Nancy Balbirer’s Take Your Shirt Off and Cry is not your average showbiz memoir. For one thing, it is not a success story—at least, not in the usual sense. After a promising beginning, and many false starts, Balbirer never did become a star, or even a consistently working actor, despite her abundant talent, sharp wit, striking looks and vivacious personality. I met the author several years ago, while writing an article about Cause Celeb, a clever series of readings from celebrity autobiographies that she had organized with her friend Charlotte Booker; and the love-hate relationship with Hollywood that informed that series is very much in evidence throughout Take Your Shirt Off and Cry, a candid look at show business from just outside the pearly gates of fame. This is a smart, funny and touching account, remarkably free of self-pity or victimhood, even when (pseudonymously) discussing, say, a handsy male mentor or a treacherous “friend.” There’s a nip in the breeziness of Balbirer’s lively prose: Her observations about the entertainment business, and especially how it pertains to women, have gentle but firm bite. By the end of the book, you are disappointed that things didn’t work out as Balbirer may have wanted, but cheered that the result was a book this engaging. In that regard, Take Your Shirt Off and Cry is very much a success story after all.
Balbirer will read selections from the book—with help from such supercool pals as Cintra Wilson, Mike Albo, Julie Halston and Charles Busch and Peter Frechette—at a fun-sounding launch event at Joe’s Pub on April 27 at 7pm. Tickets are just $15. See you there.
A little goes a long way: That might be the subtitle of Kirstin Chenoweth’s fizzy, funny and fine new autobiography. The famously diminutive actor—”Life’s too short,” she insists in the book, “I’m not”—has risen to extraordinary heights in the musical-theater world and beyond, thanks to a knockout combination of talent, looks and ineffable star charisma. But Chenoweth is a concentrated flavor; this may be one reason she has fared better in supporting roles (Sally in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Glinda in Wicked, Olive on TV’s Pushing Daisies) than in leads (Epic Proportions, the short-lived sitcom Kristin). To her detractors—and all great stars have them—she is overly sweet and disturbingly peppy, the Broadway equivalent of Pop Rocks candy. To her fans, she is a wonder.