Naked in Oh! Calcutta! and Other Stories: a memoir - Paperback

by Samantha Harper Macy (Author)

A fearless, hardworking seeker, veteran actress Samantha Harper Macy (widow of comedic TV and film actor, Bill Macy) has written an open, honest tell-all (and then some) about some of the most interesting men and women that the theatre and big screen had to offer. Racy and juicy, yet tender and sweet. Hedonistic, yet innocent. From rural Mississippi to Broadway to Hollywood, including pivotal moments in U.S. history. What a journey. What an adventure.

Samantha Harper Macy (ne Harriet Lloyd Harper) was raised in the small town of Batesville, Mississippi, where she lived an enchanted childhood isolated from most of the larger world. Her vision of life changed at nineteen, when she was a sophomore present during riots at the University of Mississippi in 1962, sparked after James Meredith became the first black student to enroll there, allowing her to witness firsthand a key moment in civil rights history and the birth pains of momentous change in the Deep South.

After receiving a master of arts in Speech and Theater at the University of Illinois in 1964, she traveled to New York City, arriving in The Big Apple, a virginal young woman of twenty-one. Within seven years, she found herself on the vanguard of the sexual revolution, performing nude in stage and film versions of Oh! Calcutta! She watched the rise of the antiwar/hippie movement sparked by the Vietnam and Cambodia wars, the ravages of the Kent State massacre against unarmed students, and the downfall of Richard Nixon, meeting along her way an eclectic group of artists and innovators who'd influence the rest of her life. Her marriage to actor Bill Macy brought her to Los Angeles and the chance to chase her girlhood dream: to go to Hollywood and kiss all the movie stars.