Gerald Nachman
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Who's Gerald Nachman...
& What's He Been Up to Lately?
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GERALD
NACHMAN is a journalistic phenomenon--and has been almost from
the day he first sat down at an old upright typewriter and started
to hammer out his first column more than 40 years ago in his
hometown of Oakland, Calif.
For one thing, he began his professional newspaper career as
a columnist--a lofty position it often takes others a few decades
to attain. But Nachman's college humor columns were so highly
regarded that they were collected in book form ("The Portable
Nachman") before he earned his college degree and was hired
right out of San Jose State University to be a columnist for
the San Jose Mercury News, where he quickly started building
a national reputation.
His long voyage in the
newspaper business continued with the New York Post, the Oakland
Tribune, the New York Daily News and, finally, the San Francisco
Chronicle--his last stop before leaving daily journalism to concentrate
on books and his role as founding partner, columnist and critic
for TheColumnists.com.
As a humorist and critic of theater, television, movies, cabaret
and most of the lively arts, Nachman has written for numerous
national magazines, including TheaterWeek. He contributed to
a New Yorker Magazine parody called Snooze. He has appeared as
a guest on scores of radio and television shows, including NBC's
"Today Show," and has been a regular for years on "Minds
Over Matter," a show business "trivia" radio program,
heard in the San Francisco Bay Area on KALW-FM, 91.7, Sundays
at 7 p.m. His series of articles on Broadway songwriters earned
ASCAP's Deems Taylor Award. He also has won a New York Page One
award and has served on the Pulitzer prize best-play jury.
Nachman's humor pieces
for newspapers have been collected in two books: Out On A
Whim and The Fragile Bachelor. He also wrote a humorous
book on marriage--Playing House. (If you're wondering,
he used to be married, but has reverted to the bachelor life
and remains good friends with his ex-wife.)
A passionate fan of stage musical/comedy revues, Nachman has
done his part to continue the grand tradition in theater by co-authoring
three of them: Quirks, Aftershocks and New Wrinkles.
The latter enjoyed a long run in San Francisco, closing late
last year, and has had several productions in other cities.
In 1998, Nachman published his most popular book to date, Raised on Radio, an anecdotal history of the golden age of radio, which came out in a new soft cover trade paperback edition in 2000.
What's He
Been Up To Lately?
FOR
THE past year, Nachman has been working on his next book for
Pantheon, which has no title yet (send him your suggestions!),
but has a working subtitle: The Revolutionary Comedians of
the 1950s and '60s. In the book, Nachman analyzes the sea
change in American standup comedy that came about in that period
and already has conducted dozens of interviews with some of the
most influential comedy talents of modern times.
Says Nachman, "I'm two-thirds through the unedited (first)
draft and have only three of the major chapters to finish. I
have an April/May deadline, but no publication date is set yet."
Among those Nachman already has talked with for the book: Woody Allen, the late Steve Allen (one of his last interviews), Dick Gregory, Bob Newhart, Jonathan Winters.
"There's an opening chapter on the earlier tradition of standups," says Nachman. "I interviewed four for that chapter: Jan Murray, Alan King, Jack Carter and Shecky Greene. I also spoke with several people from the Second City and The Committee and a handful of comics from the next wave to track the influence of the revolutionary wave, among them Robert Klein, David Steinberg, Robin Williams, Richard Lewis, Steve Landesberg and Rita Rudner."
While working on the new book, Nachman has pulled back slightly from his regular online duties, but already has written more than 40 original columns for TheColumnists.com in just over a year's time--a prodigious output for such a busy fellow.
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(and keep him from tap-dancing in the streets for pennies]
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by Gerald Nachman by going to: www.bn.com The new soft cover edition can be ordered for $15.16 plus shipping from online bookseller Amazon by going to: www.amazon.com |
GERALD TALKS!
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You can contact Gerald Nachman with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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