About the Book
KEYNOTE: An incredible collection of celebrity stories and photographs from 1934 to the present, from the archives of "The Lyons Den" by eminent New York Post columnist Leonard Lyons, compiled by his son, movie critic Jeffrey Lyons. This amazing collection of choice anecdotes takes us right back to the Golden Age of New York City nightlife, when top restaurants like Toots Shor's, 21, and Sardi's, as well as glittering nightclubs like the Stork Club, The Latin Quarter, and El Morocco, were the nightly gathering spots for great figures of that era: movie and Broadway stars, baseball players, champion boxers, comedians, diplomats, British royalty, prize-winning authors, and famous painters. From Charlie Chaplin to Winston Churchill, from Ethel Barrymore to Sophia Loren, from George Burns to Ernest Hemingway, from Joe DiMaggio to the Duke of Windsor: Leonard Lyons knew them all. For forty glorious years, from 1934 to 1974, he made the daily rounds of Gotham nightspots, collecting the exclusive scoops and revelations that were at the core of his famous newspaper column, The Lyons Den. In this entertaining volume Jeffrey Lyons has assembled a considerable compilation of anecdotes from his father's best columns, and has also contributed a selection of his own in-depth interviews conducted on his own TV shows with George Clooney, Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Dame Judi Dench, George Carlin, Dennis Hopper, Sir Michael Caine, Sir Ben Kingsley and other current stars. Organized chronologically by decade and subdivided by celebrity, Stories My Father Told Me offers fascinating and amusing stories illustrated by some sixty archival photographs. He so captured the tenor of those exciting times that the great Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg said: Imagine how much richer American history would have been had there been a Leonard Lyons in Lincoln's time. Jeffrey Lyons grew up in a home visited by many of the greats of his father's time. His forty-year career continues in television, radio, and print. A movie critic and baseball author, Lyons has acted in two films, reviewed more than 15,000 movies and hundreds of Broadway plays, broadcast baseball for the Red Sox, and interviewed virtually every major star of his own time. Lyons co-hosted three national movie review shows: Sneak Previews, MSNBC's At the Movies, and Reel Talk. Jeffrey Lyons is also the co-author of 101 Great Movies for Kids and three baseball trivia books. He hopes to see his beloved Red Sox win another World Series. Soon. REVIEWS: No one did more to promote New York's deserved reputation as a capital of glamour and culture...a century after his birth, the legacy of Leonard Lyons lives on. The names on the marquee may have changed, but the memory of Leonard Lyons remains a guiding light in New York City's cultural community. -- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg For four decades 'The Lyons Den' was an institution and will be invaluable to historians seeking behind-the-scenes glimpses of that long era. -- Clyde Haberman of the New York Post "A veritable storm of outtakes from Leonard Lyons' 'Lyons Den' society column from the New York Post, which dazzle rather than titillate... this collection is a treat..." -- Kirkus Reviews "What emerges is an engrossing journey through the cultural nightlife of a lost Manhattan of swanky, smoke-filled nightclubs and exclusive eateries, theater openings, and film premieres...A fun read filled with tales of some of the 20th century's biggest luminaries." -- Library Journal ILLUSTRATIONS: 60 photographs
Table of Contents:
Foreword by Charles Osgood Introduction 'The Thirties Irving Berlin George Burns Sir Charlie Chaplin Ty Cobb Gary Cooper Noel Coward Albert Einstein J. Edgar Hoover Sinclair Lewis Groucho Marx and his brothers W. Somerset Maugham Pablo Picasso George Bernard Shaw The Duke & Duchess of Windsor 'The Forties Tallulah Bankhead David Ben-Gurion Thomas Hart Benton Ingrid Bergman Milton Berle Humphrey Bogart Charles Boyer Winston Churchill Joe DiMaggio John Garfield Sam Goldwyn Cary Grant Howard Hughes George S. Kaufman Danny Kaye Helen Keller Charles Laughton Gypsy Rose Lee Oscar Levant George S. Patton Edward G. Robinson Carl Sandburg John Steinbeck Harry S. Truman Orson Welles 'The Fifties Lauren Bacall Marlon Brando Yul Brynner Ralph Bunche Marc Chagall Salvador Dali Kirk Douglas Jackie Gleason Rex Harrison Ernest Hemingway Audrey Hepburn Sir Alfred Hitchcock Judy Holliday Grace Kelly Ethel Merman James A. Michener Marilyn Monroe Lord Laurence Olivier Otto Preminger Rocky Marciano William Saroyan Phil Silvers Frank Sinatra 'The Sixties Brendan Behan Richard Burton Truman Capote Dustin Hoffman Lyndon B. Johnson John F. Kennedy Sophia Loren Paul Newman Barbra Streisand Billy Wilder Shelley Winters Peter Ustinov The Next Generation Antonio Banderas Javier Bardem Cate Blanchett Michael Caine George Carlin George Clooney Penelope Cruz Dame Judi Dench Clint Eastwood Ralph Fiennes Dennis Hopper Samuel L. Jackson Sir Ben Kingsley Jay Leno William Shatner Epilogue Index
About the Author :
Jeffrey Lyons grew up in a home visited by many of the greats of his father’s time. His forty-year career continues in television, radio, and print. A movie critic and baseball author, Lyons has acted in two films, reviewed more than 15,000 movies and hundreds of Broadway plays, broadcast baseball for the Red Sox, and interviewed virtually every major star of his own time. Lyons co-hosted three national movie review shows: Sneak Previews, MSNBC's At the Movies, and Reel Talk. Jeffrey Lyons is also the co-author of 101 Great Movies for Kids and three baseball trivia books. He hopes to see his beloved Red Sox win another World Series. Soon.
Review :
"These stories are wonderful! I saw Leonard Lyons on a lot of nights out in Manhattan and if he told these stories, they're true!"--Kirk Douglas "Leonard Lyons genuinely admired the people he wrote about. And knowing this, they would open up to him and tell him the colorful stories that were his bread and butter, and that the readers loved." --Charles Osgood, from the Foreword "No one did more to promote New York's deserved reputation as a capital of glamour and culture...a century after his birth, the legacy of Leonard Lyons lives on. The names on the marquee may have changed, but the memory of Leonard Lyons remains a guiding light in New York City's cultural community." --New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg "For four decades 'The Lyons Den' was an institution and will be invaluable to historians seeking behind-the-scenes glimpses of that long era." --Clyde Haberman, formerly of the New York Post (1976 tribute)
