
Don Rickles
The Merchant of Venom
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Narrated by:
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Johnny Heller
About this listen
Riding a wave of success that lasted more than sixty years, Don Rickles is best known as the "insult" comic who skewered presidents, royalty, celebrities, and friends and fans alike. But there was more to "Mr. Warmth" than a devilish ear-to-ear grin and lightning-fast put-downs. Rickles was a loving husband, an adoring father who suffered a devastating loss, and a loyal friend to the likes of Bob Newhart and Frank Sinatra. Sex, race, religion, nationality, physical appearance, political leanings—nothing and no one was safe from the "Planned Parenthood Poster Boy," as Johnny Carson referred to him.
The Merchant of Venom traces Don Rickles's career from his rise in the 1950s to a late-in-life resurgence thanks to the Toy Story franchise, his role in Martin Scorsese's Casino, and scores of TV appearances from Carson to Seth Meyers. In the intervening decades, Rickles conquered every medium he worked in, including film, television, and on stage. He was idolized by a generation of younger comedians including Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, and Jay Leno, and performed in the shadow of a shocking open secret: he was the nicest man in town.
An in-depth portrait of the personal and singular professional life of Don Rickles, The Merchant of Venom delivers a hilarious, moving, and long-overdue look at the real man behind the sting.
©2022 Michael Seth Starr (P)2022 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
In the 1950s, Confidential magazine, America's first celebrity scandal magazine, revealed Hollywood stars' secrets, misdeeds, and transgressions in gritty, unvarnished detail. Deploying a vast network of tipsters to root out stars' sexual affairs, drug use, and sexuality, publisher Robert Harrison destroyed celebrities' carefully constructed images and built a media empire. Confidential became the best-selling magazine on American newsstands in the 1950s, surpassing Time, Life, and the Saturday Evening Post. Confidential's spectacular rise was followed by an equally spectacular fall.
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Fascinating! Painstaking Research & Documentation
- By A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. on 05-22-19
By: Samantha Barbas
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Hank and Jim
- The Fifty-Year Friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart
- By: Scott Eyman
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Henry Fonda and James Stewart were two of the biggest stars in Hollywood for 40 years. They became friends and then roommates as stage actors in New York, and when they began making films in Hollywood, they roomed together again. Between them they made such memorable films as The Grapes of Wrath, Mister Roberts, Twelve Angry Men, and On Golden Pond; and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Destry Rides Again, The Philadelphia Story, It's a Wonderful Life, Vertigo, and Rear Window.
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Fascinating look into these two actors' lives
- By MPAMIN on 06-25-18
By: Scott Eyman
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The Late Shift
- Letterman, Leno, & the Network Battle for the Night
- By: Bill Carter
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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When beloved host Johnny Carson announced his retirement after 30 years on The Tonight Show, millions of Americans mourned. But inside the television industry, the news ignited a battle between two amazing talents - Jay Leno and David Letterman - who both yearned to occupy the departing legend's chair. For NBC, it would be a decision with millions of dollars at stake. Soon these two comedians with strikingly different styles, who had once shared a friendship as they worked the clubs together, would be engaged in a fierce competition for the prize.
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Very detailed, spectacular, and riveting!
- By John Collins on 02-09-21
By: Bill Carter
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Tragic Hollywood, Beautiful, Glamorous And Dead
- By: Jackie Ganiy
- Narrated by: Virtual Voice
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Have you always been fascinated by the morbid side of Hollywood? Did you cut your teeth on books like Hollywood Babylon, and shows like Mysteries And Scandals? This book promises to deliver all the salacious details about the stars you remember, not for their films, but for their tragic short lives. What really happened to Natalie Wood aboard The Splendor that cold November night? Was Jayne Mansfield really decapitated? Just how decadent were the days of the silent movies? Maybe you think you've heard it all? Trust me, you haven't! Chock full of new details, shocking photos and even a ...
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A Thorough History of Hollywood Stars
- By teresa e. green on 06-16-25
By: Jackie Ganiy
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The Improv
- An Oral History of the Comedy Club That Revolutionized Stand-Up
- By: Budd Friedman, Tripp Whetsell, Jay Leno - foreword
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1963, 30-year-old Friedman - who had recently quit his job as a Boston advertising executive and returned to his hometown of New York to become a theatrical producer - opened a coffee house for Broadway performers called the Improvisation. His goal? Simply to make a living, and if all went according to plan, to also make enough professional contacts to be able to mount his first Broadway show within a year's time. Later shortened to the Improv, its first West 44th Street location was in a seedy section of Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen.
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Shockingly tone deaf
- By JenniferW on 06-28-23
By: Budd Friedman, and others
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Live from New York
- An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live
- By: Tom Shales, James Andrew Miller
- Narrated by: Christopher Burns, Eric Conger
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Abridged
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A history of Saturday Night Live that finally reveals what really went on backstage, on the set, in the writers' offices, and on the town. Dozens of stars, writers, and guest hosts recall the backstage gossip, feuds, foibles, drugs, sex, struggles, and calamities of the show that changed television.
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Interesting inside look, so-so presentation
- By Tim on 12-22-02
By: Tom Shales, and others
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A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever
- The Story of Spinal Tap
- By: Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and others
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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For the first time, director Rob Reiner and cocreators Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer provide the full behind-the-scenes story of the making of the groundbreaking mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap and its upcoming sequel.
By: Rob Reiner, and others
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Johnny Carson
- By: Henry Bushkin
- Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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“Here’s Johnny!” Probably everyone in America knows the phrase, whether they watched every episode of The Tonight Show or none because they had to go to bed early on school nights. From 1962 to 1992, Johnny Carson and his Tonight Show dominated the American consciousness. Henry Bushkin was Carson’s best friend and lawyer during that period, and his book is a tautly rendered and remarkably nuanced portrait of Carson, revealing not only how he truly was, but why.
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The good, the bad and the ugly. A five star story of the king of late night
- By Richard A on 05-23-24
By: Henry Bushkin
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Seinfeldia
- How a Show About Nothing Changed Everything
- By: Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Comedians Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld never thought anyone would watch their silly little sitcom about a New York comedian sitting around talking to his friends. NBC executives didn't think anyone would watch either, but they bought it anyway, hiding it away in the TV dead zone of summer. But against all odds, viewers began to watch, first a few and then many, until nine years later nearly 40 million Americans were tuning in weekly.
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This bad narration is making me thirsty...
- By Audio Gra Gra on 10-06-16
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Young Frankenstein: A Mel Brooks Book
- The Story of the Making of the Film
- By: Mel Brooks, Judd Apatow - foreword
- Narrated by: Mel Brooks, Michael Gruskoff, Robert Petkoff, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Mel Brooks' own words telling all about the players, the filming, and studio antics during the production of this great comedy classic. The audiobook is alive and teeming with hundreds of photos, original interviews, and hilarious commentary. Young Frankenstein was made with deep respect for the craft and history of cinema-and for the power of a good schwanzstucker joke. This audiobook will also rely on interviews with gifted director of photography Gerald Hirschfeld, Academy Award-winning actress Cloris Leachman, and veteran producer Michael Gruskoff.
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too short
- By William S. Downs on 10-19-16
By: Mel Brooks, and others
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Hollywood Hellraisers
- The Wild Lives and Fast Times of Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper, Warren Beatty, and Jack Nicholson
- By: Robert Sellers
- Narrated by: Jim Frangione
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In his follow-up to the acclaimed Hellraisers, Sellers traces the intertwining lives and careers of four outrageous Hollywood movie mavericks. They’re the baddest bad-asses Hollywood as ever seen: Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper, Warren Beatty, and Jack Nicholson. They are men to whom rules did not apply; normal standards of behavior were simply too wearisome to worry about.
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not much of interest
- By Amazon Customer on 02-15-21
By: Robert Sellers
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Sinatra
- The Chairman
- By: James Kaplan
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 40 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Just in time for the Chairman's centennial, the endlessly absorbing sequel to James Kaplan's best-selling Frank: The Voice - finally the definitive biography that Frank Sinatra, justly termed "The Entertainer of the Century", deserves and requires. Like Peter Guralnick on Elvis, Kaplan goes behind the legend to give us the man in full, in his many guises and aspects: peerless singer, (sometimes) powerful actor, business mogul, tireless lover, and associate of the powerful and infamous.
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So, So Long...
- By A Concerned Reader on 03-03-16
By: James Kaplan
In defense of…
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Wonderful book!
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Loved that guy!
There will be only one Don Rickles
Funniest Man!!!
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The history of Don Rickles
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This story was very good and included a lot of information about his early years, but it quickly tapered off after the 1970s. I was hoping for a lot more information and context about his new-age/present-day relationships and roles (Leno, Letterman, Toy Story, etc).
Great, but could have been even greater!
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It’s Rickles..
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Love Rickles, but This Isn’t Him
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Meh
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Narration doesn’t do Don justice
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