I bought this book in the mid-80s when I was a fledgling copywriter in New York City.

It was helpful in focusing on what was important in putting my book together. But not everything in this book is a hard-and-fast fact. For example, in the author's opinion, it is okay to simply have stick figures for your visuals. But every ad person I talked with said this thinking was completely wrong. The truth is, you need to have as professional-looking a book as possible, which means you need to hire, at the very least, a professional art director to draw your visual for you. Better yet, get some photos for your ad if that is what is meant to be there.

Competition for jobs is just so fierce, you need to do whatever you can to package yourself ahead of the next guy. Great ideas are not enough anymore; they need to look great, too.

In the end, I was always given the "great book, no jobs" refrain. After three years of pounding the streets of NYC, I never got a job. There was even an ringing endorsement from a New York creative director on the back cover which read "I will give anyone who follows this book's advice an automatic interview!" I never even got a return phone call from the guy.

I would recommend this book to a beginner, but with the caveat that the ideas inside are just one person's opinion, and should not be considered gospel.

A few years ago, as a college student, I had the opportunity of hearing a speaker who got his start as a copywriter at Ogilvy & Mather. While speaking, and in private group sessions, he disclosed that before going into advertising, he had just gotten his degree in Political Science, a subject totally unrelated to the fast-paced, crazy-creative, lucrative world of advertising. He bought this book, followed it to a T, built his portfolio, and was able to bluff his way into his first job in NYC. He impressed me so much, that I've been looking for this book ever since. I'm so glad that I was able to find it, (still in print, thank goodness) and am anxiously waiting for its delivery. As of December 2000, I have my degree in advertising, but I wasn't prepared for the angst of breaking into the business, and I was given so little guidance in preparing a 'book'. I think this book is really going to help.

This is one of those books that even the laziest of readers will finish in one sitting. Alright, maybe two, but I'm pioneering a higher kind of lazy.

I just finished reading "Dream Lovers" and would recommend the book to all lovers of the entertainment industry. It tells from beginning to end the life of two wonderful people who never really didn't have anything in common, struggle with their own demons. It's not a name dropping sort of book it's a story of struggle, misunderstandings, abuse in the extreme and the type of abuse we inflect on the people we really love. Dodd is quite a man and any parent would be proud of the way he turned out considering what he himself had to go through as a child of two famous people who had and still has a lot of warts. It has been out of print for awhile, but if you put a little effort into it you can still find it either through used books store or like I did on ebay. Good Luck it's worth the effort.

Dodd Darin is the only child of the late great Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee, the "Dream Lovers" of the title. I hesitated reading this book because most celebrity biographies written by the children of the subjects are often vindictive, slash and burn tell-alls. Not this book. Dodd Darin has written a touching,honest, heartfelt account of his parents lives, together and apart ,paying tribute to their good qualities while recognizing and accepting their shortcomings. The story told here is often quite sad, especially reading about Dee's current isolation and reclusiveness. The book is very well-written and is a fine tribute to the author's parents. Sandra Dee must be proud of her son.

A detailed, well-written account of the lives of Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin as authored by their son. What is also interesting is that Sandra Dee's own comments are included, written in her voice, as if she is speaking to the reader. Her commentary is honest, sad, and painfully revealing; at times she sounds very detached, which makes it even more touching. Her onscreen image of a sweet, blonde teen-age virgin (as spoofed in the song "Look At Me I'm Sandra Dee" from the movie soundtrack "Grease") was the antithesis of what her life was really like. Starting at age 5, she was molested by her stepfather; as she matured, she was forced to submit to sex with him. Dee's mother knew about this, but turned a blind eye and lived vicariously through her daughter's movie career. Thanks to her dyfunctional mother and stepfather, Sandra developed a severe eating disorder which plagues her to this day. Of the two, I found Sandra's story to be the most interesting and the most tragic, although Darin's life wasn't a piece of cake, either. He struggled with a heart condition, living his life as a race against time, knowing that eventually his heart would give out. Once you start reading this book, you won't want to put it down. This book shows how two gifted young entertainers lived quite tortured and difficult lives once the cameras stopped rolling.