Notes on a Cowardly Lion is John Lahr's masterwork: an all-encompassing biography of his father, the comedian and performer Bert Lahr. Best known as the Cowardly Lion in MGM's classic The Wizard of Oz, Lahr was a consummate artist whose career spanned burlesque, vaudeville, Broadway, and Hollywood. While he could be equally raucous and polished in public, Lahr was painfully insecure and self-absorbed in private, keeping his family at arm's length as he quietly battled his inner demons.

Told with an impressive objectivity and keen understanding of the construction--and destruction--of the performer, Notes on a Cowardly Lion is more than one man's quest to understand his father; it is an extraordinary examination of a life in American show business.