Actor Jon Cypher has composed 99 brilliant limericks with insight, passion, and with thought-provoking and sometimes humorous prose commentaries that inspired their creation. During his 43-year career on TV, Broadway, and in film, Cypher was always continually skewering the idiocy underlying the way many of us live on this wondrous globe. He crafted these "five lines of verse that are impossibly terse" to take us with him on our long, perilous journey in order to try to change the way we care for the tiny spacecraft that bears us on our endless voyages around our Sun.As an actor, we knew him for seven seasons as Chief Daniels in the huge TV hit Hill Street Blues. He brought laughter to our living rooms as Gen. Craig in the top 10 sit-com Major Dad. He guest-starred in hundreds of TV shows going way back to when TV was live: The Kaiser Aluminum Hour, Bonanza, Armstrong Circle Theatre, The U.S. Steel Hour, Kraft Theater up to Murder She Wrote, Law and Order, and Dynasty. Jon was Prince Charming opposite Julie Andrews in the famed Rodgers and Hammerstein TV production of Cinderella. He was linked on TV with many other famous ladies as well: as Liz Taylor's husband, Doris Days' lover, Jodie Foster's father and Joan Collins' antagonist on Dynasty. In NYC, he won rave reviews when he went on for Richard Kiley as Don Quixote in the original production of Man of La Mancha, also playing that great role many times around the country. He was thus the second person on the planet to sing the wondrous song that became his anthem, The Impossible Dream. On Broadway, he played leads in The Night of the Iguana, The Disenchanted, and was the D.A. in Tony-awarded The Great White Hope and was Tom Jefferson in the hit musical 1776. He danced on Broadway piano keys as the Boss in BIG, The Musical (based on the Tom Hanks' film) and was Kate Hepburn's father (!) in the musical COCO. In hit stage productions in L.A., he was Peron in Evita and Director Julian Marsh in 42nd St. His five soap operas include As the World Turns, Gen. Hospital, and Santa Barbara. In eight seasons of repertory and stock, he played dozens of major roles from Macbeth to El Gallo in The Fantasticks. Among his 22 films, he was Man-at-Arms in Masters of the Universe, Burt Lancaster's nemesis in Valdez Is Coming and starred in other films such as Spontaneous Combustion and Strictly Business.Jon was MC at the famed "The Disclosure Project" at The National Press Club and is an activist for a strong national security system based on peaceful cooperation. Today Jon works with his wife, Dr. Carol Rosin, to prevent the placement of weapons in outer space. His message (from the back cover of his book): "Come on, if you just look around at what we're doing to this beautiful planet, to the astonishing variety of fellow creatures we've lived beside for eons, to our Earth's gorgeous and varied flora...what we've done to all of it and continue to do every minute of every day, the depredations and violence we actually consider normal, the trillions we waste on the brilliant weapons we've devised to slaughter each other and our fellow creatures (well, yeah, war and trophy hunting are normal, right?), I mean...if you just look around and you're not depressed, you really need to quick whip out your phone book or jump online and find yourselves a good therapist...because dear brothers and sisters...IF YOU'RE NOT DEPRESSED YOU OUGHTA BE IN THERAPY The above sums up Jon's message in his 99 Limericks and the commentary that inspired them. This is Jon's first published book.
