When Larry Namer was growing up in Coney Island in the 1960s, his goal was to become a public-school teacher or work in city government.
“That was the mind set then,” said Namer, a graduate of Mark Twain JHS in Coney Island, Lincoln High School, and later attending Kingsborough Community College and Brooklyn College.
While his mother worked for the city, his father drove a truck delivering Pepsi Cola to homes in neighborhoods like nearby Bensonhurst, and Namer would sometimes accompany him.
“So, you know my parents, their whole thing was their children should get jobs in city government and retire at 65 and have a pension,” he said
But things didn’t quite work out that way.
Instead, after college Namer took a job as a splicer in the nascent cable television industry. He quickly rose through the ranks to become a top manager at Manhattan Cable, the precursor of Time Warner Cable.
Recognizing the potential of cable TV and the need for new engaging content, Namer co-founded E! Entertainment Television, where he helped build the careers of Howard Stern, Ryan Seacrest, Greg Kinnear, and the Kardashians.
Namer has now written a book, “Off Script”, about his lifetime of adventures from Brooklyn to Beijing. He details how he revolutionized the American entertainment industry and more recently, pioneered innovative programming in Russian and China. A self-taught chef, Namer mixes in his lifetime passion for food, offering favorite recipes.
So why this book now?
“People have been bugging me to write a book for God knows how long, and I kept saying I’m not ready to write the last chapter,” he said.
To no surprise, the book’s origins go back to Namer’s youth in Coney Island. At age 12, he needed to learn how to cook for himself as both parents worked.
“I loved it, and I would read all my mother’s cookbooks, and I became really good at it. It became like therapy,” Namer said confides.
He realized he could tell his life story and combine it with the recipes that inspired him during major life events.
“I said, ‘What if I divide my life up into segments and then match them with the recipes that inspired me during those phases,’” he said. “And at first everybody looked at me and said, ‘are you writing a bio or a cookbook?’ And I said, ‘yeah, both.’”
In addition to presenting mouth-watering recipes, Namer drops names — including recognized public figures from Vladmir Putin to O.J. Simpson. His interaction with the notorious former Buffalo Bills football star turned into a “very disturbing” affair, he wrote.
One of Namer’s business partners had gone out with one of O.J.’s extra-marital girlfriends (At the time, Simpson was still married to his wife Nicole.)
“O.J. went around town threatening to break my friend’s legs with a baseball bat. And being a Brooklyn kid, you know, that kind of stuff didn’t fly with me. So, I called O.J. up and said, ‘listen you aren’t breaking anybody’s legs.’”
Namer says one key to his success is that he “continues to reinvent myself” every few years. Last month, he was appointed chairman of The World Film Institute (WFI), a global leader in fostering visual storytelling and creative education.
Regarding the future of entertainment, he is excited, but also concerned, about the potential of AI, and is calling for new laws to regulate it. He currently has several major projects in development, doing business in China, Russia, and the U.S. – one involving Brooklyn.
Namer attributes his ability to work in different countries and cultures – even governments hostile to the United States – to his Brooklyn roots.
“You know, it really goes back to growing up in Brooklyn with very working-class parents,’’ he explains. “Basically, it’s about being respectful. I mean, when my mother moved to Florida, I would visit her and I would say, ‘Hey mom, I want to go for Italian food at eight o’clock.’ And she would say, ‘No, you’re a guest in my house and we’re going to the deli at 5:30. If you don’t like the rules, go stay somewhere else.'”
“And that’s what I’ve learned,” he said. Working in China and Russia, “I’m not trying to change their governments. I’m just trying to inform, make people laugh and forget their problems.”
