The Queens of Comedy: Amy Schumer, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Chelsea Handler

By Ian Fineman

They've been called the most innovative and irreverent performers of their time. But Amy Schumer, Tina Fey, Chelsea Handler, and Amy Poehler are much more than a gang of girls who know how to tell jokes. They are also comedy pioneers blazing trails alongside (and ahead of) most of their legendary peers in a male-dominated business.

In a short time, these fearless females on the front lines of comedy have inspired millions of people with their unflinchingly honest perspectives -- a contribution that has empowered the masses with a greater sense of self-worth.

Plus, they're funny as hell.

Now, for the first time ever, the four most popular works of bestselling author and celebrity biographer Ian Fineman, are available in one must-read work of biographical genius. Featuring in their entirety "The Tina Fey Way," "The Smartest Sh*t Amy Poehler Has Ever Said," "Chelsea Handler: The Unauthorized Biography," and "Inside The Real Amy Schumer," Fineman's latest work -- "The Queens of Comedy" -- is a must-read for fans of the funniest women in show business today.

Listen, learn, and laugh your way through this bundled masterpiece in Fineman's bold and brisk biography series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sports Entertainment Publishing
• Release date: Jan 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311994868

Book preview

Part 1: The One and Only Amy

Sitting inside the comedy club Zanies in Rosemont, Illinois was Michelle Fantor. An aspiring comic from upstate New York, Fantor recalls an evening about seven years prior in Manhattan.

We are all hanging around the bar – new people to one another – laughing, carrying on and there was one girl in particular who was just extremely funny and real, Fantor admits. She was just really easy going and I thought she was there to see a friend or maybe another standup perform, and when I asked, she was like ‘No, I’m doing a set here in a bit.’ That was Amy Schumer. The girl at the bar was the same girl on the stage. There was literally no discernible difference. She was raw, she was sweet and innocent but also very strong on her own two feet. I loved her right away.

Ask anyone who has ever known Amy Schumer – personally or fleetingly – and they all say the same thing. There are no affectations about Amy Schumer. Nothing contrived. Nothing overtly aesthetic. Nothing fake. Amy Schumer is one of the few performers in recent show businesses memory to cultivate a successful career by truly being herself – even when some told Schumer she was crazy for investing so much of her time into trying to become a stand-up.

‘Wow, you've got balls!’ This is the typical response when people find out I make my living as a stand-up comedienne, Schumer joked in 2011. ‘Nope,’ I say. ‘Well, at least the last time I went in for a Pap smear, my doctor didn't mention anything.’ What I have is unbridled confidence. I am one of the lucky women in this country who can look in the mirror and like what I see.

Audiences like what they see too. And they have been applauding Schumer around the county for years now, but only after her spring 2014 speech at the Gloria Awards and Gala -- hosted by the Ms. Foundation for Women – did audiences realize just how legitimately genuine and personal Schumer is on stage.

Below is a transcript of Amy’s rarely heard speech that evening:

Right before I left for college, I was running my high school. Feel it. I knew where to park, I knew where to get the best chicken-cutlet sandwich, I knew which custodians had pot. People knew me. They liked me. I was an athlete and a good friend. I felt pretty, I felt funny, I felt sane. Then I got to college in Maryland. My school was voted number one ... for the hottest freshman girls in Playboy that year. And not because of me. All of a sudden, being witty and charismatic didn't mean shit. Day after day, I could feel the confidence drain from my body. I was not what these guys wanted. They wanted thinner, blonder, dumber ... My sassy one-liners were only working on the cafeteria employees, who I was visiting all too frequently, tacking on not the Freshman 15, but the 30, in record-breaking time, which led my mother to make comments over winter break like, You look healthy! I was getting no male attention, and I'm embarrassed to say, it was killing me.

But one guy paid me some attention — Matt. Matt was six feet tall, he looked like a grown-up von Trapp child, and he was five years older than me. What?! An older boy, paying attention to me? I must be okay. Uff. I made him laugh in our bio lab, and I could tell a couple times that we had a vibe. He was a super senior, which is a sexy way of saying should have graduated, but needed an extra year. He barely spoke, which was perfect for all the projecting I had planned for him. We grew up in the same town, and getting attention from him felt like success. When I would see him on campus, my heart would race, and I would smile as he passed. I'd look in the mirror and see all the blood rise to my face. I'd spend time analyzing the interaction, and planning my outfit for the next time I saw him. I wanted him to call. He never called. But then finally, he called.

It was 8 a.m., my dorm room phone rang. Amy, wassup? It's Matt. Come over. Holy shit! This is it, I thought. He woke up thinking about me! He realized we're meant to start a life together! Let's just stop all this pretending that we weren't free just to love one another! I wondered, would we raise our kids in the town we both grew up in, or has he taken a liking to Baltimore? I don't care. I'll settle wherever he's most comfortable. Will he want to raise our kids Jewish? Who cares? I shaved my legs in the sink, I splashed some water under my armpits, and my randomly assigned Albanian roommate stared at me from under her sheets as I rushed around our shitty dorm room. I ran right over to his place, ready for our day together. What would we do? It's still early enough, maybe we're going fishing? Or maybe his mom's in town, and he wanted me to join them for breakfast. Knock-knock. Is he going to carry me over the threshold? I bet he's fixing his hair and telling his mom, Be cool, this may be the one! I'll be very sweet with her, but assert myself, so she doesn't think she's completely in charge of all the holiday dinners we're going to plan together. I'll call her by her first name, too, so she knows she can't mess with me. Rita! I'm going to make the green bean casserole this year, and that's that! Knock-knock. Ring