I'm Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High Times in Stand-Up Comedy's Golden Era

In the Mid-1970s, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Andy Kaufman, Richard Lewis, Robin Williams, Elayne Boosler, Tom Dreesen, and several hundred other shameless showoffs and incorrigible cutups from all across the country migrated en masse to Los Angeles, the new home of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. There, in a late-night world of sex, drugs, dreams, and laughter, they created an artistic community unlike any before or since. It was Comedy Camelot---but it couldn't last. In I'm Dying Up Here, William Knoedelseder tells the whole story of that golden age, of the strike that ended it, and of how those days still resonate in the lives of those who were there. As comedy clubs and cable TV began to boom, many would achieve stardom...but success had its price.