Contents

Fanfare: 2025: Death Defying Act

I: Easy Writer

Chapter 1: 1935: Prep Day (Birth, a Misspent Boyhood, Easy Writing, and Gags for Sale)

Chapter 2: 1955: The Woodman Cometh (In Which the Neophyte Writer Gets Married and Reaches the Top of the Hack Heap)

Chapter 3: 1961: The Big Noise (Standing-Up, Falling-Down Funny - Wives Trade Places - and the Rising Star with a Loser Persona Reaps Wild)

II: Mr. Everything

Chapter 4: 1965: The First Golden Age (Hollywood, Broadway, Las Vegas, and Beyond . . .)

Chapter 5: 1970: Clockwork (Woody as the Modern Chaplin (with Keaton) - and Declarations of Independence, Personally and Professionally)

Chapter 6: 1977: Mr. Secretive (Ingmar Bergman or Boffo Box Office? - Love, Marriage, or Something De-Lovely in Between?)

III: Scenes from a Non-Marriage

Chapter 7: 1980: The Second Golden Age (In Which Outright Masterpieces (and a Few Stinkers) Are Made)

Chapter 8: 1985: Sleepwalking into a Mess (A Folie à Deux (or Trois) - The Fictional and Real Collide - into a Ravel of Narratives(

Chapter 9: 1992: The Great Unpleasantness (The Controlmeister Loses Control - Mia Wins Bigly - and the Public Is No Wiser)

IV: The Great Rectification Campaign

Chapter 10: 1993: The Tears of a Clown (Showing Creative Resilience, Rehabbing Privately and Publicly)

Chapter 11: 1999: The Soon-Yi Era (Woody Keeps a-Goin’ - and Tries Something New - Family Life(

Chapter 12: 2012: Stuff Happens (Another Few Masterpieces - The Farrow Family Stirs - Woody Brushes Off a Controversy or Two - and Adopts the Mantle of an Elder Statesman of Film)

V: A Travesty of a Mockery of a Sham

Chapter 13: 2016: Mr. Nothing (A Second Firestorm - MeToo Counts Woody Out - Once Celebrated, Now Canceled, Our Protagonist Finds Solace in Europe)

Notes
Filmography
Index