Book Description
For two decades, Mike Douglas's name was synonymous
with television entertainment in America. The Mike Douglas
Show, which aired each weekday, became the prototype for
all future talk shows that sought to combine spontaneous
conversation -- on virtually any subject -- with the best in
entertainment. In those twenty years and more than four
thousand shows, virtually all the great performers -- actors,
singers, comics -- and many outstanding sports figures and
prominent statement, Presidents included, appeared with Mike,
performing and chatting informally in front of the show's
many millions of viewers.
Today, almost twenty years after the last show aired, both
Mike Douglas and The Mike Douglas Show have been
introduced to a whole new audience as such cable networks as
VH-1 rerun those shows that featured such musical legends as
John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and Sonny and Cher. At the same
time, a whole new generation of talk show hosts, most
prominent among them the extremely popular Rosie O'Donnell,
have acknowledged the debt of gratitude they owe Mike Douglas
for pioneering in the field of talk entertainment and for
setting so high a standard.
Now, in I'll Be Right Back, Mike Douglas shares his
memories of more than fifty exciting, challenging years in
show business. In a style that is as breezy, witty, and
intimate as the conversations that made his show so
delightful, Mike delivers delicious -- and occasionally
mischievous -- anecdotes about the exciting personalities who
made his show so much fun.
The list of the show's guests and co-hosts (Mike's method
was to find a celebrity "co-host" who would sit
with him for several shows and help interview all the other
guests, as well as entertain each day) reads like a virtual
"Who's Who" of American and international
celebrities. Among the many famous personalities to appear on
The Mike Douglas Show -- and about whom Mike has
stories to tell -- are: Barbra Streisand, Marlon Brando, Fred
Astaire, Malcolm X, Mother Teresa, David Letterman, Richard
Mixon, John Wayne, Phil Donohue, Goldie Hawn, George Wallace,
Judy Garland, Mickey Mantle, Groucho Marx, Jimmy Hoffa,
Sophia Loren, Sammy Davis Jr., Martha Mitchell, Jackie
Gleason, Barbara Walters, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bette Davis,
Rose Kennedy, Muhammad Ali, Joan Crawaford, Jimmy Carter, Mel
Brooks, Bill Cosby, Jack Benny, Dustin Hoffman, Bette Midler,
Ronald Reagan, and Jay Leno.
When these personalities sat next to Mike Douglas, the
outcome in virtually every instance was outstanding
television. Now, in looking back on those years and the
famous and infamous with whom he worked, Mike Douglas
delivers a memoir that is filled with terrific stories, each
one told with wit, nostalgia, and more than a touch of class.
