I just completed Tina Fey's newly published memoir, Bossypants. While she certainly has many talents and a lovable zaniness, Tina Fey can never be considered a dilettante. Based on this book, she is a focused, workaholic. All-nighters at work are nothing to her. If she starts a project, she sees it to its end, and sees it done well. Tina is a pioneer in the worlds of comedy writing, producing, and acting. Historically, comedy has been the purview of men. I've long been a fan, since her days at Saturday Night Live. It is hard to realize how she completes all that she does as writer and producer of the television show 30 Rock, as performer, wife and mother. She must not waste a minute of time.
The book tells mostly of the start and rise of her career from the improv days to 30 Rock. She includes information about her adult personal life only in the context of her work. We don't learn details of her meeting and relationship with her husband. We're not even sure of his name. We do hear about the birth of her daughter and her love for her is obvious. She tells about her childhood and her father, who was a very dominant figure in her early life. In true Tina Fey style, her story is told with humor and honesty. She seems without guile and without vanity.
After portraying Sarah Palin on SNL during the last election, she received hate mail from the many fans of Mrs. Palin, but seems undaunted by it. It did help that Mrs. Palin was eventually a guest on the show. Tina Fey really enjoyed imitating her in the "debate" with Amy Pohler as Hillary Clinton.
I recommend the book to anyone wanting a career in television, anyone who admires Tina Fey, and anyone who likes a laugh. The book is just so Tina Fey, or at least the one we know and love on tv.
My only complaint about the book is the cover, a portrait of Tina with great, hairy, man arms, but I think I understand the symbolism. What she does is often seen as the handiwork of men. Only someone without arrogance or vanity could have agreed to that photograph.
( Bossypants by Tina Fey, published by Little Brown and Company, April 2011, $26.99)
The book tells mostly of the start and rise of her career from the improv days to 30 Rock. She includes information about her adult personal life only in the context of her work. We don't learn details of her meeting and relationship with her husband. We're not even sure of his name. We do hear about the birth of her daughter and her love for her is obvious. She tells about her childhood and her father, who was a very dominant figure in her early life. In true Tina Fey style, her story is told with humor and honesty. She seems without guile and without vanity.
After portraying Sarah Palin on SNL during the last election, she received hate mail from the many fans of Mrs. Palin, but seems undaunted by it. It did help that Mrs. Palin was eventually a guest on the show. Tina Fey really enjoyed imitating her in the "debate" with Amy Pohler as Hillary Clinton.
I recommend the book to anyone wanting a career in television, anyone who admires Tina Fey, and anyone who likes a laugh. The book is just so Tina Fey, or at least the one we know and love on tv.
My only complaint about the book is the cover, a portrait of Tina with great, hairy, man arms, but I think I understand the symbolism. What she does is often seen as the handiwork of men. Only someone without arrogance or vanity could have agreed to that photograph.
( Bossypants by Tina Fey, published by Little Brown and Company, April 2011, $26.99)
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