The Line King: The Al Hirschfeld Story.

• Author: Rothenberg, Robert S.

For more than 70 years, with rare exceptions, the opening of a Broadway show has been saluted on the entertainment pages of The New York Times with a drawing by renowned caricaturist Al Hirschfeld. With a series of lines from his drawing pen, he has captured the distinct characteristics of the theater's luminaries, transposing rough sketches, usually done during preopening rehearsals, to the final product, executed from the barber chair that dominates his studio. His various renditions of such stars as Laurence Olivier, Katharine Hepburn, Zero Mostel, Liza Minnelli, Carol Channing, the Marx Brothers, et al, are lovably skewed, but instantly recognizable.

Hirschfeld is saluted throughout this video by actors, producers, directors, writers, and critics as an icon of the Broadway scene. However, by having the artist relate his own life...