Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s

The comedians of the 1950s and 1960s were a totally different breed of comic from any that came before: men and women whose humor was as socially aware, satiric, and timely as it was riotously funny. Gerald Nachrnan tells the stories and analyzes the comedy of the brightest stars of those years: Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, Dick Gregory, Bill Cosby, Godfrey Cambridge, Phyllis Diller, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Woody Allen, Bob Newhart, Mel Brooks, and Joan Rivers among them -- every one a cultural harbinger. Nachman illuminates the chaotic and often troubled lives of these comedians, who were intriguingly all too human and whose genius was often counterbalanced by their demons, damaged souls, and desperate drive to succeed.The result of meticulous research and intimate interviews, Seriously Funny is at once a revelatory cultural history and a joyful commemoration of an extraordinary era in comedy.