Growing Up Laughing Page 13

  On . . . coming home

  My parents still live in the same house I grew up in, and they still have that same kitchen table we all used to sit around. Whenever I go home—and here I have a national television show, I’ve been around the block a few times—I’ll sit at that table with my sisters and brothers and my parents and find myself trying to score again. It’s like going home to that little court that you used to play on. You’d think I wouldn’t need that anymore, but I do.

  DID YA HEAR THE ONE ABOUT . . .

  An old Irishman, Paddy, is about to go to his eternal reward.

  He looks at his grieving friend, Mike, and says,

  “I have one last request, Mike.”

  “Anything, Paddy,” Mike says. “What is it?”

  “In me kitchen pantry you’ll find a 100-year-old bottle of

  whiskey. When they put me in the ground will you

  pour it over me grave?”

  “I will, Paddy,” Mike says. “But would you mind

  if I passed it through me kidneys first?”

  Chapter 26

  The Bow

  Like many nightclub performers, my father would acknowledge the presence of a star in his audience. “Stand up and take a bow,” he would say to the celebrity. I’d seen this ritual countless times since I was a child. In 1966, after I had become That Girl, I was in my father’s audience at the Sands Hotel, when I heard him call out from the stage, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a special star in our audience tonight. Miss Marlo Thomas, please stand up and take a bow.”

  For the little girl who had watched her Daddy hone his act so many years before—and for the father who had hoped to spare his big girl the heartache of show business—it was a powerful moment for both of us.

  Chapter 27

  Twenty Questions for Stephen Colbert

  Of all the comedians I grew up with, there isn’t one who reminds me of Stephen Colbert. He’s from another planet of comedy. Maybe that’s why he had his DNA shot into space.

  In 2005, Colbert launched his late-night talk show, The Colbert Report, after a winning run on The Daily Show, starring his friend Jon Stewart. Within three years, Colbert’s character—an audacious, politically incorrect loudmouth—had run for president (in a campaign sponsored by Doritos), visited troops in Iraq (shaving his head on the air) and coined a word—“truthiness”—which serious journalists began using in their columns. He also began wearing a consciousness-raising bracelet in honor of his wrist, which he broke while cavorting around the stage.

  Not since Archie Bunker has there been a character that we so strongly disagree with—but laugh at anyway. And when he’s out of character? The guy is wickedly smart . . .

  —M.T.

  Q1 You are so edgy-funny. And really fearless. Where did that come from?

  I think it came from my mother. She would always say things like “In the light of eternity, none of this really matters.” If anything bothered you or embarrassed you, if you suffered in any way, she’d say, “It’s another jewel in your crown. Offer it up.”

  Q2 Oh, that is so funny. So Catholic. Are you surprised that you’ve become such a serious force?

  I do not accept this “serious force” stuff . . .

  Q3 Journalists constantly credit you with being a driving force in our popular and political culture. I’d call that serious.

  Look, Marlo, I just wanted to make it to Christmas. We went on the air in October 2005, and got a 32-show buy. I told my producers, “Don’t buy any nice furniture. Don’t get me a desk—I’ll just use that steel thing in the corner. Because we’re not going to be here at Christmastime.” And you know what? I’m still working on that idea—that by Christmas, we’re all going to be looking for work.

  Q4 When I first saw The Colbert Report, I thought, Wow, this is hilarious—but it’s a three-week show. He’ll never be able to sustain this character.

  That’s what my wife said! The thing about my character is, he is never wrong. What is factually accurate does not matter to him. What matters is how things feel. So in that way, my character is a little bit Zeitgeisty. He’s all about what is valued and devalued in the country. Americans don’t really value intellectualism. They value feeling over thinking. They’d rather feel things are the way they want them to be than examine the way they should be. And that aggressive, self-preservative ignorance is what my character is based upon. I have described him as—and the order of this is fairly important—a well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot.

  Q5 What cracks you up personally?

  I’m pretty omnivorous when it comes to that. I like all kinds of different things. When I was a kid, I loved Phil Silvers. And I really loved Steve Martin. I never did stand-up, so I don’t necessarily have performance joke structure in my head. What I like is behavior. I learned to do comedy through character behavior in Second City. And that’s what really appeals to me. I also like relationship humor, and I think my show has that—my relationship is with the audience. And with my guests.

  Q6 I read that you once did a television show where the sponsors pulled out after one episode. True?

  Yes, it was a sketch show starring Dana Carvey. I’d done television before that, but this was my big break. It was back in 1996, and at the time, the number one shows on TV were Home Improvement, with Tim Allen, and Seinfeld. They’d trade off week-to-week in the number one slot. We came on right after Home Improvement and had a 13-show guarantee.

  In the very first show, Dana Carvey does an impression of Bill Clinton, talking about how he’s going to get rid of Hillary because she’s such a burden, and he’ll be both father and mother to the nation because he can do anything. Then he opens his shirt and has these animal teats going down his chest, which had been rigged by a guy who worked for Henson MuppetWorks—so they actually lactated. And then he breast-fed puppies and kittens. Remember, this is right after Home Improvement, which is as gentle as comedy can get.

  Q7 So what happened?

  According to the minute-by-minute tracking, at 9:30, we had something like 25 million viewers. At 9:32, we had 12 million viewers. We had lost, like, 13 million viewers in 30 seconds. And we never got them back. Our sponsors were six different Pepsi subsidiaries, and four of them pulled out. So after that we were sponsored by Diet Mug Root Beer or something like that. We were done.

  Dana came into my office afterwards—Steve Carell and I were office mates—and said to us, “I’m sorry. I’ve ruined your careers.” We said, “No, we’re having fun!” He said, “No, guys, you don’t realize—it’s over.”

  Q8 You’re the youngest of eleven children. Most people develop their sense of humor around the dinner table. How did you ever get a word in edgewise?

  In my family, it was a humorocracy. The funny person in the room was king. So I learned to retell my brothers’ and sisters’ stories, emulate their styles. Like, my brother Jimmy has a rapier wit. He could cut you right down. And my brother Billy actually taught me jokes—like guy-walks-into-a-bar jokes. And Eddie was known as a storyteller. Other members of the family were more physical. Everyone had their specialty, and there was never a moment in which we didn’t try to make each other laugh. We were constantly at it. One of my clearest memories was watching them and thinking, I wish I had made that person laugh. Or, I wish I had made that joke right there. Or, I wish I could be like them.

  Q9 That’s like growing up in a school for comedy. Were your mom and dad funny?

  Yeah, they were. I don’t remember much about my father—he died when I was young. But I’ve been told he was known for his sense of humor. Very funny, very dry. And my mother has a good sense of humor. She just loves to laugh. She’s a big hugger, too. And for no reason. That was a rule—you never had to ask for a hug.

  Q10 It’s been said that your ancestry is both French and Irish. Which one is it?

  We always thought we were French because we grew up hearing that Jean Baptist Colbert had been finance minister for Louise XIV, and was the
Marquis de Seignelay. My father’s family was too dirt-poor and uneducated to have made that stuff up. They wouldn’t have known about that—they were, like, horse thieves from Illinois.

  Q11&12 Didn’t you have your DNA sequenced on your show?

  Yes, and they told me that my DNA almost perfectly matches four people in the world—and all of them live in Ireland. They also said, “Your family evidently are very specific racists: They will only marry other Irish people.”

  Did you?

  I have a mixed marriage. I married a Scots-Irish.

  Q13 Tell me about your wife. Is she funny?

  Yes, my wife’s funny. But I had to teach her silly. I brought the silly to the marriage. She’ll say to me, “Why did you just do that?” And I’ll say, “Because it’s ridiculous.” So now there’s a complete balance of humor in the family, but it took a little while.

  Q14 What about when you were single? Did you date funny girls?

  The thing about comedians is, they don’t get groupies. That always bugged me when I was young and single. How come rock stars get groupies and comedians don’t? When I was with Second City, we’d do two hours of sketch comedy, and afterwards, it would be like, “I just killed, man!”—but never, ever did anybody want to talk to us. I kissed a girl maybe once during the entire time. And, I mean, it was like a peck-on-the-check, let’s-go-to-the-ice-cream-social kind of kiss, not like Sodom and Gomorrah.

  Q15 You took on President Bush pretty fiercely when you hosted the 2006 Correspondents’ Dinner. It was like a Friars Roast. Were you there to make him laugh, or were you there to skewer him? I mean, what were you thinking?

  It was a little bit of both, I think. I actually thought he’d laugh more than he did. But I can’t tell you how much he laughed because I’ve never watched the tape. On a certain level, I’m not interested in that evening. I just went and did exactly what I wanted to do. I figured I’d get some laughs, and maybe there would be a slight hint of brimstone in the air, but no more than on my show. They’d invited me to come, and I just did my material.

  Q16 What about the next generation of Colberts? Do your children have your family’s sense of humor?

  My daughter is very funny. When she was three, I heard her create her very first joke. We were walking down the street; she was on my shoulders and my son was in the old papoose on the wife’s belly. And I said to my daughter, “What does the dog say?” And she said, “Ruff-ruff.” And I said, “Right! Now what does the cow say?” And she said, “Ruff-ruff.” And I said, “No, no—the cow doesn’t say ruff-ruff!” And she said, “Yes, he does. He has a dog in his mouth!” And she knew it was a joke! I thought, That’s fantastic! I had to tell Jon Stewart that story—proud papa, and all. And he says, “She’s three, and she’s writing New Yorker cartoons?”

  Q17 Speaking of Stewart, is there anything you could teach him about the art of comedy? And, by the way, I’m going to ask him the same thing about you.

  No, and I’ll tell you why: I think I have a pretty good idea of what I’m doing, yet I’ve never had a discussion with Jon Stewart about an idea I wanted to go after, or the structure of a joke, or even the presentation of a joke, that I was not . . . “impressed” doesn’t begin to capture how I feel about the clarity that he brings to it all. It’s frightening.

  Q18 Have you and Jon ever disagreed on how to make something funny?

  I only went to the mat with Jon maybe four or five times in the entire time we worked together, and I was never right—and I don’t like saying that because I have as big an ego as the next guy.

  Q19 You lost your father and two of your brothers in a plane crash when you were ten. How difficult that must have been for you.

  Yes, after they died, I became quiet, distant. A little bit of an outcast. In school, I didn’t necessarily talk to other people from, like, fifth grade until my junior year. For six years I wasn’t particularly a funny person. And then I started making people laugh. I started making the popular people laugh, if you know what I mean. I don’t know what it was, but people started laughing at everything I did, and that sort of reintroduced me to the society of my school, you know? A year later I was voted wittiest in the school.

  Q20 But what about at home? How did you all ever find laughter again?

  We just did. I remember coming back from the funeral in the limo, and one of my sisters made another of my sisters laugh so hard that her drink came out of her nose. And the first sister actually got up in the back of the limo and started dancing for victory—celebrating that she’d been able to do that to the other sibling. It was as if we were sitting around the dinner table. And it was wonderful.

  And I remember thinking, I want that. I want to be able to do that. Because we all felt wonderful—or at least relieved. At that moment, the coin of the realm for our family was making each other laugh.

  Chapter 28

  Dinner at the Goldbergs

  The Jews and the Lebanese have a lot in common. The food they eat is just about the same, their music sounds the same and they have the same noses. So I guess it’s no mystery why most people thought my dad was Jewish. And playing the cantor’s son in The Jazz Singer—singing the Hebraic hymns with such ease in his throaty Middle Eastern tone—cemented the impression.

  When I was going out with Leonard Goldberg, we were visiting New York during Passover, so he invited me to Seder dinner at his family’s home in Brooklyn. I love Seders. We even had our own version of them at our house for Uncle Abe and Aunt Frances Lastfogel, since we were their adopted family. I love the ritual of the Four Questions—Why is this night different from all other nights? I love the songs, the prayers, the candles, hiding the matzoh and all of the food—everything but the gefilte fish. It’s a smelly, gooey lump, an acquired taste that I never acquired.

  The day of the dinner, Lenny and his dad were picking up items for the evening meal when Lenny pulled his father aside.

  “Please tell Mom not to push the gefilte fish on Marlo,” he said. “She doesn’t like it. She’s had it a few times, but she didn’t grow up with it like we did.”

  Lenny’s father looked at him in disbelief.

  “What do you mean she didn’t grow up with it? Danny Thomas isn’t Jewish?”

  “No,” Lenny said. “They’re Catholic.”

  Mr. Goldberg replied in a hushed tone. “Don’t tell your mother. It will ruin her evening.”

  That night, Lenny hired a car and driver to take us out to Brooklyn, and on the way he told me about the conversation. I thought to myself, I have to make it up to his mother for not being a Jew. I’ll eat the damn gefilte fish.

  The dinner table was covered with every imaginable food for the holiday. I happily devoured the brisket and potato pancakes—and then, with a deep breath, stuffed in the dreaded fish, smothered with hot horseradish, and washed it down with an enormous glass of water.

  Suddenly, Lenny’s mother jumped up from the table, crying, and ran into the next room, slamming the door behind her. Her husband ran after her, but I could hear her through the wall.

  “His children will come to my house wearing crosses!” she wailed.

  It was a terrible moment. And I had already eaten the damn fish.

  Lenny looked at me apologetically. Obviously, his father had tipped off his wife that I was a shiksa. Mrs. Goldberg came back to the table and tried to be gracious. But the elephant was in the room.

  On the way home in the car, I vomited up the gefilte fish. (Who says I’m not a great date?) The next day, I called my mother and told her what happened.

  “Good girl!” she said.

  “Good girl what?!”I responded. “I vomited.”

  “It’s the least you could have done for that poor woman.”

  They have a club, these women.

  ...

  NOT LONG AFTER THAT, Lenny, who was the head of Screen Gems Television at the time, was having lunch with comedy writer Bernard Slade, and told him the story of “Marlo’s Night at the Family Seder.” Berni
e screamed with laughter, and a few weeks later brought Lenny a pilot script for a TV comedy called Bridget Loves Bernie, about a Catholic girl and a Jewish boy who fall in love. In a pivotal scene in the script, Bernie takes Bridget home to his family for dinner, which turns out be disastrous.

  Lenny gave me the script to read and there it all was—the gentile girl, the nervous glances at the gefilte fish, even the vomiting. But in the script, Bridget doesn’t wait to get into the car. She jumps up from the table and runs to the bathroom.

  Mrs. Goldberg’s line about wearing crosses was there, too. But I asked Lenny to cut it. It would be too hurtful to his mother to use her feelings for a laugh. So Bernie took it out—well, he changed it to “His five children will come to my house, and three of them will be nuns!”

  Mrs. Goldberg’s line was better. But it didn’t matter. Screen Gems and Bernie Slade got a show on the air that ran for a season. If only all of my relationships had proven to be so lucrative.

  DID YA HEAR THE ONE ABOUT . . .

  Short summary of every Jewish holiday:

  They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat.

  Chapter 29

  The Survivor—Joan Rivers

  I’ve read many comedians’ autobiographies, but I have never read a more honest and harrowing account of an uphill climb than the one written by Joan Rivers in her memoir, Enter Talking. It amazed me how, with so many years of early failure and a constant lack of support, even from her family, she was unstoppable. What fuels such passion and perfectionism is that indefinable trait that separates the achiever from the also-ran. Joan has never looked away from the toughest parts of the human condition—even her own. She has the guts to confront them all dead-on, and somehow, miraculously, make them funny.