From long­time New York Times and Van­i­ty Fair writer David Mar­golick comes the first defin­i­tive biog­ra­phy of Sid Cae­sar: found­ing father of tele­vi­sion com­e­dy and icon to gen­er­a­tions of Amer­i­cans.

By the spring of 1954, Sid Cae­sar was the most influ­en­tial, high­ly paid, and enig­mat­ic come­di­an in Amer­i­ca. Every week, twen­ty mil­lion peo­ple tuned their TVs to his NBC extrav­a­gan­za, Your Show of Shows, and wit­nessed his ver­sa­til­i­ty and vir­tu­os­i­ty in sketch­es and film spoofs, pan­tomime and solil­o­quy. Onstage, Cae­sar could play any char­ac­ter and make it fun­ny: a befud­dled game-show con­tes­tant, a pre­ten­tious expert, a belea­guered hus­band (oppo­site his redoubtable co-star Imo­gene Coca), even a gum­ball machine and a bot­tle of seltzer.

To his most­ly urban audi­ence, Caesar’s com­e­dy was an era-defin­ing leap for­ward from the days of vaude­ville, launch­ing a new comedic style that was mul­ti­lay­ered, lan­guage-drunk, full of char­ac­ter, and uproar­i­ous. To his rivals, Cae­sar was the man to beat. To his fel­low Amer­i­can Jews, his show’s suc­cess meant some­thing more: It was a post-Holo­caust sym­bol of secu­ri­ty and a source of pride. But behind all that Cae­sar rep­re­sent­ed was the real Sid. Intro­vert­ed and volatile, ill at ease in his own skin, he could ter­ror­ize his col­lab­o­ra­tors but reserved his harsh­est cri­tiques for him­self. Soon enough, he would be off the air. Beset by exhaus­tion, addic­tion, a fick­le view­er­ship, and his own impos­si­ble stan­dards, TV’s first true star was also its first fall from grace.

But in his wake he left the dis­ci­ples he per­son­al­ly nur­tured — includ­ing Mel Brooks, Carl Rein­er, and Neil Simon — and an indeli­ble impact on what still makes us laugh. In When Cae­sar Was King, vet­er­an jour­nal­ist David Mar­golick con­jures this com­plex man as nev­er before. Deeply researched, brim­ming with love for Cae­sar and the cul­ture from which he sprang, and rean­i­mat­ing a New York City that has all but van­ished, this rol­lick­ing and poignant book traces the rise and fall of a legend.