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THE LAST GREAT RIDE

Name: THE LAST GREAT RIDE
Author: Brandon Tartikoff
ISBN: 0-394-58709-X

by Brandon Tartikoff with Charles Leerhsen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 21, 1992

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Summerweight memoir about Tartikoff's many years at the helm of NBC. Leerhsen, a senior writer at Newsweek, co-wrote Donald Trump's Trump: Surviving at the Top. Tartikoff apparently felt the need to get all this down before his new job as head of Paramount Pictures wipes it from mind. His triumphs at NBC lifted the network from the bottom of the rating pits and placed it at the top for six years running—a run not likely to be equaled. Not likely, Tartikoff thinks, because TV is about to change, with the box splintered into 150 or more channels with specialized programs for every taste. At the farewell dinner for outgoing NBC chairman Grant Tinker, Tinker told incoming Tartikoff that his own five years at the helm were ``like building sand castles. We build them elaborately and beautifully, but eventually they just get washed away.'' Tartikoff's greatest success was The Cosby Show—essentially his idea—which became his cornerstone sand castle. He shows us how he tried to provide ``maximum `viewer flow' from one time slot to the next'' and create ``perfect TV nights.'' Among the most enjoyable moments here are the endless ``pitches'' to Tartikoff of ideas for new shows—he estimates he's heard 30,000, including a two-and-a-half-hour pitch from Marlon Brando for a series based on Brando's vast library of home movies of himself swimming with bare-breasted Tahitian beauties. Tartikoff tells about his final lunch with Johnny Carson, and about how such NBC glories as Hill Street Blues, Cheers, The Golden Girls, The A-Team, Miami Vice, St. Elsewhere, and Family Ties were dreamed up, cast, and nurtured into being. Toothless—but its charm and celebrities and ideas about TV ensure a mild success before it, too, washes away.

Pub Date: Oct. 21, 1992

ISBN: 0-394-58709-X

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1992

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.