Growing Up Laughing Read online

  Check. I could see a glint in those severe green eyes. Reverend Mother knew she had met her match.

  When we got in the car to drive home, I told my father how brilliant he was, and laughed at how he had checkmated Reverend Mother. But Dad didn’t smile back. He looked at me sternly.

  “I don’t ever want to have to face off with that woman again,” he said. “And I don’t ever want to hear that you have done something unfitting at a Mass. Mass is not the place for jokes.”

  I felt awful. He was disappointed in me. We drove in silence for a few minutes, and then he said, “I was good though, wasn’t I?” Then we laughed. It was good to have a dad on your side.

  DID YA HEAR THE ONE ABOUT . . .

  A Catholic teenage boy goes to confession, and confesses to a night

  of mortal sinning with a girl. The priest tells him that he can’t be forgiven unless he reveals who the girl is.

  “I promised not to tell anyone!” he says.

  “Was it Mary Patricia, the butcher’s daughter?” the priest asks.

  “No,” the boy says, “and I said I wouldn’t tell.”

  “Was it Mary Elizabeth, the printer’s daughter?”

  “No, and I still won’t tell!”

  “Was it Mary Francis, the baker’s daughter?”

  “No!” says the boy.

  “Well, son,” says the priest, “say six Hail Marys

  and ask God’s forgiveness.”

  Outside, the boy’s friends ask him how it went.

  “It went great,” he says. “I got six Hail Marys and three good leads.”

  Chapter 17

  Harry and the Parakeet

  There’s an old joke that Harry Crane loved to tell us when we were kids.

  A woman goes into a drugstore. She walks up to the salesman—an uptight, condescending sort—and asks him if they have any talcum powder. The salesman walks prissily in front of her and says, “Walk this way, madam.” And the woman says, “If I could walk that way, I wouldn’t need the talcum powder.”

  Terre, Tony and I loved that joke. The poor maître d’ or hostess who led us into practically any dining room across America with the words “Walk this way” was always followed by giggles of laughter—and not just our giggles, but the giggles of the great instigator himself, Dad.

  When I was just a little thing, I’d be in an elevator with my father, and I’d snuggle close to him.

  “Please, madam,” he’d say in a loud voice. “I’m a married man.” Everyone in the elevator would laugh. The laughter made the world seem small and friendly.

  Harry Crane was a wonderful comedy writer who worked with most of the boys, a lot for my dad. They were great pals. Harry had a very dry delivery, and he was fun to be around. Good thing, because he was always at our house for dinner.

  Deadpan and sarcastic, Harry had a tender heart and I loved him dearly. He knew I wanted to be an actress from an early age, so when I was around twelve, he gave me a subscription to the Fireside Theatre book club for Christmas. Fireside sent a different play every month. I had never read plays before, but I immediately got hooked. Once I had read the first one, I couldn’t wait for the next one to arrive. Odets, Hellman, Miller. Harry opened a whole new world of ideas and feelings for me.

  He was also a true New Yorker, impatient and aggressive, and he’d never wait in line for anything. Once, Dad, Harry, and I were on a plane to Las Vegas when the pilot announced that the equipment had a problem and that we’d have to disembark and change planes. Our tickets were still usable, the pilot said, they just had to be stamped at the next gate.

  All of the passengers rushed out to get in line for the other plane, but by the time we gathered our things, the line was quite long. Harry took one look at it and snapped into action. He grabbed the tickets out of our hands, marched to the front of the line and angrily approached the attendant.

  “You didn’t stamp these tickets!” he said to her accusingly.

  The attendant, clearly contrite, apologized to Harry and immediately stamped the tickets. Then he turned around with that impish twinkle of his and walked back to us, his adoring audience. Pure Harry.

  Even in the worst of circumstances, Harry was genetically incapable of resisting a punch line. He had hypoglycemia and often needed to get sugar into his system. One day, he was shopping in Beverly Hills, and feeling an urgent need for sugar, he ran into Nate ’n Al’s deli and said to the guy behind the counter, “Quick, give me an orange!”

  “We don’t sell oranges here, sir,” said the counter guy, who was too busy making pastrami double-deckers to help a man about to go into a serious swoon. “Have the hostess give you a table and your waitress will be right with you.”

  “Can’t wait,” Harry said frantically. “Please give me an orange right away!”

  The counter guy stuck to his guns, but before he could even get out another word, Harry keeled over in a dead faint. He was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.

  Joey Bishop heard about the news and called Harry at the hospital.

  Joey: “How are you feeling?”

  Harry: “I’m fine now. Thanks for calling.”

  Joey: “Where are you?”

  Harry: “You know where I am. You just called me here.”

  Joey: “No, no—I mean, how do I get there?”

  Harry: “Just go to Nate ’n Al’s and order an orange.”

  Harry also loved practical jokes. He and Jerry Lewis would concoct outrageous crank telephone schemes, tape the calls, then bring them over to our house for us to listen to. They’d go through the newspapers looking for ideas. The transcript that follows is from a call they made answering a classified ad placed by a guy who’d found a stray parakeet and wanted to locate the owner. In this one, Harry got to be the caller, while Jerry hung in the background, laughing and egging him on.

  Most people get crank calls out of their system during adolescence. But The Boys were like big kids—they’d do anything to make each other laugh. And this is how they entertained themselves when they weren’t entertaining an audience.

  THE LOST PARAKEET

  Guy on Phone: Hello?

  Harry Crane: Hello. Did you advertise that you found a parakeet?

  Guy: Yes, we did. It’s a green bird.

  Harry: That’s right. How long have you had it?

  Guy: We found it Monday, I believe.

  Harry: Oh, you’re so kind. What did it do, fly in the window?

  Guy: No, my sister was out on the back porch and she saw it. Then my mother came out, and it jumped onto her finger and we brought it in.

  Harry: Isn’t that nice. I hope it’s my bird.

  Guy: I hope so, too.

  Harry: Has it been talking?

  Guy: No, it hasn’t talked, but . . .

  Harry: Is the bird there right now?

  Guy: Yes.

  Harry: Put the bird on so I can talk to him.

  Guy: Well, I don’t know if it’ll talk on the telephone.

  Harry: The bird will talk—if it’s my bird.

  Guy: Well, it’s in a strange house. We had a bird that talked, too, and we lost it. It flew away and some people caught it, but they couldn’t get it to talk.

  Harry: I see. Well, can you have the bird fly over to my house tonight?

  Guy: Well . . .

  Harry: I’ll tell you what to tell the bird. Do you have a pencil?

  Guy: Yes, I do.

  Harry: Tell the bird . . .

  Guy: Yes.

  Harry: To fly straight down Beverly Boulevard.

  Guy: Fly down Beverly Boulevard.

  Harry: Right. Go down Beverly Boulevard to La Cienega.

  Guy: To La Cienega.

  Harry: Yeah. And tell the bird not to go during rush hour. Then tell him to make a left turn on La Cienega . . .

  Guy: Left on La Cienega.

  Harry: Yes, to 1213 South La Cienega. He knows the apartment.

  Guy: Oh.

  Harry: And if you’ll be so kind, ca
n you tie a little birdseed to his leg? Because he’s just a baby. Has he been crying?

  Guy: No.

  Harry: Has he been yelling “Nat?” That’s my name, Nat.

  Guy: Uh . . . no.

  Harry: I’m heartbroken. You haven’t hit him, have you?

  Guy: No!

  Harry: That’s good.

  Guy: Can we call you in case he seems reluctant about . . .

  Harry: Flying here?

  Guy: Yes, because it’s a long ways, and he may not be up to flying back. It’s a pretty hard flight. And there are cats around and such.

  Harry: Well, I don’t know. I mean, he’s never soloed at night. But he’ll do a day flight. If you let him fly at about four o’clock, he can make it in an hour.

  Guy: But that’ll be during rush hour.

  Harry: He’ll be fine if he doesn’t stop to fool around or anything. My bird can go pretty good, you know. And if he gets lost, he can always call me.

  Guy: Well, he hasn’t asked to use the telephone yet, and we have some other people who think this bird belongs to them . . .

  Harry: I’d like to see them take that bird.

  Guy: Well, there’s a lot of green birds and . . .

  Harry: I’d like to see them take my bird.

  Guy: Well, I can’t say if it’s your bird. What is the number on his band?

  Harry: Does he have a band on?

  Guy: Yes. Doesn’t your bird have a band?

  Harry: No.

  Guy: Oh. This bird has a band.

  Harry: Well, somebody put that band on, damn it!

  Guy: Well, we talked to some bird owners down the street, and they say it’s impossible to get a band on or off once the bird is grown.

  Harry: No, that’s not true. Look, if I give you my number, will you call me?

  Guy: Yes.

  Harry: At five o’clock sharp?

  Guy: Uh-huh.

  Harry: You sure?

  Guy: Yes.

  Harry: OK. I’m at Hollywood three . . .

  Guy: Hollywood three . . .

  Harry: . . . five, two, one, five.

  Guy: . . . five, two, one, five.

  Harry: Can you read that back to me?

  Guy: Hollywood three, five, two, one, five?

  Harry: No. It’s Hollywood three, five, two, one, five. You’ll call, right?

  Guy: Yes.

  Harry: At five.

  Guy: I’ll call at five.

  Harry: You won’t fail, no matter what?

  Guy: No.

  Harry: Because I’m so crazy about that bird.

  Guy: Okay.

  Harry: You won’t let me down?

  Guy: No.

  Harry: Okay. [Laughs]

  (Click.)

  Chapter 18

  Angelo’s Boy—Jay Leno

  Jay Leno is TV royalty, having worked his way up from the grungy comedy club circuit to the Tonight Show throne, as the heir to the king of late night, Johnny Carson. But his heart is always in the clubs. He plays more than 160 club dates a year—trying out new material, hunting down the killer laugh, polishing his skills. You would think that’s the last thing he’d need to do, but there’s a reason for this—and you can see it in his face the moment you ask him about his work. He simply loves what he does. To Jay, there’s not some magic component to telling a joke—there’s the right way, the wrong way, and the Leno way. And the Leno way has made him a superstar.

  Most of the comedians I talked to demurred when I asked them to tell me their favorite joke. Not Jay—he had two. I’m sure he would have told me more, but he had to get back to work . . .

  —M.T.

  Jay: I grew up in a household with a dad who was very Italian and very loud, and a mom who was Scottish and timid. I was trapped between those two worlds, and that’s where my humor comes from. It was a funny place to grow up.

  My father was very outgoing. No matter what I was doing or who I was going to meet, he’d say to me, “Look, you make sure you tell them you’re Angelo Leno’s boy!” My mother was the exact opposite. To her, the worst thing you could do was call attention to yourself.

  Here’s the perfect example. When I made it in show business, I bought my dad a Cadillac—and because he’s Italian, I made sure it was a white Cadillac, with red velour upholstery. For my mother, this was very embarrassing. They’d be in the car together and pull up to a light, and my mom would look over at the next car and say to these strangers, “You know, we’re not really Cadillac people. Our son got us this.” Then my father would start yelling. “What do you mean we’re not Cadillac people? We got a goddamn Cadillac! We’re Cadillac people!” My mom would sink down in the seat, out of sight, and my dad would keep screaming. Later that night I’d always hear from a friend who would say to me, “I saw your father today, driving down the street and yelling—but he was alone in the car. Is he okay?”

  My mother would sometimes laugh this repressed kind of laugh, but for the most part she was quiet. She liked to say “Shhh” a lot. I remember when I played Carnegie Hall, my mom and dad were sitting about four rows back, dead center, and behind my mom were six or seven college kids who’d seen me on TV and knew my routine. So they’re laughing hysterically at my jokes, and my mother turns around and says, “Shhh!”

  So I stop the show and say, “Mom, you don’t shush people at Carnegie Hall!” I mean, how can you not find humor with parents like this?

  MY MOTHER CAME FROM SCOTLAND. When she was small, her mom ran off with a younger man, and there were so many kids in her family that my grandfather had to get rid of a few of them. He went door to door with my mother—Anybody want a daughter?—and eventually put my mom on a boat and sent her to America to live with her sister. She was eleven, and went to work in a factory.

  So I always sensed a sadness in my mom, and I felt it was my duty to cheer her up or make her laugh. If I could do that, I’d get a great feeling of satisfaction.

  But sometimes I went too far. When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was go to the supermarket with my mother. I would run away and go up to the manager and say, “I’m lost—could you page my mother?” And he’d get on the loudspeaker and say, “Would Mrs. Catherine Leno please come to the front of the store?” I knew there couldn’t be anything more embarrassing for her, but I was a kid. I thought it was funny.

  Even when I started appearing on TV, she’d say to me, “You know, nobody wants somebody who’s funny all the time. If you want, tell a joke, sing a little song, do a little dance.” I’d say, “Mom, I’m not going to sing and dance to get to tell a joke.”

  MY DAD HAD a real good sense of humor. He was a salesman who worked himself up to manager of the office, and once a month he would have to give a pep talk to the other salesmen. So he’d write a funny speech and practice it on me. “Hey, you think this is funny? You think the boys in the office will like this?” And I thought, Oh boy, being an insurance salesman has got to be the best job in the world, because you get to tell funny stories!

  Dad also told me stories about the early days of selling insurance in Harlem. When he went to work for the insurance company, he asked, “What’s the toughest route?” And people, being very racist in those days, would say, “Harlem. You can’t sell insurance in Harlem.” My dad said, “Well, everybody’s got a family. Everybody wants insurance.” So he sold nickel policies in Harlem.

  When he died in the early nineties, I talked about this on The Tonight Show, and I got a letter from a lady in Harlem who said that when she was a little girl, there was a man named Angelo Leno who used to come around to collect on the nickel policy. She said he was the only white person who had ever had dinner in her home.

  “Your father would always give me candy,” she wrote, “and my opinion of white people was based on him.” It was such a lovely letter. I called her up, and it was great to learn a little more about my dad from her.

  I know that a lot of comics had unhappy childhoods, but I didn’t. I had a wonderful childhood—and a
wonderful family.

  I NEVER WANTED TO BE A TV personality. I always kept my day job, thinking I would do this comedy thing until I had to get a real job. I’d put the money from my comedy job in one pocket and the money from my after-school job—working at a car dealership—in the other pocket. Then one day I realized that the comedy pocket was much bigger than the other pocket. So instead of quitting comedy, I quit the other job and went to L.A.

  I like being a comedian because it’s a trade—and when you have a trade, you can always make a living. That’s the real key. I mean, doing TV is nice, but—as we know—they can tap you on the shoulder at any moment and say, “Okay, you’re done.” And there’s nothing you can do about it.

  But if you have a trade, you can always keep working. You can go to some small club. You can do a Christmas party. It’s like going to a gym for an hour and a half and running up and down on a machine. The stage is not a normal place to be, and if you’re not out there at least twice a week, it seems abnormal. But if you do it like clockwork, it becomes easier.

  I have never touched a dime of my TV money, ever. It all goes in the bank, and I live on the money I make as a comic in the clubs. This way, I’m always hungry. I try to do a minimum of three gigs a week—about 160 dates a year. That’s a lot of material.

  But jokes are disposable. Here’s my thing: write joke, tell joke, get check, go home. I mean, if you think it’s anything more than that, you’re mistaken. It’s a disposable product—like a tissue. You use it and it’s gone. You don’t reuse it and say, “Oh, here’s a tissue I blew my nose in two years ago.” If you keep moving forward, you never have to go backwards.

  Being a comedian is sort of like being a transmission specialist. There’s always somebody with a broken car who needs their transmission fixed. Same thing with comedy. There’s always someone who needs to laugh.

  A JOKE FROM JAY . . .

  A man is in a hospital, and he’s hanging in traction. He’s been hanging for two years. Every bone is broken. He’s bandaged from head to toe, looks like a mummy—except for one little opening near his left eye.