英語書籍：Promises I Made My Mother (節選三）

英語書籍：Promises I Made My Mother (節選三）ZT


英語書籍：Promises I Made My Mother (節選二）ZT
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====Promises I Made My Mother 簡介==================

PROMISES I MADE MY MOTHER
by Sam Haskell
with David Rensin

FROM THE BOOK JACKET:

What would my mother say?

How would she want me to handle this situation?

How can I make this tough decision and stay true to
myself?

Sam Haskell still asks himself these questions every day.

When Haskell was young, his devoted mother, Mary,
instilled in her son the values of character, faith, and
honor by setting an example and asking him to promise to
live his life according to her lessons. He did, and those
promises have served Haskell consistently from his
Mississippi boyhood to his long career at the venerable
William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills.

In this inspiring memoir full of touching stories and
amusing anecdotes, Haskell reveals how he kept his pledge
to his mother to live a decent life--even in the shark-
infested waters of Hollywood, where he handled the hottest
stars and packaged the highest-rated shows--by refusing to
become the cliche of an amoral agent. Here is Haskell as a
child in Amory, Mississippi (pop. 7,000), discovering the
power of hope as he waits for an unlikely visit from the
"Cheer Man" (a representative of the detergent company who
gave ten dollars to anyone using the brand), learning
humility after pursuing an eighth-grade "Good Citizenship"
award he cockily assumed he'd win, and confronting the
complications of human character when a near-fatal car
crash exposed his judgmental father's true nature.

Years later, in Hollywood, Haskell would rely on his
mother's teachings--honesty, self-reliance, and faith
--as he rose from the William Morris mailroom to
eventually become the company's Worldwide Head of
Television. His capacity for friendship and his insistence
on living his version of the Golden Rule (being "thought-
fully political") allowed him to handle various client
crises and the tense negotiations that nearly scuttled the
last years of "Everybody Loves Raymond" and the entire
existence of "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air."

Haskell has achieved success through self-respect, and
from his story we learn how we, too, can maintain our
dignity when faced with life's challenges. This stirring
memoir is a testament to mothers everywhere who instill in
their sons the lasting values they need to become good men
and devoted fathers.



======================================

PROMISES I MADE MY MOTHER
by Sam Haskell
with David Rensin (nonfiction)

Published by Ballantine Books,
an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group
ISBN: 9780345506559
Copyright (c) 2009 by Sam Haskell
PROMISES (Part 3 of 5)
======================================

PROLOGUE
"And the Cheer Man Came"

"First and foremost, have faith in your dreams."
--MARY KIRKPATRICK HASKELL

Even as a little boy being raised in rural Mississippi, I loved
television. Back then, there were only three networks: CBS, NBC, and
ABC--and in my hometown of Amory, Mississippi, we didn't even get
ABC until the late sixties. Amory was founded in 1887 as
Mississippi's first planned community, a town used as the halfway
depot for the Frisco Railroad between Memphis and Birmingham. By
1900, the population was about seven thousand people, and it's never
changed. I often compare it to Andy Griffith's Mayberry.

In 1964, when I was nine years old, "Bonanza" came on at 8 P.M. on
Sunday nights. It was the number one show on television, my absolute
favorite, and I watched it every week. That same year, "H ello,
Dolly!" and Carol Channing won Tony Awards, "My Fair Lady" walked
away with the Oscar for Best Picture, "The Girl from Ipanema" won
the Grammy for Record of the Year, The Beatles were named Best New
Musical Artists, and Donna Axum was crowned Miss America. I had a
major crush on Julie Andrews, who won the Academy Award for playing
Mary Poppins that year. I knew all of this and more. I was a walking
statistician of entertainment industry facts, and I shared them with
anyone who would listen. I read "TV Guide" every week, as well as
"Photoplay" magazine, to get the latest information about the world
of entertainment and Hollywood, where I dreamed of working one day.

I also paid attention to the commercials, and one in particular
because they aired it during all my favorite shows: Procter &
Gamble's ad for one of its biggest products, Cheer laundry
detergent. More than just proclaiming the detergent's amazing
cleansing power (quite dull for a nine-year-old), the ad featured a
wonderful-looking character called "the Cheer Man" walking through a
neighborhood, ringing doorbells. He wore a big hat with the swirling
Cheer logo. His uniform was yellow and blue with orange stripes.
When a housewife answered her door, he would ask, "Do you use
Cheer?" Her face always lit up in a smile. "Well, 'yes I do,'" she'd
say, and show him her box of Cheer. He'd smile and give her a check
for ten dollars!

At the end, the announcer would say, "The Cheer Man is coming to
your town."

The commercial promised that if he knocked on your door, and you
could show him a box of Cheer or what they called "a reasonable
facsimile" (basically, "Cheer" written on a piece of paper), he
would give you ten dollars, which was an incredible amount of money
for a kid in 1964.

The first time I saw that commercial I was not only absolutely
convinced that the Cheer Man would come to Mississippi, but I was
positive that he would come to Amory, and more important, to 405
South Third Street.

My home.

When I told my mother that the Cheer Man was coming, she never once
pointed out how impossible that would be, or how far we lived from
the places where those commercials were made. Instead, she told me
it was a beautiful dream, and she helped me prepare for his arrival.
Her support made me even more confident.

* * *

My mother used Cheer, but I wasn't content just to have the actual
box or the word "Cheer" written on a scrap of paper when the Cheer
Man came. No. Instead, I went to the local print shop with my fifty
cents in weekly allowance, plus some money from running errands, and
bought colored paints, glitter, and these "designer rocks" that
people used to give texture to their artwork by gluing them on the
paper and painting over them. I think my mother must have given me
some money too, because it cost several dollars.

One Saturday afternoon, I made a giant sign with the Cheer logo,
maybe three feet by four feet, and hung it on my bedroom wall. Then
I waited.

Meanwhile, word of what I'd done spread across Amory, no doubt
because I'd told the kids at school, and anyone else who would
listen, that the Cheer Man was coming to my house. I'm sure most of
them thought I was nuts. Still, I didn't care--my mother encouraged
me to be a dreamer, and I believed anything was possible.

My insistence that the Cheer Man would come to our house soon became
the joke of all jokes to my dad and his golfing buddies. When my
parents had people over for cocktails or dinner, my father, Sam,
Jr.--my grandfather was Sam, Sr., and I was Sammy--would say,
"Sammy, go bring out your Cheer sign." I did, even though I knew how
patronizing the laughter was. But I would look them straight in the
eye and with every ounce of confidence I had, I would simply say,
"He's coming."

My dad was a charismatic, handsome, self-made man who everyone
wanted as a friend. He was close to the high school football and
basketball coaches, and often hosted a gaggle of men at the house,
where they'd drink beer and watch sports on TV. Although I know he
loved us, my father was not a nurturer. His way of motivating his
sons--me and my younger brothers, Jamie and Billy--was to call
attention to our frailties. Though he would do it in a lighthearted,
funny way, I never liked it.

My mother reacted differently. She believed in me and in whatever I
believed in. She had taught me to always have faith in myself, no
matter what. At the time I was too young for her to explain the
reasons why faith couldn't hurt, only help--and I didn't ask deep
questions--so it was her strong example that I took to heart.

When my father snorted in di*****elief at what he thought was my
fanciful imagination, she would say, "If he believes the Cheer Man's
coming, then 'of course' he's coming."



====作者 Sam Haskell 簡介==================

Sam Haskell moved from Mississippi to Los Angeles in 1978 to work at
the William Morris Agency. He became an agent in 1980, senior vice
president by 1990, executive vice president by 1995, and Worldwide
Head of Television by 1999. After a twenty-six-year career, he
retired in 2004 to pursue philanthropic endeavors. In 2007 he was
named one of the 25 Most Innovative and Influential People in
Television over the last quarter century by "TV Week." He lives in
Los Angeles with his wife, Mary Donnelly Haskell (his college
sweetheart and a former Miss Mississippi), and their two children,
Sam IV and Mary Lane.

David Rensin has written or co-written thirteen books, five of them
"New York Times" bestsellers. His most recent titles are "All for a
Few Perfect Waves: The Audacious Life and Legend of Rebel Surfer
Miki Dora" and "The Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up."


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英語書籍：Promises I Made My Mother (節選一）

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