cover image Just in Time: Notes from My Life

Just in Time: Notes from My Life

Phyllis Newman. Simon & Schuster, $18.45 (207pp) ISBN 978-0-671-61880-3

In a sprightly vein, actress Newman breezes through an account of her life's joys and tribulations, putting a brave face on her bout with cancer and the infidelities of an otherwise compatible husband, Adolph Green. She records her professional triumphsBroadway Bound and a Tony Award for Subways Are for Sleeping , among othersand recalls with obvious relish the celebrities with whom she hobnobbed. Recruited from her parent's fortune-telling booth on Atlantic City's Steel Pier, six-year-old Baby Phyllis started performing in 1939 in a kiddie revue. The talent, perseverance and luck that helped the versatile entertainer land her first Broadway part in Wish You Were Here led to a career onstage and in cabarets, film and television. Newman candidly recounts the rage and depression that underlay a cheerful exterior after her double mastectomy and the efforts she made to regain her confidence and resume her career. Major ad/promo. (August)