessed Nebraska boy to Navy ensign in World War II to a burgeoning radio and TV personality to, eventually, host of The Tonight Show—which he transformed, along with the entirety of American popular culture, over the next three decades. Without Carson, there would be no late-night television as we know it. On a much more intimate level, Zehme also captures the turmoil and anguish that accompanied the success: four marriages, troubles with alcohol, and the devastating loss of a child. In one passage, Zehme notes that when asked by an interview in the mid-’80s for the secret to his success, Carson replied simply, “Be yourself and tell the truth.” Completed with the help from journalist and Zehme’s former research assistant Mike Thomas, Carson the Magnificent offers just that: an honest assessment of who Johnny Carson really was.

From renowned journalist Bill Zehme, author of the New York Times bestselling The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin', comes the first full-fledged biography and the only complete story of the late comic genius Andy Kaufman. Based on six years of research, Andy's own unpublished, never-before-seen writings, and hundreds of interviews with family members, friends, and key players in Andy's endless charades, many of whom have become icons in their own right, Lost in the Funhouse takes us through the maze of Kaufman's mind and lets us sit deep behind his mad, dazzling blue eyes to see, firsthand, the fanciful landscape that was his life. Controversial, chaotic, splendidly surreal, and tragically brief--what a life it was. Andy Kaufman was often a mystery even to his closest friends. Remote, aloof, impossible to know, his internal world was a kaleidoscope of characters fighting for time on the outside. He was as much Andy Kaufman as he was Foreign Man (dank you veddy much), who became the lovably bashful Latka on the hit TV series Taxi. He was as much Elvis Presley as he was the repugnant Tony Clifton, a lounge singer from Vegas who hated any audience that came to see him and who seemed to hate Andy Kaufman even more. He was a contradiction, a paradox on every level, an artist in every sense of the word. During the comic boom of the seventies, when the world had begun to discover the prodigious talents of Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, John Belushi, Bill Murray, and so many others, Andy was simply doing what he had always done in his boyhood reveries. On the debut of Saturday Night Live, he stood nervously next to a phonograph that scratchily played the theme from Mighty Mouse. He fussed and fidgeted, waiting for his moment. When it came, he raised his hand and moved his mouth to the words "Here I come to save the day!" In that beautiful deliverance of pantomime before the millions of people for whom he had always dreamed about performing, Andy triumphed. He changed the face of comedy forever by lurching across boundaries that no one knew existed. He was the boy who made life his playground and never stopped playing, even when the games proved too dangerous for others. And in the end he would play alone, just as he had when it was all only beginning. In Lost in the Funhouse, Bill Zehme sorts through a life of disinformation put forth by a master of deception to uncover the motivation behind the manipulation. Magically entertaining, it is a singular biography matched only by its singular subject.

Schwarzenegger intimidates. Sharon Stone strips. Leno and Letterman duel. In twenty years of raw and raucous celebrity profiles Irreverently bold journalist Bill Zehme has long been celebrated for his ability to get under the skins of our most elusive icons, from the evasive Warren Beatty to the ever-unpredictable Madonna to the much misunderstood Barry Manilow. Now his most provocative work is collected for the first time, with over twenty-five landmark profiles, including Frank Sinatra, Tom Hanks, Jerry Seinfeld, Liberace, Howard Stern, Eddie Murphy, and Woody Allen. Zehme witnesses Hugh Hefner withstanding the single blow that never entered into an adolescent boy’s dreams--losing his fantasy woman. He gets a nude massage with Sharon Stone, and an earful about men, sex, and the shotgun she keeps under her bed. Included, too, is Zehme’s exclusive firsthand coverage of David Letterman and Jay Leno, before and throughout their late-night feud. Here is entertainment history through the eyes of a man the Chicago Tribune called “one of the most successful and prolific magazine writers in the country.” Hilarious, endearing, and wickedly insightful, Intimate Strangers captures the business of celebrity for what it is: a big, lusty, star-crossed love affair between our icons and ourselves.

The legendary founder of Playboy magazine brings readers inside his legendary, decadent world in this “breezy, charming chronicle” (Time Out New York). With the iconic Playboy magazine, the legendary Playboy Mansion, and the many other ventures he created as head of Playboy Enterprises, Hugh Hefner conjured a vision of the Good Life as no one else had dared. Now the Master Playboy of the Western World shares the secrets that have for generations made him the envy of all free-thinking men and women. Hef's Little Black Book captures lifestyle of Hugh M. Hefner as never before, with a treasure trove of urbane lore, wry advice, and time-honored wisdom spanning the realms of romance, hedonism, ambition, business, dreams, and, of course, sex. Accompanied by tantalizing, never-before-seen photographs, the gateway to Hugh Hefner's Dream World of Cool awaits you. If you don't swing, don't ring.

Regis Philbin, the king of curmudgeonly humor, has written an all-new book of side-splitting rants.No one tells a story like Regis Philbin. For fifteen years on the syndicated morning show Live! With Regis & Kathie Lee, he has kept viewers laughing out loud at his tales of comic misadventures as America's most beloved -- and beset -- everyman. Whether confessing his faults (albeit grudgingly) or sharing his latest daily aggravations, he has hilariously explored his own unique perils as a husband, father, dutiful citizen, man-about-town, high-rise-apartment dweller, weekend suburban guy, helpless handyman, woebegone traveler, frustrated sports fan, nervous medical specimen, overwhelmed public figure, and most recently, the nattily dressed host of the enormously popular ABC television quiz show sensation Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.Whether it's skewering the producers of his morning talk show, or describing the travails of celebrity life today, you can be sure that Regis Philbin will tell it like it is.Who Wants to be Me? is sure to have readers in stitches as they see themselves in Regis's outrageous mishaps and familiar foibles.

In celebration of "Playboy's" 50th anniversary, its legendary founder provides observations for men of all ages for the very first time.

Frank Sinatra and the lost art of livin'.

"It's not always easy being me," writes Regis Philbin ... then goes on to prove just that by traveling across time and behind the scenes for unforgettable encounters with Johnny Carson, Robert DeNiro, Dean Martin, Perry Como, Jack Paar, Bill Cosby and many other celebrities. He also tells of his boyhood stomping grounds in the south Bronx, his college adventures at Notre Dame, his family and career crises. This is Reege up close and personal as he's never been seen before, self-deprecating, funny and always exasperated!

The host of The Tonight Show, whose comedy has won him the #1 spot in his time slot and an Emmy, here shares his funniest stories. For all those who tune in for Jay Leno's trademark monologue, his entertaining skits, and his warm and funny banter with celebrities, Leading with My Chin offers hours of hilarious reading.

Bob is more than a name. It's a verb, an attitude, an entire way of life. The full meaning of Bobness is now revealed in the words of famous and regular Bobs themselves in this offbeat, humorous tribute to Bobs everywhere. Illustrated with celebrity photographs throughout.

Brief profiles accompany portraits of Robin Williams, Steve Martin, Lilly Tomlin, Jerry Lewis, Jonathan Winters, Whoopi Goldberg, and other comedians