September 12, 2018
The Maine Edge: Let me see if I understand this correctly. Your new box set sells on Amazon for $19. When people email you a copy of their receipt, you donate $25 to the animal rescue organization of the purchaser’s choice. You’re basically giving it away. Has your accountant told you that this might not be a great business plan?
Hollywood & EntertainmentI am a freelance entertainment journalist and comedy critic.
Elayne Boosler’s comedy career began by working the door as the hostess at the original Improvisation club in New York City in the 1970s. For over forty years, she has appeared on seemingly every talk show ever on TV, has written and starred in five of her own one-hour Showtime stand-up comedy specials, written and directed two movies for Cinemax. She self-financed that first special, 1985’s Party of One, because TV networks would not let a female stand-up have a special. In 1993, Boosler was only the second woman to perform at the White House Correspondents Dinner, and the first comedian to be televised live on C-SPAN. She’s now putting out a boxed set Timeless
Ron Bennington interviews Elayne Boosler for “Unmasked”.
5 Questions with Comedian, Animal Activist, and Puzzler Elayne Boosler!
Welcome to 5 Questions, our recurring interview series where we reach out to puzzle constructors, game designers, writers, filmmakers, musicians, artists, and puzzle enthusiasts from all walks of life!
Williams offstage was as withdrawn as onstage he was vivacious. “If you met him during the day you’d never know what he became at night,” the comedian Elayne Boosler recalls.
“Robin started pursuing me, I had never been so pursued in my life,” Boosler says in an interview. “All the comics were so caring for me and they said ‘you know we think he has a girlfriend in San Francisco’…I said, ‘do you have a girlfriend in San Francisco?”….
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
