Nat Hiken was the creator-producer-head writer and sometimes director of You'll Never Get Rich, which was later retitled everyone refers to as Sgt. Bilko. A few years later, he followed it with the short-lived (two seasons) Car 54, Where Are You? and before either of those, he was one of radio's top writers. That's an amazing one-two punch of terrific comedy programs. So it's about time someone wrote a biography of one of the all-time great comedy writers, and an author named David Everitt has. It's called King of the Half Hour : Nat Hiken and the Golden Age of TV Comedy and I enjoyed it tremendously. It's really amazing how much material Mr. Everitt was able to dig up on someone whose life has gone sadly unchronicled until now. Since it's probably the only book anyone will ever write on Hiken, I'm glad it's so thorough.
You can score a copy of the Hiken book via all the usual on-line sources (Amazon,
Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc.) but you may have to hunt if you want a copy of another new book — one that's only about the Bilko program. It's called Bilko: Behind The Lines With Phil Silvers and it's by Mickey Freeman, who played Private Zimmerman on the series. It's a small hardback of anecdotes — not too penetrating or exhaustive but pleasant — from a minor publisher. Between the two books, one gets a pretty unflattering portrait of Joe E. Ross, who played Rupert Ritzik on Bilko and Gunther Toody on Car 54. Freeman's book talks about Ross's constant patronage of hookers. Everitt's discusses that, plus his unprofessional behavior on Car 54 which almost got him fired. Maurice "Doberman" Gosfield doesn't come off too well, either…