Big Kiss

"I'd like to thank the Academy and all of the little people who made Henry Alford's hilarious book possible. Mr. Alford delivers a performance that is laugh-out-loud funny and written with high style." --Christopher Buckley, author of Little Green Men Henry Alford was a well-adjusted, critically acclaimed author living quietly in New York City. Then he decided to become an actor. In the course of this memoir, Alford is rejected by directors, ignored by casting people, abused by a sadistic acting teacher, and educated in the finer points of Shakespearean thespianism at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in England, where he fails to convince the Queen to attend his final performance. Along the way, Alford auditions for the role of Wil-bur the Pig in Charlotte's Web, triumphs as an extra in Godzilla, and takes his sixty-nine-year-old bird-watching, chain-smoking mother to improvisational-comedy camp. Hoping to broaden his range, he takes a job with a phone-sex business, where he assays many roles on a popular party line. Finally, Alford finds happiness and celebrity as the cohost of VH1's hit series Rock of Ages, on which he quizzes elderly Italian women, among others, about videos by heavy-metal groups. Original, absurd, and written with true comic grace, Big Kiss captures in a new and unforgettable way the experience of being a performer.