Lucky Bruce

Book excerpt: "Like a Twilight zone with Charlie Chaplin"–Mario Puzo Writer, screenwriter, playwright, editor, actor, teacher: Bruce Jay Friedman has done it all, charming the glitziest industries of American golden-age culture for more than half a century. Lucky Bruce is his long-awaited memoir, and it's everything we'd expect and more: here is Friedman at his best, waltzing from Madison Avenue to Hollywood and back again, and reilluminating with brilliant clarity the dazzle of post-war American life. Self-effacing, wry, sharp, and laugh-out-loud funny, Friedman details with lovable candor his friendships and rivalries with the greatest writers, actors, publishers, directors and personalities of the last fifty years. He stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Steve Martin and Woody Allen. He's a dynamo of comedy and a recognized master of American letters. And in Lucky Bruce, whether he's fist-fighting with Norman Mailer, explaining to Richard Pryor why there are so few Jewish junkies, or writing screenplays in a closet with Natalie Wood as his secretary, Friedman is the king of understated charm. With cameos by Joseph Heller, Philip Roth, Mario Puzo, Lillian Hellman, Warren Beatty, Marlene Dietrich, Brian Grazer, Candida Donadio, Crazy Joe Gallo, Joyce Carol Oates, Jack Richardson, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Kurt Vonnegut, and the irreplaceable Elaine, Lucky Bruce is moving, scandalous, and guaranteed to shed new light on the brightest of American luminaries ... with Bruce Jay Friedman bright among them. Bruce Jay Friedman is a best-selling author, an Academy Award–nominated screenwriter, a magazine editor, a Hollywood actor, and a celebrated playwright. He lives in Manhattan, New York.