Funny Business: The Legendary Life and Political Satire of Art Buchwald

"Before Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Trevor Noah, and 'Doonesbury,' there was Art Buchwald. For more than fifty years, from 1950 to 2006, his Pulitzer Prize-winning column of political satire and biting wit made him one of the most widely read American humorists and a popular player in the Washington of Ethel and Ted Kennedy, Ben Bradlee, and Katharine Graham. Dean Acheson, former U.S. Secretary of State, called Buchwald the 'greatest satirist in the English language since Pope and Swift.' But there was another, more serious side to Art Buchwald. A childhood in foster homes taught him to see comedy as a refuge. Buchwald also struggled with depression, which he kept secret from the public for nearly thirty years. Funny Business shows how Art Buchwald became an American original. Like Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, and James Thurber, he satirized political scoundrels, lampooned the powerful and the pompous, and 'worshipped the quicksand' that ten different Presidents of the United States walked on, as Buchwald said. The key to Buchwald's style of humor was to 'treat light subjects seriously and serious subjects lightly,' he once said. Over his life, he kept company with Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, Ted Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor, John Steinbeck, Irwin Shaw, William Styron, and Erma Bombeck. His fun-loving humor and legendary quips earned him interviews and correspondence with Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, 'Batman' (Adam West), and Robert Frost. Buchwald wrote about such historical events as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, Apollo 11, and Watergate; featured here are stories of Buchwald's non-stop political jabs and one-liners, known in his day as 'Buchshots'"