Never have your dog stuffed

One of America's most recognizable and acclaimed actors, the only person to ever win Emmys for acting, writing, and directing, Alda has written a memoir as elegant, funny, and affecting as his greatest performances. The son of a popular actor and a loving but mentally ill mother, he spent his early childhood backstage in the erotic and comic world of burlesque and went on, after early struggles, to achieve extraordinary success in his profession. Yet this is not a memoir of show-business ups and downs. It is a story of a boy growing into a man who then realizes he has only just begun to grow. Alda learns the hard way that change, uncertainty, and transformation are what life is made of, and true happiness is found in embracing them.--From publisher description.