Talk Show

For years, Dick Cavett played host to the nations most famous personalities on his late night talk show. In this humorous and evocative book, we get to hear Cavett’s best tales, as he recounts great moments with the legendary entertainers who crossed his path and offers his own trenchant commentary on contemporary American culture and politics. Pull up a chair and listen to Cavett’s stories about gaining one up over Bette Davis, testifying on behalf of John Lennon, confronting Richard Nixon, scheming with John Updike, befriending William F. Buckley, and palling around with Groucho Marx. Sprinkled in are tales of his childhood in Nebraska in the 1940s and 1950s, where he honed his sense of comic timing and his love of magic; then to his great surprise, he found himself at Yale. Cavett is also a wry cultural observer, looking at America today and pointing out the foibles that we so often fail to notice about ourselves. And don’t even get him started on politicians. A generation of Americans ended their evenings in Dick Cavett’s company; “Talk Show” is a way to welcome him back.

Author Biography

Dick Cavett was the host of the The Dick Cavett Show, which won three Emmys and aired on ABC from 1968 to 1975 and on PBS from 1977 to 1982. He also hosted talk shows on the USA, HBO, and CNBC cable networks. He is the coauthor of Cavett and Eye on Cavett, and since 2007 he has written an online opinion column for The New York Times. He lives in New York City and Montauk, New York.