All posts by Elayne Boosler

CNN.com – Elayne Boosler: Vile Statements are Messing Up Our Art Form

Musings

CNN.com July, 2018

Editor’s Note: Comedian/writer/animal activist Elayne Boosler has performed live, on TV and radio for over 40 years. On August 31, Comedy Dynamics will release “Timeless,” a boxed set of her TV specials and her new CD. Catch up at Elayneboosler.com. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Watch Boosler in season 2 of The “History of Comedy,” Sundays at 10 p.m. (ET/PT). Note: Readers may find some of the language below, offensive.

(CNN) “Comedy” is now the fall guy.

Every time someone gets busted for a horrific statement, he or she suddenly announces: “It was a joke!”
Uh uh. No. You are not going to cloud up our art form with your ill-conceived oral feculence. Read more…

TV: Robin Williams Documentary. NY Times. July 16, 2018

Press

TV: Robin Williams Documentary on HBO.

In “Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind,” airing Monday, July 16, on HBO, the director Marina Zenovich captures that quicksilver genius through archival clips and interviews of Mr. Williams and reminiscences by Billy Crystal, Steve Martin, Bobcat Goldthwait, Pam Dawber and Elayne Boosler, as well as his older son, Zak. Skipping from strength to strength — his Juilliard studies, skyrocket to fame in “Mork & Mindy,” milestone performance at the Met Opera and Oscar win for “Good Will Hunting” — the documentary also digs into Mr. Williams’s substance abuse and mental health. And while his suicide on Aug. 11, 2014, is given swift attention — Mr. Williams had received a misdiagnosis of Parkinson’s; an autopsy revealed Lewy body dementia instead — Ms. Zenovich still proves her point: Mr. Williams was happiest when he made the world laugh. KATHRYN SHATTUCK

HBO Doc Remembers Comic Actor With Tough Love. The Wrap. January, 2018

Press

Sundance Review of HBO Robin Williams Documentary.

And then there’s the film’s impressive array of interviews: David Letterman recalls thinking that he’d picked perhaps the worst time to move to L.A. to become a comedian after seeing Williams onstage. Elayne Boosler talks about being Williams’ girlfriend while acknowledging his need to have other women, including another girlfriend in San Francisco, Valerie Velardi, who eventually became his first wife…