For two decades, Mike Douglas's name was synonymous with television entertainment in America. The Mike Douglas Show, which aired each weekday, became the prototype for all future talk shows that sought to combine spontaneous conversation -- on virtually any subject -- with the best in entertainment. In those twenty years and more than four thousand shows, virtually all the great performers -- actors, singers, comics -- and many outstanding sports figures and prominent statement, Presidents included, appeared with Mike, performing and chatting informally in front of the show's many millions of viewers.
Today, almost twenty years after the last show aired, both Mike Douglas and The Mike Douglas Show have been introduced to a whole new audience as such cable networks as VH-1 rerun those shows that featured such musical legends as John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and Sonny and Cher. At the same time, a whole new generation of talk show hosts, most prominent among them the extremely popular Rosie O'Donnell, have acknowledged the debt of gratitude they owe Mike Douglas for pioneering in the field of talk entertainment and for setting so high a standard.
Now, in I'll Be Right Back, Mike Douglas shares his memories of more than fifty exciting, challenging years in show business. In a style that is as breezy, witty, and intimate as the conversations that made his show so delightful, Mike delivers delicious -- and occasionally mischievous -- anecdotes about the exciting personalities who made his show so much fun.
The list of the show's guests and co-hosts (Mike's method was to find a celebrity "co-host" who would sit with him for several shows and help interview all the other guests, as well as entertain each day) reads like a virtual "Who's Who" of American and international celebrities. Among the many famous personalities to appear on The Mike Douglas Show -- and about whom Mike has stories to tell -- are: Barbra Streisand, Marlon Brando, Fred Astaire, Malcolm X, Mother Teresa, David Letterman, Richard Mixon, John Wayne, Phil Donohue, Goldie Hawn, George Wallace, Judy Garland, Mickey Mantle, Groucho Marx, Jimmy Hoffa, Sophia Loren, Sammy Davis Jr., Martha Mitchell, Jackie Gleason, Barbara Walters, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bette Davis, Rose Kennedy, Muhammad Ali, Joan Crawaford, Jimmy Carter, Mel Brooks, Bill Cosby, Jack Benny, Dustin Hoffman, Bette Midler, Ronald Reagan, and Jay Leno.
When these personalities sat next to Mike Douglas, the outcome in virtually every instance was outstanding television. Now, in looking back on those years and the famous and infamous with whom he worked, Mike Douglas delivers a memoir that is filled with terrific stories, each one told with wit, nostalgia, and more than a touch of class.
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