David Margolick: When Caesar was King

Join us for a conversation and book signing with Vanity Fair contributing editor David Margolick to celebrate his new book, the first definitive biography on the one-and-only American comic actor and comedian, Sid Caesar.

PLEASE NOTE: RSVPs are encouraged but not required. Seating is limited and will be first come, first served. Doors open at 5:30 pm.

Can't attend? Order your signed copy (please specify that you would like it signed in the comments box at checkout).

From longtime Vanity Fair contributing editor David Margolick comes the first definitive biography of Sid Caesar: founding father of American comedy and the icon who made modern television.

In the spring of 1954, Sid Caesar was America's number one mensch. Each Saturday night, the 31-year-old sketch comic from Yonkers performed for a crowd of twenty million--some crammed into Manhattan's cavernous Center Theater, but most plopped on their couches, where Caesar beamed back at them through some of the first TVs to light up living rooms.

For many Americans, Caesar was television. And Your Show of Shows, the 90-minute variety program that catapulted him to stardom, was his magnum opus. Onstage, Caesar could be anyone: a befuddled suburban husband, a pretentious expert fibbing through an interview, a gumball machine, a bottle of seltzer. And he could make anything funny. But behind the entertainer was the man: introverted and tongue-tied, an actor whose hardest role was to simply be himself. Few could have known that, within just a few years, Caesar would be off the air. Television's first true star was also its first fall from grace. But in his wake would come the talents he personally nurtured―including Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, and Neil Simon―and the generations of comedians he inspired.

In When Caesar Was King, veteran journalist David Margolick conjures Caesar like few writers can. Deeply researched and brimming with love for its subject, this rollicking and affecting book charts the meteoric rise and fall of a true legend, and his lasting impact on what makes us all laugh.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the author

David Margolick is the author of several books, including Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. MaxSchmeling, and a World on the Brink; Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song; and Elizabethand Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock. He was a longtime contributing editor at Vanity Fair,and before that, a legal affairs reporter at The New York Times, where he wrote the weekly "At the Bar" column. He is currently working on a biography of Dr. Jonas Salk for the "JewishLives" series published by Yale University Press. He lives in New York City.