Behind the Laughter: A Comedian's Tale of Tragedy and Hope

by Anthony Griffith, Brigitte Travis-Griffin, Mark Caro (With)

Overview

How do you keep going when your world is falling apart? Discover the powerful story of stand-up comic Anthony Griffith and how to navigate grief through persistence, faith, humor and love. Now available in trade paper.

Just as Anthony’s career in stand-up comedy launched him onto the stage of The Tonight Show, he and his wife Brigitte faced an unimaginable personal nightmare: their two-year-old daughter, Brittany Nicole, was dying from cancer. While Anthony performed under bright lights, he struggled not to succumb to the darkness of losing a child.

In this stirring memoir, Anthony Griffith and his wife of more than thirty years, Brigitte Travis-Griffin, share the powerful story of living between life’s funniest moments and its most heartbreaking tragedies.

With humor and deep insights into the human spirit, Behind the Laughter explores Anthony’s life and career as well as the bonds between parent and child and husband and wife. The surprising twists along Anthony’s path highlights experiencing God’s sustaining presence in the darkest moments as well as the sweetest dreams.

Behind the Laughter explores:

• Powerful, relatable emotions and lessons that are universal and inspiring
• New perspectives on difficult topics that everyone can relate to
• The power of finding humor in spite of adversity

Find true inspiration along with laugh-out-loud humor in this remarkable story of resilience and grace in the face of loss.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780785219507
Publisher:	Nelson, Thomas, Inc.
Publication date:	04/09/2019
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Anthony Griffith, a successful stand-up comedian for more than thirty years, made his way from Chicago’s South Side to the city’s comedy clubs and out to Los Angeles, where he performed multiple times on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and later with Jay Leno. He has been featured in specials for Comedy Central, HBO, and Showtime and on The Arsenio Hall Show. Also an actor, Griffith has appeared in several movies, including Panther, Tales from the Hood, and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, and received a Daytime Emmy for his performance in the TV movie Our Father. Griffith also performed in the TV series Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Bernie Mac Show.

Dr. Brigitte Travis-Griffin is a clinical psychologist specializing in a concierge delivery system of therapy for entertainment and creative professionals. She and Anthony Griffith have been married for more than thirty years. Brigitte received her PsyD from the California School of Professional Psychology and her BS from UCLA.

Mark Caro is the award-winning author of The Foie Gras Wars and Take It to the Bridge: Unlocking the Great Songs Inside You. For more than twenty-five years, he covered entertainment, food, and culture for the Chicago Tribune. He continues to contribute to the New York Times, Chicago magazine, and other publications.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Standing on the Star vii

1 Losing the Strait jacket 1

2 Finding Laughter and Love 13

3 Living in Black and White 23

4 Moving Up and Out 35

5 Star- and Soul-Searching 45

6 Patient and Profiled 57

7 Rising Stars 65

8 Road to 'Tonight' 73

9 The First 'Tonight Set 83

10 No One Wants to Know the Jester's Pain 93

11 The Second 'Tonight' Set 105

12 The Final Days 111

13 The Aftermath 117

14 The Third 'Tonight' Set 125

15 The Zombie March 133

16 Pump the Brakes 147

17 One More Thing 151

18 Finding Our Voices 161

19 Catharsis 177

20 The Last Reveal 187

22 Ties Bound Tight 199

About the Authors 215

Editorial Reviews

04/29/2019

Comedian Griffith and his wife Travis-Griffin give readers a glimpse of the difficulties they endured after the death of their two-year-old daughter, Brittany, in this poignant memoir. Griffith moved to Los Angeles in 1990 to pursue comedy, and his wife and daughter stayed behind in Chicago. As Griffith’s career slowly picked up steam, his daughter began exhibiting signs of Down syndrome. Then, just after Griffith achieved a childhood dream by performing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Brittany was diagnosed with leukemia. As Brittany’s condition quickly worsened, the two lived between L.A. and Chicago as Griffith felt he had to seize his moment of notoriety, but his jokes became increasingly dark as he questioned his faith in God and contemplated why this was happening to him. In alternating sections, Travis-Griffin explains how she began to feel increasingly alone and unappreciated as Griffith doggedly concentrated on his goal of moving the family to L.A. and his next appearance on The Tonight Show. After Brittany’s death a few months after her diagnosis, Griffith and Travis-Griffin’s marriage suffered as both reeled from regrets and pent up frustrations. However, a moment of catharsis came when Griffith shared Brittany’s story on the Moth Radio Hour in 2003 in a confessional performance that helped to heal much of the lingering pain. This powerful, intimate story pulls back the curtains on one marriage’s profound loss. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly