
Miss May Does Not Exist
The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood's Hidden Genius
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Narrated by:
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Erin Bennett
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By:
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Carrie Courogen
About this listen
As part of the legendary comedy team known as Nichols and May, May revolutionized sketch comedy before striking out on her own to make history as the third woman to be admitted into the Directors Guild of America when she wrote, directed, and starred in 1971’s A New Leaf.
Throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, May was one of Hollywood’s top screenwriters and script doctors and one of the only women directing within the studio system. After a box-office bomb, May never directed a feature again, though she continued to write films.
In 2018, she returned to Broadway, where she won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Play for The Waverly Gallery. Besides her considerable talent, May is well known for her reclusiveness, often working behind the scenes without credit. In the liner notes for her first comedy LP with Mike Nichols in 1958, her bio is a single terse sentence: “Miss May does not exist.” Until now.
Carrie Courogen has uncovered the Elaine May who does exist. Conducting countless interviews, she has filled in the blanks May has forcibly kept blank for years, creating a fascinating portrait of a creative powerhouse, a lost era of Hollywood, and the way women were mistreated and held back within it.
Miss May Does Not Exist is a remarkable love story about a prickly genius who was never easy to work with, not always easy to love, and frequently punished for those things, despite revolutionizing the way we think about comedy, acting, and what a film or play can be.
©2024 Carrie Courogen (P)2024 Dreamscape MediaListeners also enjoyed...
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Hollywood in the 1950s was a period when the film industry both set conventions and broke norms and traditions—from Cinerama, Cinemascope and Vistavision to the epic film and lavish musical. It was a decade that saw the rise of the anti-hero; the smoldering, the hidden, and the unspoken; teenagers gone wild in the streets; the sacred and the profane; the revolution of the Method; the socially conscious; the implosion of the studios, the end of the production code; and the invasion of the ultimate body snatcher: the “small screen” television.
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Captivating from start to finish
- By Steve C. on 02-01-25
By: Foster Hirsch
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Box Office Poison
- Hollywood's Story in a Century of Flops
- By: Tim Robey
- Narrated by: Tim Robey
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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From grand follies to misunderstood masterpieces, disastrous sequels to catastrophic literary adaptations, Box Office Poison tells a hugely entertaining alternative history of Hollywood, through a century of its most notable flops. What can these films tell us about the Hollywood system, the public’s appetite–or lack of it–and the circumstances that saw such flops actually made? Away from the canon, this is the definitive take on these ill-fated, but essential celluloid failures.
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The ending
- By Anonymous User on 03-13-25
By: Tim Robey
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Shy
- The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers
- By: Mary Rodgers, Jesse Green
- Narrated by: Christine Baranski, Jesse Green
- Length: 15 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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“What am I, bologna?” Mary Rodgers (1931-2014) often said. She was referring to being stuck in the middle of a talent sandwich: the daughter of one composer and the mother of another. And not just any composers. Her father was Richard Rodgers, perhaps the greatest American melodist; her son, Adam Guettel, a worthy successor. What that leaves out is Mary herself, also a composer, whose musical Once Upon a Mattress remains one of the rare revivable Broadway hits written by a woman. Shy is the story of how it all happened.
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What a fun book!
- By Erik B. Rinderle on 09-17-23
By: Mary Rodgers, and others
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The Fixer
- Moguls, Mobsters, Movie Stars, and Marilyn
- By: Josh Young, Manfred Westphal
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays, Manfred Westphal
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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During the height of Hollywood’s golden age, one man lorded over the city’s lurid underbelly of forbidden sin and celebrity scandal like no other: Fred Otash. An ex-Marine turned L.A.P.D. vice cop, Otash became the most sought-after private detective and fixer to the stars by specializing in the dark arts that would soon dominate the entertainment industry. The Fixer delves into the extraordinary life of Hollywood’s most infamous private detective and “fixer” to the stars, revealing newly discovered shocking revelations from his never-before-seen investigative files.
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For Hollywood gossip lovers!
- By Janna Wong Healy on 06-01-24
By: Josh Young, and others
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Giant Love
- Edna Ferber, Her Best-Selling Novel of Texas, and the Making of a Classic American Film
- By: Julie Gilbert
- Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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A book that explores the great American novelist and playwright Edna Ferber, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Ficton, whose work was made into many Academy Award-winning movies; the writing of her controversial, international best-selling novel about Texas, and the making of George Stevens’ Academy Award winning epic film of the same name, Giant.
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A remarkable telling of an epic novel and how it made it to the big screen... beautifully told...
- By Amazon Customer on 12-27-24
By: Julie Gilbert
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The Fixers
- Eddie Mannix, Howard Strickling and the MGM Publicity Machine
- By: E.J. Fleming
- Narrated by: Mike Hennessy
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling are virtually unknown outside of Hollywood and little-remembered even there, but as General Manager and Head of Publicity for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, they lorded over all the stars in Hollywood’s golden age from the 1920s through the 1940s—including legends like Garbo, Dietrich, Gable and Garland. When MGM stars found themselves in trouble, it was Eddie and Howard who took care of them—solved their problems, hid their crimes, and kept their secrets. They were “the Fixers.”
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business
- By julian tarasiuk on 03-11-25
By: E.J. Fleming
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The Editor
- How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America
- By: Sara B. Franklin
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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When twenty-five-year-old Judith Jones began working as a secretary at Doubleday’s Paris office in 1949, she spent most of her time wading through manuscripts in the slush pile and passing on projects—until one day, a book caught her eye. She read it in one sitting, then begged her boss to consider publishing it. A year later, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl became a bestseller. It was the start of a culture-defining career in publishing. Legendary editor Judith Jones finally gets her due in this intimate biography.
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Gorgeous writing, perfect reader
- By Erin on 06-11-24
By: Sara B. Franklin
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From the Moment They Met It Was Murder
- Double Indemnity and the Rise of Film Noir
- By: Alain Silver, James Ursini
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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The behind-the-scenes story of the quintessential film noir and cult classic, Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity—its true crime origins and crucial impact on film history—is told for the first time in this riveting narrative published for the film's 80th anniversary. Authors Alain Silver and James Ursini tell the complete history of Double Indemnity in their latest and most provocative work on film noir: From the Moment They Met It Was Murder.
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Great history, INCREDIBLY annoying affection
- By WriteStuff on 10-23-24
By: Alain Silver, and others
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Pandora's Box
- How Guts, Guile, and Greed Upended TV
- By: Peter Biskind
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Instead of focusing on one service, like HBO, Pandora’s Box asks, “What did HBO do, besides give us The Sopranos?” The answer: It gave us a revolution. Biskind bites off a big chunk of entertainment history, following HBO from its birth into maturity, moving on to the basic cablers like FX and AMC, and ending up with the streamers and their wars, pitting Netflix against Amazon Prime Video, Max, and the killer pluses—Disney, Apple TV, and Paramount.
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The rise and fall of peak TV
- By AlexBenBlock on 02-16-24
By: Peter Biskind
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Cimino
- The Deer Hunter, Heaven’s Gate, and the Price of a Vision
- By: Charles Elton
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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When it was finally released, Heaven's Gate failed so completely with reviewers and at the box office that it put legendary studio United Artists out of business and marked the end of Hollywood's auteur era. Or so the conventional wisdom goes. Charles Elton delves deeply into the making and aftermath of the movie and presents a surprisingly different view to that of Steven Bach, one of the executives responsible for Heaven's Gate, who wrote a scathing book about the film and solidified the widely held view that Cimino wounded the movie industry beyond repair.
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Briskly paced, but misses the mark
- By Buretto on 04-03-22
By: Charles Elton
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The Friday Afternoon Club
- A Family Memoir
- By: Griffin Dunne
- Narrated by: Griffin Dunne
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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At nine, Sean Connery saved him from drowning. At thirteen, desperate to hook up with Janis Joplin, he attended his aunt Joan Didion and uncle John Gregory Dunne’s legendary LA launch party for Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. At sixteen, he got kicked out of boarding school, ending his institutional education for good.
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Griffiths phrasing made it easy to listen and absorb.
- By Nancie Keay on 06-17-24
By: Griffin Dunne
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Dark City (Revised and Expanded Edition)
- The Lost World of Film Noir
- By: Eddie Muller
- Narrated by: Eddie Muller, Erin Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Dark City expands with new chapters and a fresh collection of restored photos that illustrate the mythic landscape of the imagination. It's a place where the men and women who created film noir often find themselves dangling from the same sinister heights as the silver-screen avatars to whom they gave life.
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Good overview, summary of the genre
- By Buretto on 03-31-22
By: Eddie Muller
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Charlie Chaplin vs. America
- When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided
- By: Scott Eyman
- Narrated by: Phil Thron
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Bestselling Hollywood biographer and film historian Scott Eyman tells the story of Charlie Chaplin’s fall from grace. In the aftermath of World War II, Chaplin was criticized for being politically liberal and internationalist in outlook. He had never become a US citizen, something that would be held against him as xenophobia set in when the postwar Red Scare took hold. In Charlie Chaplin vs. America, Scott Eyman explores the life and times of the movie genius who brought us such masterpieces as City Lights and Modern Times.
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Great narration
- By Marc Nasoff on 03-13-24
By: Scott Eyman
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Think This, Not That
- 12 Mindshifts to Breakthrough Limiting Beliefs and Become Who You Were Born to Be
- By: Dr. Josh Axe
- Narrated by: Josh Axe, Jon Gordon, Donald Miller, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Unlock your potential by cultivating self-awareness and curating a fulfilling life full of self-improvement, emotional intelligence, and a growth mindset. Leadership expert and entrepreneur Dr. Josh Axe teaches 12 revolutionary mindshift transformations to beat the grind and reach the life you've always wanted. Redefine success and replace the limiting beliefs of yourself with the healthy mental toughness to think this, not that.
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very poor narration
- By Dane Robbins on 09-25-24
By: Dr. Josh Axe
What listeners say about Miss May Does Not Exist
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- SoFlaGal
- 07-28-24
Miss May indeed exists
Fascinating biography of a woman who beat the system but didn’t want anything to do with it - Hollywood and Broadway. Excellent listen.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Yenrab Namrehs
- 06-30-24
A Rose-Colored Apologia for Elaine May
There is no question Elaine May is a gifted, briliiant writer born with a sense of story denied to other mere mortals. Equally, she is a talented performer and actress. Her contribution to improvisation is seminal. She was, at times, a great theater director. She can't direct movies worth a lick.
And therein lies the problem with this book. It takes no critical eye. Worse, the author cannot get the stars out of her eyes. Everything Elaine May does is great. If it isn't great--Ishtar, for example--the author raises a rousing defense that the cost of a movie and/or its commercial success should not be barometer of a film's value or success. That precious few of the movies--if any--that Elaine May directed enjoyed either needs to be looked at objectively, not pollyanna-ish as the author does here. By failing any semblence of objectivity (apparently May can do no wrong), she undercuts the creative force May was in so many other areas.
Even May's well-known and maybe well deserved reputation as a script doctor needs more scrutiny. Many of her script-doctored scripts were movies directed by Mike Nichols. It does May no disservice that she worked better as a team with Nichols than she did independently (which is blatently obvious to even the most casual observer), but the author doesn't touch that. If she had, it would mean conceding that May wasn't flawlessly brilliant constantly.
In retrospect, the influence Elaine May had on entertainment, television, the theater, and Hollywood is unquestionable. Maybe another book will be written with a more cooler assessment--which will give Elaine May the true credit she richly deserves.
It would sure make this book better.
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25 people found this helpful
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- Barb
- 07-26-24
Interesting
Slow in the beginning but became very interesting as it went on. I remember her and the repartee.
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3 people found this helpful
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- john burke
- 06-25-24
Genius missing in action.
I hate to ask the question because by all accounts Elaine May was truly fascinating, intelligent and supremely complicated. I do think genius is thrown around way too often. Even with the most difficult of geniuses we can still point to a work that is their own, not only their own but some consistent output. The screenplay that she appears to have written almost entirely herself would be The Birdcage and that was an adaptation already. I love the film but I would definitely never call it a work of genius. There's of course the many projects she kept her name off of but those were her coming in and changing what was already there. In the instances where she created her own plays those relied heavily on improv and the plays seem to have gone nowhere or referred to as sketches. With this book i get a sense that Elaine May is a genius missing in action....more of a spectre of it than the embodiment. Either way great listen.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Cathy
- 09-25-24
My inspiration since I was 8 years old
Beautifully written, beautifully read, beautifully lived. Well worth the time you’ll invest. Truly an inspiration.
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1 person found this helpful
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- M. Skinner
- 08-17-24
The sadness of genius
Learning about her past and remembering the work I had seen and loved on tv, at age snd film was interesting but an overall sense of gloom was not what I needed in 2024.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Barry Cutler
- 06-22-24
Great Talent With Author's Agenda Interfering Some
I highly recommend this biography to learn about the life of one of the greatest talents, Elaine May. Unfortunately, the author's feminist agenda interferes when she attempts to make that May's story. No doubt, May suffered many of the prejudices many or all women suffer. But that's the author's spin. While the book is well-worth reading, the author should have stuck with May's life rather than muddying matters with her agenda.
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5 people found this helpful
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- The Book Fairy
- 06-15-24
THE DEFINITIVE!
I just finished reading an incredible bio on the brilliant #ElaineMay. I was so excited when I discovered this book was being published because there really hasn’t been any biography written on her - if any! @carriecourogen holds nothing back here. She dives deeper than deep in bringing out the creative and comedic psychosis of Elaine May in all her idiosyncrasies which ultimately culminates into her “hidden genius”. Miss May is one of the true greats of comedy and film. She’s intensely private so I’m not surprised she didn’t/wouldn’t meet with Carrie and since we probably will never ever get a personal memoir from Elaine May, I am throwing this book into the ring to be classified as the DEFINITIVE Elaine May biography!
Since I like to listen to the audiobook as I read along, I was even more excited when @erinbennettnarrates’s voice came across my laptop/phone again. She’s my favorite narrator and her voice feels like a dear old friend. It felt good to sip some tea and catch up!!🥰 THANK YOU, Carrie & Erin for this marvelous work… and Thank you to Elaine May, Hollywood’s hidden genius and one of my Sheroes! ✨🎬✍🏼
P.S: This book NEEDS to be adapted into a documentary film! HBO better be calling you soon, Carrie!!! (I’m serious) let’s get this made! 🫶🏼
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4 people found this helpful