eYE Marty
Completed before he died, thirty years ago, this is the newly discovered autobiography of one of the most influential comedians of recent times, Marty Feldman.
Marty Feldman was one of the most essential creative forces in British comedy embodied also by his close friends and creative partners from Beyond the Fringe (especially Peter Cook and Dudley Moore) and Monty Python (especially John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Eric Idle).
Marty played the fool, often very happily and with tremendous talent and volcanic, anarchic energy, for his entire life. Marty finished, and set aside eYE Marty soon before travelling to Mexico to shoot his final film. He did not know that he would die there, although he certainly felt he might die soon, and was haunted by the notion. The book is exactly as Feldman wrote it, with even the photos inserted where Feldman had noted they should go.
Hilarious, deeply charming, aphoristic, ironic, charged throughout with lust for life and filled with scenes of great vanished eras and and portraits of other performers and friends, eYE Marty is the amazing discovery of the story of a man who was at the heart of the British comedy revolution.
Marty Feldman was a comedy writer, comedian and actor. Feldman was born in the East End of London in 1934. By the age of 20 he had decided to pursue a career as a comedian.
The sketch comedy series At Last the 1948 Show featured Feldman's first screen performances. The other three performers -- future Pythons Graham Chapman and John Cleese, and future Goodie Tim Brooke-Taylor needed a fourth and had Feldman in mind. Marty was co-author the famous Monty Python 'Four Yorkshiremen' sketch and was also script editor on The Frost Report with future members of Monty Python.
In 1968 Marty was given his own series by the BBC called Marty, it featured Brooke-Taylor, John Junkin and Roland MacLeod with John Cleese as one of the writers and won two BAFTA awards. The Marty series proved popular enough with an international audience to launch a film career.
Marty Feldman was married to Lauretta Sullivan. Feldman died from a heart attack in December 1982 at the age of 48. He is buried in the Hollywood Hills Cemetary near his idol, Buster Keaton.