Impresario: The Life and Times of Ed Sullivan

A perfect mirror of its time, The Ed Sullivan Show ran from 1948 to 1971, echoing this period's every chapter: the birth of television, the conformist 1950s, the dawn of the rock era-featuring a hip-shaking Elvis and the Beatles' U.S. debut - and finally, the tumultuous late 1960s. Through it all, Sullivan presented his signature mix of highbrow and cornpone, Borscht Belt and Middle America, from Fred Astaire to Richard Pryor, Walt Disney to Janis Joplin. He was the variety show producer as curator of national culture. Like his show, Sullivan's life was a mirror of its time, and Impresario, the first major biography of his iconic showman, tells his story as an engaging narrative. From his birth in a Jewish-Irish ghetto in Harlem to his career as a Broadway gossip columnist, his years in the sweat-and-sawdust vaudeville circuit, his stint in Hollywood, and his struggles in television, the man behind the scenes is revealed: mercurial and tyrannical, yet also charming and deeply sentimental. - Publisher.