Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I've Learned
He’s one of America’s most recognizable and acclaimed actors–a star on Broadway, an Oscar nominee for The Aviator, and the only person to ever win Emmys for acting, writing, and directing, during his eleven years on M*A*S*H. Now Alan Alda has written a memoir as elegant, funny, and affecting as his greatest performances.“My mother didn’t try to stab my father until I was six,” begins Alda’s irresistible story. The son of a popular actor and a loving but mentally ill mother, he spent his early childhood backstage in the erotic and comic world of burlesque and went on, after early struggles, to achieve extraordinary success in his profession.
Yet Never Have Your Dog Stuffed is not a memoir of show-business ups and downs. It is a moving and funny story of a boy growing into a man who then realizes he has only just begun to grow.
It is the story of turning points in Alda’s life, events that would make him what he is–if only he could survive them.
From the moment as a boy when his dead dog is returned from the taxidermist’s shop with a hideous expression on his face, and he learns that death can’t be undone, to the decades-long effort to find compassion for the mother he lived with but never knew, to his acceptance of his father, both personally and professionally, Alda learns the hard way that change, uncertainty, and transformation are what life is made of, and true happiness is found in embracing them.
Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, filled with curiosity about nature, good humor, and honesty, is the crowning achievement of an actor, author, and director, but surprisingly, it is the story of a life more filled with turbulence and laughter than any Alda has ever played on the stage or screen.
From the Hardcover edition.
Product Details
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Alan Alda's autobiography travels a path less taken. Instead of a sensationalist, name-dropping page-turner, Alda writes about his life as a memory play, an exercise in recollecting his childhood, his parents (dad Robert was a veteran on stage, film, and vaudeville), and his career. You want to know about Alda's most famous work, the eleven years on M*A*S*H? You have exactly 16 pages to do so, and guess what: It's one of the least entertaining parts of the book. But should fans of the award-winning actor-writer-director avoid this slim memoir? Not in the slightest. Slyly humorous and open-hearted, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed is a breezy, most enjoyable read. Alda's ability to recall his childhood (including backstage at raunchy vaudeville shows), school years, stage struggles and successes is as entertaining as one of his Emmy-winning teleplays. Alda is inordinately attune recalling life's crystallizing moments: when religion no longer worked for him, how something in his pocket made him forever a better actor, or his mother's painful descent into dementia. Alda's ever present humor is a great asset whether telling a charming love story on meeting his wife Arlene or a life-threatening illness in a remote part of Chile ("I am in and out of consciences, but I never take a break from the screaming. The show must go on."). Like Alda's persona, his book is more human and less flash. What would be filler in most books is often the mot entertaining and revealing here; especially Alda's dynamic relationship with his parents. Really, who else would name his memoir after an unfortunate trip to the taxidermist? The year the book was published during a revival for the 69-year-old; he was nominated for an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony in the same year. --Doug Thomas
From Publishers Weekly
While listening to Alda's colorful and often poignant recollections, it becomes clear that, in addition to being a consummate actor, he is an introspective storyteller who isn't constrained by memory. Indeed, Alda's tales are sometimes surreally vivid, particularly those from when he was a toddler. "From my earliest days, I was standing off to the side watching, trying to understand a world that fascinated me," he recalls. Alda's autobiography is equally fascinating. With a touch of wonderment in his voice, he tells of weeks spent traveling with his father's burlesque company, of time spent with his dog Rhapsody (before he was stuffed), of a lifetime spent coping with his mother's mental illness and of the highs and lows of his acting career. Though the organization of these musings can feel disjointed, Alda's intimate, dynamic narration makes one feel as if you're sitting across from a wise and entertaining friend, the kind you could listen to for hours.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Alda, Emmy winning star of television's M*A*S*H as well as a writer and director, candidly details his turbulent childhood and the lessons he learned during his event-filled life in this breezy collection of remembrances and anecdotes. His father, Robert, was a fairly famous actor, and this led to a somewhat unconventional lifestyle (for the 1940s and 1950s anyway) for young Alan. Fondly, he remembers traveling around the country following his father's career and hanging out with unusual characters from his father's burlesque shows, while at the same time dealing with real adolescent troubles, such as encounters with bullies at the various schools where he never really fit in. He also shares details of the family's struggles with his mother's undiagnosed schizophrenia. Alda shows how he not only coped with these hurdles but also learned from them, as stories from his successful adult life round out the book. Refreshingly, this collection of biographical sketches is written in a good-natured and compassionate way. A large publicity effort is under way for this release, and Alda is a well-liked and well-known celebrity, so librarians should stock up. Kathleen Hughes
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Customer Reviews
Great Response
I received this book in a very timely manner. I would recommend this book for everyone to read. Lots of humor and sense.
Superior (and unusual) memoir
"Never Have Your Dog Stuffed" is my favorite recent memoir, even if author Alan Alda isn't my favorite actor. This is the rare book that permits us to penetrate the image of the person we thought we knew, and catch a glimpse of the person the author really is. Alda is an exceptionally skilled writer, and records the details of his many adventures with a succinct flair and a constant, self-depreciating wit. From "MASH" to his many (often forgotten) motion pictures, Alda wisely avoids backstage trivia in favor of sharing stories about what seems to be a warm, genuine, and quirky life. His relationship with both his parents is truly bittersweet, and his relationship with his wife and daughters is inspiring. I was especially enthralled by his droll, matter-of-fact account of his nearly fatal intestinal problems while filming a Scientific American segment in Chile. That chapter alone deserves some kind of award!
I left this book with a much better sense of Alan Alda as a well-rounded human being who also just happens to have been one of the most popular TV actors of the 20th Century. It's like an interesting and surprising visit with an acquaintance you thought you knew.
Getting to the heart of Hawkeye
As a lover of M*A*S*H I jumped at this book and I'm glad I did.
Alan Alda paints the portrait of his life with beautiful detail. I learned about the relationship he had with his parents. I didn't find the relationship he had with his dad to surprising. I sensed that a lot of who he is today comes from the foundational relationship he had with his dad.
His mom on the other hand was very interesting to read about. I could sense his pain as he described what their relationship was like and at times how he wished it could have been.
I wish he had spent more time on MASH memories and such, but I don't think he should have taken out anything that was in there.
In short you sense the person he was that made him the person he is. I really enjoyed it. Anyone who loves MASH, or is just an Alan Alda fan should grab this book.
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