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List Price: $14.95 | | Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Salesrank: 40554
Released: September 12, 2006 |
| Our Price: $1.55 |
| Used Price: $0.01 |
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| Media: Paperback |
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Editorial Review:
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.
Description of Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I've Learned:
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
Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I've Learned Reviews:
Wonderful piece of work. 
2009-11-30 - I have long been a fan of M*A*S*H and originally read this book because of that fact only. This book was a real treat to read though. Alda is one of the best, raw, most literal writers out there. He writes with such simplicity, rather than phoney self uplifting, he writes simply what he thinks, in the most basic way. I enjoyed this book more than the one that follows it, Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself, but both books are fantastic. Shortly after finishing his second book. I wrote Alda saying how much I enjoyed them. Hardly expecting a response, I received a very short, yet heartfelt letter from him less than a month from when I had shipped my own out. An incredibly smart man, don't pass up this book!
stuffed dog
2009-10-06 - First time ever to order using Amazon. The process is very simple and efficient. Alda's book speaks about life lessons he learned growing up, acting, parenting and writing. Laugh out loud funny at times. Quite poignant at others. The man is as deep as the serious side of his character, Hawkeye Pierce. But it's not about Hawkeye! Thanks Amazon and thank you Mr. Alda!
I couldn't put it down!!!
2009-09-12 - I am not usually a reader of biography/autobiography, but at the recommendation of a friend I picked this up. I have only three words to say about it--best thing ever. It is funny, thought-provoking, and entertaining as hell.
Like a macaroon 
2009-08-01 - The book is an almost-perfect confection. Delicious, but something, something is .... missing.
Mr. Alda's writing style is clear, clean. I like the philosophical jewels he tucks into a paragraph for readers to pick up or not. Some of his imagery is superb. On Larry Gelbart fixing a script: "Larry would come right over on his bicycle, take out his wrench, and reach into the speech to tighten a word here or knock a phrase sideways there, and pretty soon it was sailing again."
When I read the story of his poor, dead, stuffed dog, I felt a little underwhelmed, and wondered how he would use the story later to warrant its place in the book's title. Well, he did carry that off quite well, and without hitting the reader over the head with the lessons.
I was touched by Mr. Alda's descriptions of his relationship with each of his parents, the father he adored/competed with/sometimes looked down on, and the mother he hated/loved. I felt sad for the tragedy of his mother's mental illness: the rage he felt toward her, but also the prison in which she resided without treatment.
I laughed out loud when he told the story about pulling the cockroach out of his pants pocket while on stage.
Although Mr. Alda allows the reader glimpses of his life with Arlene and their daughters, I wish there had been more depth there, and I think this could have been possible without compromising their privacy. Did Arlene continue with her music? How did she come to be a children's book author and photographer (as revealed only on the book jacket)? Did his daughters produce the seven grandchildren by immaculate conception or were there partners involved - I mean, he names the grandchildren, but there is utterly no mention of their fathers. He makes reference to getting the girls somewhat involved in acting when they were adolescents, but then makes no mention of their professional lives later.
Touching and hilarious
2009-04-10 - Not only is Alan Alda smart and funny on TV and in movies, but he's a terrific writer. His life hasn't been an easy one but he persisted with optimism and garnered plenty of wisdom and lots of laughs from his experiences.
