Are You Anybody?

You know him from his breakout role as Hank Kingsley on The Larry Sanders Show, his outrageous turn as George and Oscar Bluth on Arrested Development, and his Emmy Award-winning performance as Maura Pfefferman on Transparent. A Broadway star, a television legend, an accomplished screen actor whose singular wit and heartrending performances have been entertaining audiences for more than four decades, but the question remains: Who the hell is Jeffrey Tambor?...
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You know him from his breakout role as Hank Kingsley on The Larry Sanders Show, his outrageous turn as George and Oscar Bluth on Arrested Development, and his Emmy Award-winning performance as Maura Pfefferman on Transparent. A Broadway star, a television legend, an accomplished screen actor whose singular wit and heartrending performances have been entertaining audiences for more than four decades, but the question remains: Who the hell is Jeffrey Tambor?

In his illuminating, often hilarious, and always honest memoir, Tambor looks back at the key moments in his life that taught him about creativity and play and pain and fear. The son of what you might call "eccentric" Russian and Hungarian Jewish parents, Tambor grew up in San Francisco a husy kid with a lisp, who suffered in his "otherness" and found salvation in the theater.

While he learned his art from the best of the best--Al Pacino, George C. Scott, Garry Shandling, Mitch Hurwitz, Jill Soloway--he also introduces his many unexpected teachers, from the nameless man in a Detroit bookstore who gave him the love of reading, to his young children who (at this ridiculously late stage in his life) have reintroduced him to play, bravery, and the simple joy of not giving a shit.

Tambor shares the triumph of landing his first Broadway role, but not before experiencing the humbling that is commercial work (and how even saying "my socks don't cling" can prove a challenge). He invites you behind the scenes of his wildly successful television shows, but he doesn't leave out the pit stops he made at addiction, Scientology, and what it feels like to get fourth billing after Sylvia the Seal on The Love Boat.

At last, Tambor answers the question "Are you anybody?" with a promise that success doesn't mean perfection and failure most definitely is an option.