The Robert Morley bedside reader

The first anthology of the best writing of Robert Morley is both a literary and a social event. Morley has always considered himself to be as much writer as actor, and, in addition to his plays, he has long been a contributor to American and British magazines. In 1972 he was voted wittiest writer of the year by Playboy.Ranging from delightful reminiscences of his childhood in England to hilarious accounts of his various travels, he reveals himself as a self-mocking, candid man in his attitudes toward the secrets of his profession, his financial status, and many aspects of contemporary life and/or death. ("When I have to die," he writes, "I should like to do so in the foyer of the best hotel in the world.") Best of all, the reader sees Robert Morley through Robert Morley's eyes ("I am not a reasonable man"): as gambler, diner, actor, traveler, family man, invalid, schoolboy, taxpayer, and clubman.As Alan Coren says in his preface to The Robert Morley Bedside Reader, ". . . a great nostalgic, Robert Morley will annihilate bogus sentimentality with on adroit word; he will defend romance with reason, and make truth ring out on laughter; he will indulge himself utterly and yet share that indulgence so delightfully that it becomes selfless; he will make arrogance a scaffolding from which to construct some baroque comic point, then kick that scaffolding down to reveal it for the temporary conveience it was, because he is a master of caricature and the self-portrait is his chef d'oeuvre."