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A remarkable memoir by one of the most popular and beloved entertainers of the twentieth century When in the mid-1950s Andy Williams reached a low point in his career, singing in dives to ever-smaller audiences, the young man from Wall Lake, Iowa, had no inkling of the success he would one day achieve. Before being declared a national treasure by President Ronald Reagan, Williams would chart eighteen gold and three platinum albums, headline at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for more than twenty years, and host an enormously popular weekly television variety show whose Christmas specials still occupy a tender spot in every baby boomer's heart.
Williams knew everybody who was anybody during his seven remarkable decades in show business (including Judy Garland, John Huston, Jack Lemmon, John Lennon, Elton John, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, and Barbra Streisand, among others) and was a close friend of Bobby Kennedy for many years, and he shares memories of them all in Moon River and Me....
Pop icon Williams's memoir is an entertaining look at a show-business life that began in Iowa and progressed steadily to a worldwide career. After the Williams Brothers Quartet (Andy Williams and his three brothers) broke up in the early 1950s, Williams went out on his own, at first with little success. Eventually, he was given his own television variety show in 1962 and became one of the best-known pop crooners in the post-World War II era. His book is a treasure trove of anecdotes from the celebrity world. He was acquainted with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, Bing Crosby, Chico Marx, Michael Jackson, Elton John, and Fred MacMurray; Williams was a fast friend of Robert and Ethel Kennedy. The singer's fans will be absorbed by his accounts of his early years in the Midwest and Hollywood, his marriage to Claudine Longet and his role in her trial for manslaughter, and his therapeutic use of LSD. VERDICT An entertaining read for those who love celebrity biographies or autobiographies, especially those who remember the pop scene in the 1950s and 1960s.—Bruce R. Schueneman, Texas A&M Univ. Lib., Kingsville
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Evan Oller
reviewed Moon River and Me: A Memoir on October 06, 2014
Moon River and Me: A Memoir
What happens in Oslo, stays in Oslo.
That is why I purchased this memoir by Andy Williams. While I had heard his music and knew him as a famous singer, it was an appearance he made on the radio show, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me that had me looking at him in a different way. The boyish tenor had a sense of humor? Okay, let me read about that.
Williams does not spend the book dissing his peers or going on too much about himself. The reader discovers that Andy never had great confidence and he mostly dreaded going onstage to perform. As he grew older and more famous, he eventually learned to love his profession and his one chapter on the dark side of his life, when he had to sing in tiny clubs to people who didn't care, showed he made his own luck. Williams had a father who drove Andy and his brothers to perform as a group (they were the Williams Brothers before Andy broke out) and the book compares the stressful situations to the fathers of the Osmond Brothers and the Jackson 5. Interesting. Thanks to YouTube, I found a clip featuring the brothers Williams and Osmonds performing a Christmas show.
I didn't know that Williams had an ex-wife who was accused of killing her famous skiing boyfriend. Williams believed she was innocent and stuck by her, although I always have suspicions whenever a person is "accidentally" killed in their bathroom as they are just about to step into the shower. I didn't know that Andy Williams was the very first host of the Grammy Awards or that he changed the Branson, Missouri scene when he opened his top-of-the-line showplace there. I didn't know that it was Williams who paid to have the "W" letter replaced in the iconic Hollywood sign when Hollywood was staggering. So I did learn a few things.
But I prefer the Andy Williams of the 1960s, wearing those cool Sixties sweaters and singing in that angelic tenor. Later plastic surgery made him look rather strange to me, but his music lives on. Music which, thanks to this book, I am now downloading and appreciating.
If I'm remembered at all, I hope to be thought of as a good man who brought much joy to many people, but above all I want to be remembered for my music.
Book Season = Summer (convene to make the scene)
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