Hollywood and Me: My Wild Ride Through the Golden Age of Television

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

Hollywood and Me is a breezy and entertaining look at the author’s
“wild ride” through the early days of television. Rothman, now a Los
Angeles–based television writer/producer, begins the book by
describing his Montreal childhood, his student days at McGill, learning
the ropes at the CBC in Toronto, and establishing himself as a
television producer south of the border.

Over the course of his career, Rothman encountered hundreds of film and
TV personalities, including Danny Kaye, Jack Benny, and George Burns. In
a chapter titled “Betwixt and Between,” he recounts his run of bad
luck after losing a job with The Liberace Show. Rothman’s fortunes
improved when he secured a short-lived writing position with The Dean
Martin Show (he would always regret leaving that program “without ever
having met Dean”). He went on to produce shows for the Princess of
Motown, Diana Ross, among many others.

Hollywood and Me fully substantiates David Suzuki’s claim that
Rothman’s “stories are terrific.”