We get the culture we deserve, and today we don't deserve a Dick Cavett, apparently. The splitting of mass media into thousands of tiny slices has made commonality of experience much rarer. Shows that draw 1 million viewers today are hits; in the '70s the top-rated shows drew 30 million viewers a week. I can't even picture a "public intellectual" today of the kind that Cavett regularly interviewed. Does one exist? Cavett takes the form of a Q&A biography, packed with entertaining show-biz anecdotes. The Nebraskan who landed in New York via Yale was a hustler who knocked on doors – literally – and wandered into offices looking for work. As an actor, writer, stand-up comedian, and eventually host of his own show, Cavett relied on his quick wit, a quality evident throughout this 1974 volume.
No comments:
Post a Comment