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Rickles' Book: A Memoir Paperback – June 3, 2008
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Why you need to buy Rickles' Book immediately:
Rickles' Book will help you win friends and influence people.
Rickles' Book will introduce you to all of his famous friends, from Frank Sinatra to Johnny Carson.
Rickles' Book will help you lose weight.
Rickles' Book will help you gain weight.
Rickles' Book will improve your love life.
Rickles' Book will make you cry (If your love life doesn't improve).
Rickles' Book will make you laugh (If your love life does improve).
Rickles' Book will make you love one of the great Americans of our time, Don Rickles.
Rickles' Book will give you something to talk about at parties (If you're ever invited to parties).
Rickles' Book, along with the Bible and War and Peace, will grace your bookshelf and upgrade your literary status.
Rickles' Book will keep you up at night.
Rickles' Book will put you to sleep at night.
Rickles' Book will make you rich (If you treasure great humor).
- Print length256 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateJune 3, 2008
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.7 x 8.44 inches
- ISBN-100743293061
- ISBN-13978-0743293068
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About the Author
David Ritz is a songwriter who has collaborated with stars like Janet Jackson and Marvin Gaye, as well as a renowned ghostwriter who has authored more than fifty books for some of the biggest stars in music: Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, Lenny Kravitz, Joe Perry, Smokey Robinson, Don Rickles, and Willie Nelson, to name a few. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Essence, People, Art Connoisseur, and elsewhere. He lives in Los Angeles with Roberta, his wife of nearly fifty years.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Rickles' Book
A MemoirBy Don RicklesSimon & Schuster
Copyright © 2008 Don RicklesAll right reserved.
ISBN: 9780743293068
All Heart
Jackson Heights, Queens, was no special place, but my dad, Max, was a special guy. Here's the kind of guy he was: If he was your friend and came over to your house and your wife was in a housecoat, he could hug her and you wouldn't think twice. There was nothing distasteful about Max S. Rickles. (I never knew what the "S." stood for, and neither did he.) Everyone loved my dad. The man was all heart.
Best of all, he laughed at my humor.
He was an insurance salesman who provided for my mother and me, the only child. We weren't rich, but we weren't poor. We just were. We lived in a plain apartment like a million other apartments you see in New York City's five boroughs.
Dad had a lighthearted attitude about life. He took it the way it came. He was the guy who taught me all I know about car repairs: Pay someone to do it for you.
We'd be sitting in our tired old Ford, the engine dead as a doornail. Dad would see someone he knew from our building.
"Charlie," he'd say, "here's a couple of bucks. Make the car start."
He also taught me all I know about home repairs.
Here's how that worked:
Mom wants to hang a picture.
Max offers the janitor, the mailman -- anyone who's around -- a couple of bucks to bang a nail in the wall. No one ever takes the money -- they like Max too much -- except the janitor, who's mad because he has to live in the basement.
Max Rickles was a giving sort of man, but sometimes giving isn't as simple as it seems. I'll give examples:
We belonged to a little Orthodox synagogue in Jackson Heights, where Dad was an important member. Once he was even president of the congregation. He loved the congregation and fussed over its finances. It was not a wealthy group and the building required maintenance. On the High Holy Days, Dad would escort me and my cousin Allen, who later became a fine doctor, to prime seats near the altar. It turned out to be a land-lease deal. Ten minutes before the start of services, Dad would move us ten rows back. Five minutes later, he'd say, "Okay, guys! Find seats in the back."
It turned out my father was selling tickets to services like a scalper at a ballgame. He was shuffling around the worshipers and moving some of the higher-donation members to better seats. The proceeds went directly to God.
In this same small synagogue, my lighthearted father was the only one who could deal with the weighty matter of death. When everyone was hysterically crying, Dad would quietly take care of everything. He'd line up the limousines and make the cemetery arrangements. The bereaved families loved him. Dad was able to deal with death. It never frightened him or threw him off track.
Speaking of the track, that was Dad's one vice. But it wasn't the kind of vice that did him in. He bet cautiously -- two dollars here, two dollars there. He loved the horses. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than winning ten bucks at Belmont.
He also loved many of the customers he sold insurance to. In fact, when they couldn't cover their insurance payments, he'd often do it for them. He wrote their names in his debit book and carried them on his back. When Dad died of a heart attack in 1953, those same customers came to his funeral and put a box next to his grave where they paid off those debits. That's how much they respected my dad.
By sheer coincidence, his grave site in Elmont, New York, faces the finish line at Belmont. How's that for God's help?
Copyright © 2007 by Wynnefield Productions, Inc.
Continues...
Excerpted from Rickles' Book by Don Rickles Copyright © 2008 by Don Rickles. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- Publisher : Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition (June 3, 2008)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0743293061
- ISBN-13 : 978-0743293068
- Item Weight : 8.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.44 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #407,715 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,436 in Rich & Famous Biographies
- #3,711 in Actor & Entertainer Biographies
- #12,551 in Memoirs (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
David Ritz (born December 2, 1943 in New York City) is an American author who has written more than 50 books. In addition to his work as a co-author of autobiographies for a range of entertainers from Ray Charles to Don Rickles, he has written lyrics ("Sexual Healing"), novels (Search for Happiness), profiles ("Stevie Wonder: Never Ending Song of Peace" in Rolling Stone), critical essays ("Robin Thicke, You’re No Marvin Gaye" in Rolling Stone) and over a hundred liner notes for artists such as Michael Jackson, Sammy Davis, Jr., Sarah Vaughan and Nat King Cole.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Joe Mabel [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons.
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Rickles' Book isn't a typical autobiography. Instead, this book consists of stories and anecdotes that are normally four pages or less. Rickles begins with his parents and his early childhood. Throughout, he will talk about various events in his life (growing up, serving in the Navy, his father's death, his wedding, etc.). But he doesn't spend much time with his personal life. The majority of the memoir covers his professional life and his entertainer friends, including Frank Sinatra and Bob Newhart. Some of the stories are informative. We learn that Don's mother, Etta, visited Frank Sinatra's mom, Dolly. Etta encouraged Dolly to get Frank to visit Don when he was performing. They quickly became good friends. He writes a lot about his best friend, Bob Newhart. Although they were total opposites, their friendship was based on “the same basic values: nutty humor and family love.”
But I gave Rickles' Book three stars for the following reasons. First, it is a very short read. With lots of blank pages between stories, plus pictures, you can read it in one sitting. And second, I later discovered that the stories in Rickles' Book are lifted directly from his stage routines. If you are a fan, you won't find much new here.
I would still like to learn more about Don Rickles the man, rather than the entertainer. I guess that I will just have to try a biography.
Top reviews from other countries
Die enge Freundschaft mit Frank Sinatra, bis zu dessen Tod, zieht sich als roter Faden durch das ganze Buch.
So ist Rickles`Book auch mehr die Geschichte einer Freundschaft, nämlich der zu Frank Sinatra.
Eindringlich erzählt Don Rickles auch von seiner Mutter, die sein grösster Fan und Förderer war. Vielleicht wurde deshalb auch aus Don Rickles "Mr. Warmth".
So ist Rickles`Book schöne leichte Unterhaltung. Bleibende Eindrücke hinterlässt es aber nicht.
His humour is timeless.