Book Review: I'm Dying Up Here

Their Holy Grail was a six-minute spot on the Tonight Show, and Los Angeles's Comedy Store was the place where more than 300 standup comics vied for the coveted prime time slots they hoped would expose their talent to agents and producers. In this funny and often painfully honest account, former Los Angeles Times reporter William Knoedelseder, who covered the beat, tells the story of that city's 1970s comedy scene, the birthplace of a generation of superstar comedians.

Founded by comedian Sammy Shore and snatched by his wife Mitzi (yes, Pauly's parents) in a 1973 divorce settlement, the Comedy Store served as the launching pad for comedians from across the country, many of whom migrated west when Johnny Carson moved to Burbank in 1972. From Boston's Jay Leno to Indianapolis's David Letterman (close friends until their relationship fractured in the battle to succeed Carson in 1992), aspiring comics were willing to work for nothing and even help with manual labor to maintain the Comedy Store, in order to win the favor of Mitzi, a shrewd judge of talent and an even more ruthless businesswoman.

The brightest stars of a generation of brilliant comics make their appearance in these pages. It's evident that some of them, like Richard Lewis and Tom Dreesen (the first of his contemporaries to appear on Tonight) cooperated extensively with Knoedelseder in the telling of the story, while others like Robin Williams, whose alleged comic plagiarism the author recounts, likely didn't. Alongside these tales of enduring success are thumbnail sketches of the meteoric careers of well-known comedians like Andy Kaufman, Freddie Prinze and the tragic one of Steve Lubetkin, who labored in vain to find his audience.

Knoedelseder's account is divided into two parts, the first describing the flourishing of the L.A. comedy clubs and the second detailing the fractious five-week strike against Mitzi Shore in 1979. That conflict began, absurdly, over the comics' demand that they be paid $5 for "gas money" for their appearances at the Comedy Store and quickly mushroomed into a full-fledged labor dispute challenging Mitzi Shore's belief that she was running a "comedy college," where fledgling comedians didn't deserve to be paid for working out the kinks in their routines. When it ended, Knoedelseder contends, this golden era of comedy went with it.

More interesting for its glimpse into the early career struggles of some of our most well-known comedians than for the account of the labor conflict, Knoedelseder's entertaining and frequently moving story provides ample support for the deathbed statement attributed to various English actors: "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard."--Harvey Freedenberg

Shelf Talker: A revealing and entertaining look at the 1970s Los Angeles comedy scene and the labor dispute that ended its most glorious era.