On Friday, November 1, Newtown resident Peter Friedman and his co-writer, Grant Copeland, took temporary residence on the third floor of The Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury to share with the community their new book, I’ll Get the Tip: Moments Between the World’s Biggest Stars and an Unknown Ad Guy. The book is a memoir of Friedman’s 50 plus years working in advertising.

A Newtown resident, Friedman described himself and Copeland as “just two Connecticut guys,” one of whom spent weekdays with big names like Arnold Palmer, Judy Collins, Michael Jordan, Kendrick Lamar, and Justin Bieber.

Friedman told The Newtown Bee in a recent interview that he had been recounting his life to a friend over Zoom calls during the COVID-19 pandemic. Friedman spent five decades building a career as a television commercial and video producer, working with some of the biggest names in the industry. From Lucasfilms and McCann Erickson to PGA Tour Entertainment, Friedman’s work has put him in direct contact with everyone from Bono, Bill Clinton, and Steven Spielberg to Harrison Ford, Christopher Reeve, and countless other household names.

Friedman started recording the calls and sent the recordings over to that friend — Copeland, the president and chief creative officer at Worx, a Connecticut-based marketing agency. Copeland said most of the book was “written in parking lots” over a two-year period. While waiting for his children during sports practices, Copeland would pull out his laptop and transcribe some of Friedman’s recordings.

Together, they created something memorable.

The first chapter of the book, and the chapter Friedman read at the museum, is “A Moment with Mr Palmer: Arnold Palmer.” It details a heartwarming moment between Friedman and Palmer.

Friedman spends the beginning of the chapter describing how he connected with his father while watching the golf legend play in tournaments aired on television. He wrote that he promised his younger self if he were to ever meet Palmer, he would tell him about how much those afternoons in front of the TV meant to him. The chapter goes on to do just that.

While on set filming for an online interface that would allow users to ask well-known figures questions about their lives, Friedman worked directly with Palmer. Friedman recounts giving a sincere thank you to Palmer, explaining how he brought his family together to watch golf. Palmer reportedly teared up, saying he “never thought of it that way before.”

Copeland said, “To me, it was a treasure trove … it’s not just a celebrity story … As I started to write that chapter … that was the one that as I was typing it, it was giving me chills.”

Copeland described the book further as it being “really a book about human connection.” Those who read the book will get this feeling, too.

Friedman tells his stories in a way that shows how genuine people can be because celebrities “are real people, too,” he wrote.

Copeland explained he wanted the book to focus on Friedman’s “ability to connect, bring people in, make them feel comfortable, whether it’s a celebrity about to go in front of the camera, whether it’s the chief marketing officer who’s got pressure and responsibilities, whether it’s a weird request that comes out of nowhere where we’ve got to change the whole thing or we’ve got five weeks to do this. Peter just has an evenness about him and it’s such an endearing quality.”

Friedman shared that he “learned respect” from the people he worked for. Friedman also shared that when he started his career 50 years ago, he wanted to “be successful by not being a prick,” and it clearly has gotten him quite far.

Copeland said he “learned so much from [Friedman], and I’ve learned even more from these stories … [Friedman’s] 50 years deserved to be known and memorialized.” Copeland and Friedman are planning to develop the book more with a spin-off podcast where Friedman shares more stories about his time in the industry and the different celebrities he encountered.

Friedman and Copeland are thrilled to bring I’ll Get the Tip to readers everywhere. Friedman said that even if one young person reads this book and wants to join the arts, then he “accomplished everything.”

Published in September by Free Lunch Press, I’ll Get the Tip is available through Amazon as a 223-page paperback ($14.99) or Kindle e-book ($9.99).

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Reporter Sam Cross can be reached at sam@thebee.com.