Born Standing UpA Comic's Life

The famous comedian revisits his "wild and crazy guy" days with warmth and candor.
Perhaps the best appraisal of the virtues of a young Steve Martin came from populist ruler and king of rock Elvis Presley who, after witnessing one of Martin's stand-up routines, told the 25-year-old comedian, "Son, you have an oblique sense of humor." While Martin has long since traded that "wild and crazy" persona for a buttoned-up career in film and fiction, he revisits his former self in this memoir under the guise of a character study: a "biography of someone I used to know." Martin's warm, patrician voice is the perfect accompaniment to an unsparing look at his early career in stand-up ("the ego's last stand"), an absurd, punch-line-free act built on visuals and improvisation. He smiles politely at the old self, standing onstage draped in balloon animals, Groucho glasses and bunny ears, being "serious for a moment."

The '60s tableau of Martin's youth is straight out of Life magazine: Mickey Mouse, Ed Sullivan, carnies and beatniks. The SoCal teen avoids an unhappy home life by working in a Disneyland magic shop, and finds his calling in the dusty Dariel Fitzkee book Showmanship for Magicians ("More important to me than The Catcher in the Rye.") And like every Ricky Nelson who grows up to become Neal Cassady, late-decade flower power defined Martin's "carefully designed, poetry-quoting, artist persona" and the pothead conceptual act that would make him famous. Caught up in free-love nostalgia, Martin is candid about a string of empty affairs on the road, a nice surprise for those used to his reserve as a writer and performer. The old Martin still makes an appearance with singing and banjo interludes. Bunny ears not included.