On the Bookshelf
anthologies
THREE AUTHORS:
Doug Garr,
Ross Klavan
Charles Salzberg
Painting by Ron Leach
soupy & ME
As a kid growing up in New York City, The Soupy Sales Show was must-see TV. One day, an agent friend asked me if I’d like to work with Soupy on his memoir. I don’t know if I actually said, “are you kidding?!” but that’s certainly the way I felt. I’d get to hang out with a childhood idol!
I was hired without even meeting Soupy, but when I did I realized that although his mind was totally intact, and he was as sweet and kind a man as I hoped he would be, he had a lot of trouble speaking. He’d start off fine, but five or six minutes into the conversation his voice would begin to “droop,” and within a few minutes later, I could hardly hear him at all.
How could I possibly collaborate on someone’s memoir if he was unable to talk to me about his life? I had to come up with a plan.
It struck me that I could find people who knew Soupy, both privately and professionally, and interview them about Soupy and his show. That way, I could use whatever Soupy was able to tell me directly, whatever research I could find and also let the reader hear these old friends and coworkers talk about Soupy and his career.
Fortunately, most of them were still around, and so, when and if you read the book, you’ll see that I was able to give the reader an inside look at Soupy Sales without him opening his mouth.