The true life story of Michael Elihu Colby and his childhood days at Manhattan's Algonquin Hotel. His grandparents Mary and Ben B. Bodne had traded their southern oil fortune for the legendary but faded Algonquin and restored the hotel's former glory. Their efforts led to a remarkable renaissance and attracted an overflow of celebrities from the ridiculous to the sublime.

Michael weaves a vivid tapestry of encounters with glittering Broadway and Hollywood celebrities in a kaleidoscopic memoir of illustrious figures—some on a meteoric rise, some in tragic decline—while he found his own place in the topsy turvy world of the Broadway theatre and musicals.