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Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I've Learned | 
| Author: Alan Alda
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Rating:  109 reviews
Sales Rank: 17958
Media: Paperback
Pages: 272
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 0812974409
Dewey Decimal Number: 921
EAN: 9780812974409
ASIN: 0812974409
Publication Date: September 12, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
Alan Alda's autobiography travels a path less taken. Instead of a sensationalist, name-dropping page-turner, Alda writes about his life as a memory play, an exercise in recollecting his childhood, his parents (dad Robert was a veteran on stage, film, and vaudeville), and his career. You want to know about Alda's most famous work, the eleven years on M*A*S*H? You have exactly 16 pages to do so, and guess what: It's one of the least entertaining parts of the book. But should fans of the award-winning actor-writer-director avoid this slim memoir? Not in the slightest. Slyly humorous and open-hearted, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed is a breezy, most enjoyable read. Alda's ability to recall his childhood (including backstage at raunchy vaudeville shows), school years, stage struggles and successes is as entertaining as one of his Emmy-winning teleplays. Alda is inordinately attune recalling life's crystallizing moments: when religion no longer worked for him, how something in his pocket made him forever a better actor, or his mother's painful descent into dementia. Alda's ever present humor is a great asset whether telling a charming love story on meeting his wife Arlene or a life-threatening illness in a remote part of Chile ("I am in and out of consciences, but I never take a break from the screaming. The show must go on."). Like Alda's persona, his book is more human and less flash. What would be filler in most books is often the mot entertaining and revealing here; especially Alda's dynamic relationship with his parents. Really, who else would name his memoir after an unfortunate trip to the taxidermist? The year the book was published during a revival for the 69-year-old; he was nominated for an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony in the same year. --Doug Thomas
Product Description
He’s one of America’s most recognizable and acclaimed actors–a star on Broadway, an Oscar nominee for The Aviator, and the only person to ever win Emmys for acting, writing, and directing, during his eleven years on M*A*S*H. Now Alan Alda has written a memoir as elegant, funny, and affecting as his greatest performances.
“My mother didn’t try to stab my father until I was six,” begins Alda’s irresistible story. 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 Never Have Your Dog Stuffed is not a memoir of show-business ups and downs. It is a moving and funny story of a boy growing into a man who then realizes he has only just begun to grow.
It is the story of turning points in Alda’s life, events that would make him what he is–if only he could survive them.
From the moment as a boy when his dead dog is returned from the taxidermist’s shop with a hideous expression on his face, and he learns that death can’t be undone, to the decades-long effort to find compassion for the mother he lived with but never knew, to his acceptance of his father, both personally and professionally, Alda learns the hard way that change, uncertainty, and transformation are what life is made of, and true happiness is found in embracing them.
Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, filled with curiosity about nature, good humor, and honesty, is the crowning achievement of an actor, author, and director, but surprisingly, it is the story of a life more filled with turbulence and laughter than any Alda has ever played on the stage or screen.
From the Hardcover edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 104 more reviews...
 Touching and hilarious April 10, 2009
Victoria Giraud (Sherman Oaks, CA)
Not only is Alan Alda smart and funny on TV and in movies, but he's a terrific writer. His life hasn't been an easy one but he persisted with optimism and garnered plenty of wisdom and lots of laughs from his experiences.
Speaking about mental illness and learning to listen February 11, 2009
J. Green (Los Angeles, California)
When I was 11 or 12 years old I discovered M*A*S*H. I've seen every episode multiple times - so many that it's sometimes difficult to watch anymore. But I've always felt that Hawkeye had a distinct impression upon my own sense of humor; at times a little sarcastic but generally what I like to think is somewhat sophisticated (my wife would disagree while rolling her eyes). So after hearing Alan Alda on the radio I thought this might be an interesting book.
This isn't what you typically imagine when you think of a Hollywood memoir. Maybe that's because (I think) Alan Alda is truly a nice guy. He and his wife of 50 years have raised three daughters, and when he talks of some of the conditions that she put up with it's obvious he knows how lucky he is to have her. But he also discusses his childhood with a father in burlesque and a schizophrenic mother and relates a series of memories and events that shaped him as an adult. When his dog died his father had it stuffed at the taxidermist rather than face the tears while they tried to bury it, and he uses this to illustrate the futility in trying to hang onto things that are gone - a recurrent theme in this book. He also talks about some of the hard feelings he had for his parents, and how he regrets the things that were left unsaid after they had passed away. He doesn't discuss M*A*S*H in great detail (and there's no bad-mouthing his fellow actors here) but what he said was nice to hear. He talks more about his involvement with the PBS show "Scientific American Frontiers" and his brush with death with an obstructed bowel while filming in Chile.
And while I was a little put off by the tone of the book in the beginning (there's occasional profanity and some things sounded like he was just trying to be funny instead of really saying anything) it felt like he was just having a conversation with you. I listened to it on CD and I wish it had been read by Alda himself, but I eventually got past that as well. In fact, by the end, I actually felt like I kind of knew the guy, even though it was obvious that he was using caution in what he revealed. But he sounded like the kind of person you'd be happy to have as a friend, even if he is sort of crazy.
 never stuff your dog February 1, 2009
J. Savini (pennsylvania)
This book is not what I expected, although I enjoy Alda's dry and sarcastic humor. I found the book somewhat depressing.
Great Response November 16, 2008
Maud Wiley
I received this book in a very timely manner. I would recommend this book for everyone to read. Lots of humor and sense.
Superior (and unusual) memoir October 27, 2008
Danno (NY, NY)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Never Have Your Dog Stuffed" is my favorite recent memoir, even if author Alan Alda isn't my favorite actor. This is the rare book that permits us to penetrate the image of the person we thought we knew, and catch a glimpse of the person the author really is. Alda is an exceptionally skilled writer, and records the details of his many adventures with a succinct flair and a constant, self-depreciating wit. From "MASH" to his many (often forgotten) motion pictures, Alda wisely avoids backstage trivia in favor of sharing stories about what seems to be a warm, genuine, and quirky life. His relationship with both his parents is truly bittersweet, and his relationship with his wife and daughters is inspiring. I was especially enthralled by his droll, matter-of-fact account of his nearly fatal intestinal problems while filming a Scientific American segment in Chile. That chapter alone deserves some kind of award!
I left this book with a much better sense of Alan Alda as a well-rounded human being who also just happens to have been one of the most popular TV actors of the 20th Century. It's like an interesting and surprising visit with an acquaintance you thought you knew.
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