Most Talkative: Stories from the Front Lines of Pop Culture, by Andy Cohen; Henry Holt & Co., $25
As the executive vice president of development and talent for TV's Bravo network and executive producer of the only late-night interactive talk show Watch What Happens Live, Andy Cohen's plate is full. But there always seems to be enough time remaining in a celebrity's shelf-life to pen a memoir these days.
So, in his book Most Talkative, dedicated to Mom and Madonna, Cohen becomes shamelessly talkative about everything from foul-mouthed "Bravolebrities" to an Oprah Winfrey fixation to Atlanta's effervescent Dwight Eubanks' penile implant and fur bikini. He opens (and closes) his chatty autobiographic confection with details about a juvenile and somewhat creepy lifelong obsession with soap opera doyenne Susan Lucci, then meanders through a pleasant suburban Jewish childhood in the 1980s writing daily letters to his mother from Camp Nebagamon, courting a love of television, and denying an obvious gayness that everyone (but him) could see while he fraternized with a consistent string of "boy-girl non-romantic best-friendships" in grade school.
Enrolled in Boston University's international exchange program, he spent several semesters absorbing the culture of London, working hard with internships at CBS News, succumbing to extreme paranoia of contracting AIDS in the late 1980s, and finally coming out to his parents (Mom had already discovered the Honcho magazine under his bed). Pages of personal photographs decorate and complement Cohen as a silly boy donning hair curlers and as an attractive young man with an enormous, self-described "Jewfro, brushed out to full effect." He also offers pictures during interviews with Tammy Faye Bakker in Palm Springs, Ralph Fiennes in the "Bravo Clubhouse," and knee-deep in the fiery high drama of the Housewives reunion specials.
As the book progresses and Cohen fans have satiated their nagging curiosity about his upbringing and how he managed to get practically naked with Cybill Shepherd (he forgot to wear underwear that day), the pages turn more gossipy and shift their focus to the Top Chef and Real Housewives franchises, of which the author oversees production. Habitual viewers of both the series and the late-night live broadcasts should, by now, be well aware of Cohen's habit of cocking his head at the camera and of his lazy eye, but what's genuinely shocking (and admittedly not so shocking in mid-2012) are several of the revelations the author admits to. For instance, he reveals that, in one season of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, an editing ratio of 85 hours of footage is recorded for every hour used on television: the standard average. Not so real, after all.
But can true diehard Bravo fans ever get enough of the backbiting, catcalling, bitch-fighting, name-calling, excessively-spending lovely ladies (and lady-boys) of Beverly Hills, Miami, New York, Atlanta, and New Jersey (and Vancouver and Israel, internationally)? Time will tell, but for Cohen, who continues to steamroll through his television career aspirations with the dedication, resourcefulness, creativity, and determination of Ryan Seacrest, the Emmy and two Peabody Awards he recently won surely prove he is just beginning the grand ascent to fame and fortune. Just no more books, please. This one is more than enough.