''Underfoot in Show Business'' is a witty autobiographical memoir by American author Helene Hanff, first published in 1961. Written long before she achieved worldwide fame for her bestselling epistolary novel 84, Charing Cross Road, this book chronicles her humorous, often penniless struggles to conquer Broadway as an aspiring playwright during the 1940s and 1950s. The memoir follows a young, naive, and nearsighted Helene who arrives in New York City after winning a prestigious Theatre Guild fellowship. Alongside her best friend Maxine—an ambitious actress routinely cast in plays that flop after a handful of performances—Helene navigates the chaotic world of New York theatre. Helene quickly realizes that producers who promise to stage her plays never do, and agents who promise to sell them never can. To survive, she and Maxine master the "delicate, illegal art of getting everything for nothing"—from scoring free theatre tickets to borrowing designer outfits from Saks Fifth Avenue. They cobble together an economic survival system through bizarre odd jobs, summer theater stints on the "straw hat circuit," and writing for early television dramas.
