Photo: Roger Friedman

Rob Reiner was the surprise guest at Guild Hall for Celebrity Autobiography, a riotous show based on a single conceit. It’s not that the lives of celebrities are merely a hoot, but that read aloud, the unintentional humor is mind-blowing. Case in point, Tiger Woods’ sexual innuendo describing his golf strategies in Tiger Woods: The Making of a Champion. Or Reiner as Arnold Schwartzenegger’s dialogues with himself, emboldening the workings of an already outsized ego, or Joe Namath’s obsession with his hair, in Alan Zweibel’s voice. When performed onstage for an audience by first class actors, the results are laugh out loud good. That is the engine that fuels Celebrity Autobiography, a hit every year on and off Broadway, and at Guild Hall. The brainchild of playwright/actor Eugene Pack, who, upon reading Vanna Speaks, producer Merv Griffith’s miraculously talented letter turner on Wheel of Fortune, discovered that describing in detail what it is that Vanna White brings to the game, is its own game. And so he had Lewis Black reading White.

That’s just for starters. The evening included a medley of sports stars with Rob Reiner reading Mr. T, and Kardashians referring to their rumps. Excerpts from Miley Cyrus and her father provide a glimpse into their unique father daughter bit with Julia Macchio and Chris Bauer. The night would not be complete without the most famous marital betrayal that no author could ever script, starring Debbie Reynolds (Dayle Reyfel), Eddie Fisher (Pack), Richard Burton (Bauer) and Liz Taylor (a hilarious Susan Lucci). You cannot make up the mash-up of Debbie finding her husband and best friend in bed together at the Plaza. And then Liz wooed by Burton. And then Debbie and Liz in a confrontation on a cruise. Who cares about poor Eddie Fisher? The night’s highpoint is Susan Luccii as Ivana Trump reading from her The Best is Yet to Come, accent and all. Now there’s some prescient parental advice you wish you could ignore!