Stardom in the Age of the Selfie
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You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams
by Alan Cumming
Rizzoli Ex Libris. 272 pages, $29.95

THE YEAR WAS 1999, and Alan Cumming was sharing the marquee at the Hollywood Bowl with Ann Miller, the one-time golden star of MGM musicals. Despite having sung and danced with Miller beneath the actual stars in the prior night’s performance, Cumming was still insecure about his vocal abilities. As he tells it in his new book, You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams, “I was having trouble finding my feet … of being myself, or a version of my self on stage.” His co-star, massaging her dancer’s legs, which she said would “go on forevuh,” massaged his ego by complimenting him on his performance in Eyes Wide Shut. “You were the best thing in the movie,” she tells him.

Cumming, it seems, like many a Broadway star, needs constant validation from his friends and fans.