BILLY’S BOOK IS OUT JUNE 2!
While you’re in quarantine and looking for something fun to do…
Billy’s long awaited TV memoir “Get in the Car, Jane!” (Adventures in the TV Wasteland) will be published on Amazon June 2.
Kindle editions available for pre-order now.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0855TWKKB
Soft cover books available for order June 2.
Check back here for details, and area book signings.
Jane
JANE MILMORE– Emmy-nominated, People’s Choice award-winning producer-actress-playwright passed away from a yearlong battle with pancreatic cancer in Los Angeles, California, on February 4, 2020, surrounded by family and friends. She was 64 years old.
A role model to young women, Jane represented strength, intelligence, beauty, and success. She was one of the most often-produced playwrights in the world and the show-runner of over 300 hours of television comedy.
Born March 25, 1955 in Laramie, Wyoming, to John E. Milmore and Joan Judge, Jane spent her childhood in Brooklyn, NY, and graduated from Keansburg High School in Keansburg, New Jersey. She eventually made Rumson, New Jersey her home, as well as Beverly Hills and Westlake Village, California. Known for her sense of humor, great parties, incredible style, and love of all things Irish; her great joy was debuting new plays with her Van Zandt/Milmore Unofficial Rep Company in her beloved state of New Jersey. Jane was adored by all who knew her.
Jane found her biggest success behind the footlights writing with partner Billy Van Zandt. The New York Times called the pair “masters of modern farce.” Their twenty-three plays, including the summer stock staple LOVE SEX AND THE I.R.S. and the Off-Broadway comedies YOU’VE GOT HATE MAIL, DROP DEAD!and THE BOOMER BOYS MUSICAL, are published with Samuel French and performed in thousands of theaters around the globe.
Writing for television, Jane created and developed shows for Brooke Shields, Don Rickles, Olympia Dukakis, and the Wayans Bros., and wrote and produced for Bob Newhart, DL Hughley, Jamie Lee Curtis, Richard Lewis, John Goodman, Andrew Dice Clay, and Martin Lawrence, among many others. She won an Emmy nomination for I LOVE LUCY: THE VERY FIRST SHOW, a People’s Choice Award and NAACP Image Award for MARTIN, and a Prism Award for THE HUGHLEYS.
Honored by the New Jersey State Senate and General Assembly as a “role model with a standard of excellence toward which others may strive,” Jane also received the Clara Barton Humanitarian Award from the Red Cross for community service. In addition, the Van Zandt/Milmore Scholarship at Brookdale Community College has given over twenty theater students a college education.
Jane is survived by the loves of her life – Emmy award-winning director Shelley Jensen and their 3 ½ pound Yorkie, Boots; her four sisters: Maureen Milmore of Studio City, CA; Janet Wheeler of Red Bank, NJ; Kathleen Milmore of Toluca Lake, CA; Jennifer Malins of Brentwood, CA; brothers-in-law Scott Wheeler and Greg Malins; nephews John Wheeler; Ryan Wheeler; Riley Anderson; Jack Malins; Harry Malins; godsons Walker Van Zandt and William Van Zandt; her brother-from-another-mother Jeff Babey; her creative partner of 46 years Billy Van Zandt; and many beloved aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends.
Celebrations of Jane Milmore’s life will be held in Los Angeles and in New Jersey in the spring. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations in Jane’s name be made to some of her favorite organizations: Clean Ocean Action, American Red Cross, Holiday Express, Planned Parenthood, and the National Pancreatic Cancer Foundation.
“WRONG WINDOW” IN TURKEY!
“Wrong Window” made its Asian debut December 1, 2019 at the Duzce Municipality Theater in Duzce, Turkey. Translated by Ansegul Hardern, Directed by Huseyin Kefeli.
BOOMER BOYS to MASSACHUSETTS
Join the Boomer Boys when they play the Regent Theater in Arlington, MA
Saturday November 23 at 8pm
The Boomer Boys!
The Musical where Women get the Last Laugh as Men go Over the Hill!
HOLLYWOOD BOOK LAUNCH EXTRAVAGANZA
“The Way We Work” book launch July 27.
Billy joins writer/editor Bruce Ferber, special guest Jason Alexander, and others, for an afternoon mix of music, interviews, readings, and more!
https://www.dynastytypewriter.com/calendar/thewayweworkjul27
“THE WAY WE WORK” Out July 9
Number one on Amazon New Releases! Order yours now!
Bruce Ferber (editor); Robert Towne (contributor); J.J. Abrams (contributor); Chris Rock (contributor); Gabrielle Union (contribulor); Billy Van Zandt (contributor)
Billy’s chapter: “I Stalk Lucy.”
Despite increasing corporate mergers and bottom-line thinking, the entertainment business will never function like a bank or an insurance company because it is an industry rooted in imagination. Rules are meant to be broken. The best work is often produced in an environment where plans change by the minute and nothing seems to make sense. To wit, those who choose this profession must alter preconceived notions of work itself, sometimes discovering that fantasy and horror describe both movie genres and life on the job. The phenomenon crosses class lines: From the writers, directors, and producers to the lawyers, agents, studio executives, and crew and right down to the porta-potty suppliers.
The Way We Work provides a window into the skill sets and the insanity that make movies and television tick. Essays by award-winning writers, directors, and producers chronicle the process and the obstacles facing those at the top of the creative food chain. Oral histories from executives to “below-the-line” workers describe life in the trenches, which often present as Stud’s Terkel’s Working―on acid.
“The Boomer Boys” to New Jersey June 22!
Thank you, Toms River! We had a ball.
The Musical where Women get the Last Laugh as Men go Over the Hill!
Meet “The Boomer Boys!” In this hilarious musical revue, a fun-loving “fat pack” of middle age men realize that the best way to deal with getting older is to laugh about it with your friends. That’s exactly what these guys do as they navigate everything from the depths of expanding waistlines to the heights of Viagra.
Ladies, now is your chance to find out what men are really thinking as this hilarious evening of songs covers everything from snoring and hair loss to weight gain and lost car keys. And all’s well that ends well as our mid-life quartet concludes with the inspirational revelation that you’ll never be younger than you are today! If an hysterical night of songs, jokes and stories is on your to-do list, don’t miss “The Boomer Boys!”
http://www.grunincenter.org/event/boomer-boys/
Tickets on sale now.
BILLY TO BE INCLUDED IN “THE WAY WE WORK”
A chapter from Billy’s television memoir “Get in the Car, Jane!” will be included in author Bruce Ferber’s new non-fiction anthology, THE WAY WE WORK: ON THE JOB IN HOLLYWOOD, published by Rare Bird Books. Tales from above and below the line by JJ Abrams, Robert Towne, and many, many more… Billy’s chapter: “Billy Stalks Lucy.” Available July 2019.
(Cover Art for “Get in the Car, Jane!” by Tom Chesek)
NEW BILLY & JANE MUSICAL RIGHTS ACQUIRED
Rights to “The Boomer Boys!, the new musical by Billy & Jane & composer Wayland Pickard, have been acquired by Joe Corcoran (“Tony and Tina’s Wedding”) and Gary Shaffer (“You’ve Got Hate Mail”). A national tour begins June 22 in Toms River, NJ. More dates to follow.