*Top,* Larry David, photographed by Jeff Garlin in Los Angeles, 2017; *above,* David, Los Angeles, 2010.

*Top,* Jennifer Coolidge, Los Angeles, 2013; *above,* John Mulaney, Los Angeles, 2015.

*Top,* Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks, Los Angeles, 2015; *above,* Diane Keaton, Rancho Mirage, California, 2013.

*Top,* Richard Lewis, Newport Beach, California, 2017; *above,* Bob Einstein, Los Angeles, 2010.

*Top,* Susie Essman, Los Angeles, 2023; *above,* Jeff Schaffer and Vince Vaughn, Los Angeles, 2019.

*Top,* John Waters, Los Angeles, 2007; *above,* Stephen Colbert, New York, 2017.

*Top,* Margot Robbie, Los Angeles, 2022; *above*, J. B. Smoove, Los Angeles, 2015.

Funny Faces

Mel Brooks, Larry David, Diane Keaton … A new coffee-table book offers an inside look at the comedy world through behind-the-scenes photographs by Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Jeff Garlin

By Bob Odenkirk

Jeff Garlin loves doing stand-up and being onstage, and audiences love how much HE loves being up there.

I’ve known him a long time—since we were twenty-three years old or so—standing in the back of comedy clubs and picking apart every established act, like we had actually done anything yet. But even then, long before we had earned any justifiable attitude, the audience could tell how comfortable Jeff was standing onstage, owning that space, talking, and mostly being really, really silly—sometimes, random and absurd—and, occasionally, even telling a direct, uncomfortable truth, often about himself. And that’s all fine and dandy …