Trippin' with Terry Southern - by Gail Gerber & Tom Lisanti (Paperback)

About the Book

In 1964, novelist/screenwriter Terry Southern met actress Gail Gerber on the set of The Loved One. Though they were both married, there was an instant connection and they remained a couple until his death 30 years later. In her memoir, Gail recalls what life was like with "the hippest guy on the planet" as they traveled from Los Angeles to New York to Europe and back again. She reveals what went on behind the scenes of Southern's movies including The Cincinnati Kid, Barbarella, and Easy Rider. And she relives the "highs" hanging out with The Rolling Stones and Peter Sellers in swinging '60s London to the lows, barely scraping by on a Berkshires farm during the '70s & '80s.

Book Synopsis

This award-winning memoir about "the hippest guy on the planet" recollects novelist/screenwriter Terry Southern's highs and lows, his association with the Beat Generation, and his movie cult classics Dr. Strangelove and Easy Rider.

In 1964, Terry Southern met actress Gail Gerber on the set of The Loved One. He was enjoying his success from co-writing the risque novel Candy, a satire of Candide, and the movie Dr. Strangelove; she had just co-starred with Elvis Presley in Girl Happy. Though they were both married, there was an instant connection and they remained a couple until his death 30 years later.

In her memoir, Gail recalls what life was like with "the hippest guy on the planet." It documents their life together and contains numerous photographs of Terry and Gail with friends both famous and notorious. The wickedly gifted satirist, who had a stint writing for Saturday Night Live, kept company with the likes of Lenny Bruce, Dennis Hopper, Ringo Starr, William Burroughs, George Segal, Harry Nilsson, George Plimpton, David Amram and Rip Torn. It also reveals what went on behind the scenes of Gail's movies (including The Girls on the Beach and Village of the Giants), and Terry's movies (including The Cincinnati Kid, Casino Royale, Barbarella, The Magic Christian, End of the Road, and Easy Rider).

Review Quotes

"fascinating...laced with star-studded anecdotes...about one of the most wickedly funny writers of our time...full of illuminating stories about Terry's closest friends...Gerber paints a loving portrait of a wildly creative, destructively naive genius"-Shock Cinema.

About the Author

The late Gail Gerber was a former ballet dancer and actress who co-starred in such films as The Loved One, Beach Ball, Harum Scarum, and Lucky Days. She was the secretary of the Terry Southern Literary Trust and lived in New York. Tom Lisanti is the award-winning author of multiple books about 1960s and 1970s film and television history. He has appeared as a cohost on Turner Classic Movies and has written for Cinema Retro, Films of the Golden Age, Cinema of the '70s, and Scary Monsters.