An Iowa native’s returned to the state to tout a new book she’s written about her life in the entertainment industry. Marcia Wallace was familiar as a character on the original Bob Newhart Show. She grew up in Creston, Iowa, in the 1950s and “always knew I was out of the loop,” telling an anecdote about looking old for her age but adding “it was a great place to grow up.” Wallace tells of heading to New York to seek her fortune.She says she left for New York City the day she graduated from Parsons College in Fairfield, took off “with more guts than brains,” which she says she got from her father. The actress says she took the book’s title from her father, who was known as “Poke” Wallace, and whose dreams always eluded him. She says when he was 70 he wanted to go into real-estate, but took the test and flunked it 13 times, and merely responded, “No sense in looking backwards, we’re not going that way.” That phrase became the title of her book, though Wallace jokes that “not everything he said was deep.” She worked with an improv group in New York, and honed her comedy skills. Then she came to California, got on the “Bob Newhart Show” and then became a voice on “The Simpsons,” and despite her hopes for being a Broadway star worked for a time as spokesperson for the Prune Growers of America…but still, has made a living doing what she likes since 1962. Her memoir tells the good, the bad, and the hopeful, she says. Wallace appeared in Creston this week and last night signed copies of her book at a West Des Moines bookstore.