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Description

About the Author

Alan Shayne retired as President of Warner Brothers Television in 1986. There he was responsible for launching the hit shows Wonder Woman, Dukes of Hazard, Alice, and Night Court, among others. He began his career in television with David Susskind’s production company, after heading the Broadway casting office for David Merrick. Prior to that, he was an actor on Broadway and in television.

Norman Sunshine is a painter and sculptor whose work is in permanent collections around the country. Earlier in his career, he was a fashion illustrator and Creative Director of the Jane Trahey Agency, where he coined the phrase “What Becomes a Legend Most?” for Blackglama Minks and “Danskins are not just for Dancing.” He won an Emmy for graphic and title design in the 1970s. In 1988, he served as Creative Director of Lear’s Magazine.

Mike Nichols is a television, stage and film director, writer, and producer who has won all the major American entertainment awards: an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award. In 2001, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. He received the Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute in 2010.

Praise for Double Life: A Love Story from Broadway to Hollywood…

Advance Praise

“Though Double Life is a perfect plea for equal rights, it never preaches but merely looks candidly at the terrific, if at times turbulent, relationship of two fabulous, sexy men who dared love each other openly. I laughed and gasped at its inside-show-business stories and was intrigued by the cutthroat advertising and art worlds. Brilliantly written, filled with humor—and occasional heartbreak—Double Life follows a fifty-year marriage, revealing its love and warts.”

—Joan Rivers

“A love that once dared not speak its name sings freely—and beautifully—in Double Life, a fascinating, frank and page-turning memoir about the life-long love affair of two extraordinary men.”
—Candace Bushnell

"How exceptionally fine at this precarious moment in our history to be able to read the moving story of a lifelong love affair between two men, spanning some fifty years of faithful togetherness, utter and complete devotion and responsible and fulfilling achievement. Alan Shayne and Norman Sunshine have written a valuable document to show the world that yes, we can do it too.”

—Larry Kramer


“I read the Alan Shayne and Norman Sunshine’s Double Life in one big gulp. This memoir becomes their legends most!”

—Liz Smith

"Anyone living in a long term relationship, gay or straight, will find him/herself in the pages Alan Shayne and Norman Sunshine have written. They know what it's like to be together for a long time and they tell it like it is, with wit, courage, honesty and tenderness. From Broadway to the Village to Madison Avenue to Hollywood they have tales to tell and they tell them brilliantly. I love this book!”

—Alfred Uhry, Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award-winning author of Driving Miss Daisy


“A life well lived does not always make a book well written, but here, in this truthful and affecting work, are two carefully maintained lives without a mortgage, paired by fate and synchronized from two points of view like a pair of mated butterflies. Reading about their lives has taught me a lot about my own—one riveting, wisely observed revelation after another by two extraordinary men with a lot to give. When I grow up, I want to be just like Alan Shayne and Norman Sunshine.”

—Rex Reed

“What gives the book additional measure of depth is the consistently strong melody of the love story that plays underneath almost every incident, and provides the various pressures, cultural and otherwise, that challenge its survival.”

—A.R. Gurney, author of the play Love Letters



Publishers Weekly

This entertaining, invigorating story of Shayne and Sunshine's enduring relationship seems like something from off the silver screen. Their relationship began in 1958 when homosexuality was considered a disease; at the time of their first meeting, the divorced Shayne was trying to cure himself of his homosexuality via deep analysis. Shayne, an aspiring actor at the beginning of the book, became a casting director, and, eventually, the president of Warner Brothers Television. Sunshine started out as a freelance illustrator in New York and developed into an accomplished painter, media consultant, and Emmy Award winner. Despite their career successes, the couple lived a less-than open life. In 1968, when Sunshine admitted to a New York Times reporter that he lived with Shayne, they were met with deafening silence from colleagues and friends. The authors include entertaining stories about stars, from a young Marlon Brando, to a generous Rock Hudson, to a bitter Lena Horne. As much a love letter as a look at how society's views on homosexuality have changed over the last 50 years, this is a fascinating book. (Oct.)