Object of My Affection: Autobiography

Pinky Tomlin's autobiography is an improbably but down-to-earth success story. Starting as a red-haired, sunburned Oklahoma farm boy, he became, almost overnight, a successful musician and songwriter in Hollywood and headliner in cities all over the United States.

Tomlin's career began in the early twenties, when he put a dollar down on a five dollar banjo in his hometown Durant, Oklahoma. When he was sixteen, he played on a riverboat with Louis Armstrong. In the midst of the Depression he worked his way through the University of Oklahoma and two years of law school playing with the Boomer Ban, before heading to Hollywood in a Model A. The day after his arrival he sold his first song, "The Object of My Affection," which soon became a hit. Other hits were to follow, including, "What's the Reason I'm Not Pleasin' You?", "The Trouble With Me is You" and "The Love Bug Will Bite You if You Don't Watch Out." Tomlin made fourteen films in the 1930s, often writing and singing his own music, and started his own big band. Then, tired of touring, he turned to geology (his minor at the University of Oklahoma) and became a successful oilman.

Talent, determination, and luck figure in Tomlin's life story, but his pleasing Oklahoman personality was equally important. Listeners have compared him to Will Rogers, and more recently to John Denver, his easygoing kind of entertainment will not go out of style. Students of popular music, film, the recording industry, and radio will want to study how he projected himself and his music. All readers will enjoy his exciting and romantic story, which spans more than fifty years in show business and includes an extraordinarily happy marriage and home life.