- Title: Sit, Ubu, Sit: How I went from Brooklyn to Hollywood with the Same Woman, the Same Dog, and a Lot Less Hair
- Author: Gary David Goldberg
- Released: 2008-02-05
- Language: English
- Pages: 272
- ISBN: 0307394182
- ISBN13: 978-0307394187
- ASIN: 0307394182
From Publishers Weekly
Goldberg, a TV scriptwriter and producer, fondly recalls his rocky, improbable route to Hollywood success, including the people who helped him along the way. Funny, dry and self-deprecating, Goldberg cuts swiftly through the years, from the mid-1950s growing up in a loving extended Jewish family in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, to his scruffy vagabonding in 1972 in Europe with his pregnant girlfriend, Diana, and their canny Labrador dog, Ubu. He sold his first scripts to TV shows in the 1970s, prompting his move from New York to California with Diana, who opened a day-care center. Goldberg took a class with scriptwriter Nate Monaster, who motivated him and helped submit his work to Los Angeles producers. Soon enough, Goldberg's scripts for the Bob Newhart Show, the Tony Randall Show and the MTM empire gave him the clout to start his own company, UBU (named for the beloved dog he eventually gave away, by the by), launching such pilots as Family Ties for the networks. Indeed, Goldberg's memoir is a kind of love letter to longtime partner Diana as well as to Michael J. Fox, with whom he later worked on Spin City. His professed guilt for making fistfuls of money while making people laugh renders this work effortlessly likable. (Feb.)
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Review
“Very funny. Very touching . . . and not a lot of big words. Gary is many things: a great boss, a smart writer, a very good basketball player . . . and now an even better author.”
—George Clooney
“Sit, Ubu, Sit is a poignant, hilarious, humble book—but at its heart a true love story. I couldn’t put it down.”—Julia Louis-Dreyfus
“Gary David Goldberg has a heart the size of Brooklyn, and you’ll feel it beating on each and every page of this sweet, beautifully written love story.”
—Claire Cook, author of Must Love Dogs and Life’s a Beach
“Full of love and laughter . . . Reading Sit, Ubu, Sit is like the best walk in the park on the most beautiful day of the year with your best dog, friend, or lover. You never want the experience to end.”
—Pat Mitchell, President and CEO, The Paley Center for Media
“Funny, dry, and self-deprecating...A love letter to longtime partner Diana as well as Michael J. Fox....Effortlessly likable.”
—Publishers Weekly