Growing Up Laughing: My Story and the Story of Funny (16 page)
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Authors: Marlo Thomas
T
he 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.” Bernie 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.
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.
—M.T.
M
arlo:
I’ve got to tell you, your book
Enter Talking
was the most honest and unsettling account of becoming a comedian I have ever read. What amazed me was that, with all the failure you went through, you knew you were as good as you later proved to be. How did you know?
Joan:
I didn’t know. I was one of the lucky ones who had no choice. And I don’t mean that melodramatically. But at this age you can look back and get it. I knew I wanted to be in the business and I knew that’s where I was going.
Marlo:
But you were failing everywhere—even your parents begged you to stop.
Joan:
Yeah, I know, it’s not rational. It was like drugs, and in my case, it’s my drug of choice.
Marlo:
When did you know you were funny?
Joan:
I didn’t know I was funny. I just knew I had to perform.
Marlo:
Were your parents funny?
Joan:
My whole family was funny. My father was very witty. He was a doctor, but he would tell great stories about his patients. I think it’s all truly DNA. You don’t just say, “Oh, gee, I’m going to become funny.” You just see the world . . .
differently
.
Marlo:
How about your mother?
Joan:
She was the only one in my family who wasn’t funny. She would always say—and it was so sweet—“I’m an appreciator.”
Marlo:
Did being an appreciator make her encourage you?
Joan:
In comedy? Oh, God no! None of them did. They didn’t want me in the business. They didn’t want me to be an actress, and couldn’t even say the word “comedian.” To them it was the lowest rung on the show-biz ladder. Even when I was already hosting
The Tonight Show,
my mother would still say, “Joan is basically a writer.”
Marlo:
You often talk about comedy in such a violent way:
Comedy is a medium for revenge, humor is a gun.
Joan:
That’s because comedy comes out of anger. Comedy comes out of “I’ll show you.” Comedy comes out of “You’ll be sorry.” The minute somebody is having a wonderful, soft life, they’re not so funny anymore.
Marlo:
You’re still funny.
Joan:
My life has always been rough.
Marlo:
Even now?
Joan:
Oh, absolutely. Always. Now I’m fighting the age barrier. They tell me, “You’re great, but you’re not the demographic.” I think one of the reasons I did
Celebrity Apprentice
was to say, “I can still take you with one hand behind my back.” And I was so glad to have won because of that. Literally to say, “Enough, stop writing people off!”
Marlo:
You like to make fun of older women being with younger men.
Joan:
Yeah, I do a lot of cougar jokes. I mean, what’s with these older women? I don’t want to wake up in the morning, look over and say, “Is this my date or did I give birth last night?” That’s not what I’m looking for.
Marlo:
You’ve referred to yourself as a lion tamer when you’re on stage. More violence.
Joan:
Absolutely. I think any actor or performer has to be in command. You have to be the strongest and they have to pay attention. You don’t want an audience talking during you.
Marlo:
I have this vision of you with a chair and a whip.
Joan:
Just about. You have to say, “I’m here and we’re all going to have a good time, but you will be quiet and listen to me.”
Marlo:
And why should we listen to you?
Joan:
Because I’m the funniest, and because you paid your money to see me.
Marlo:
Why do you say, “Never trust an audience”?
Joan:
Because you can’t. Bill Cosby told me this a long time ago. He said the audience decides collectively if they like you or don’t like you, every time you walk on the stage. You must never think,
Oh they adore me, so they’ll adore me tonight.
No, no, no, no. Bill said—and it’s so smart—“If they don’t know you, they give you three minutes. If they do know you, they give you five.”
Marlo:
How do you handle a heckler?
Joan:
I saw Sinatra do something once, so I just copied him. Someone was heckling him—and yelling and talking during him—so he just walked over, gave the guy the microphone and said, “You think they’d rather hear you? Here—go do it. I’ll be back.” And he walked off stage.
Marlo:
That’s brilliant. You’re known for saying very funny but insulting Don Rickles kinds of things . . .
Joan:
But it’s never directed at the audience. I have great respect for my audience. Nobody got all dressed up to have a bad time. They came to have fun. So I would never hurt them or intimidate them in any way. I go after the big guns.
Marlo:
Like Elizabeth Taylor. What did this woman ever do to you?
Joan:
I truly feel that a comedian is the one who says that the emperor is not wearing clothes. I succeed by saying what everybody else is thinking. I was the first to say that Elizabeth Taylor is . . .
huge
! Remember that picture of her getting out of a limousine with David Geffen and she couldn’t fit through the door? That was my first Elizabeth Taylor joke. Then I just kept going: “She has more chins than a Chinese phone book.” “I sit in McDonald’s just to watch her eat and see the ‘How Many Served’ numbers change.”
Marlo:
And you never let up.
Joan:
Oh, I let up. When she got in a wheelchair, I said, “Okay, let it go.”
Marlo:
I’m so impressed with your drive. You’ve never lost that, have you?
Joan:
No, no, no, no, you don’t. You can’t.
Marlo:
As harrowing as your survival stories are, they’re also very touching. Like when you first appeared on
The Tonight Show
with Johnny Carson, you were so frightened and felt so unsupported, that you wrote “Break a leg” on one knee and “Good luck” on the other. They were covered by your dress, so you could touch them while you were on the air. That was so moving to me.
Joan:
Yeah, well, you’ve got to bolster yourself. I had been brought up so many times for
The Tonight Show
and was always turned down. And, you know, the humiliation of getting up in front of a secretary . . .
Marlo:
You auditioned for a secretary?
Joan:
. . . who’s eating a sandwich. And
she
rejects you! I wasn’t brought on the show to anybody’s expectations. I was just thrown on in the last ten minutes, the worst spot. And three weeks before, my agent had told me, “You’re too old. If you were gonna make it, you’d have made it by now.”
Marlo:
That’s nice—and that’s your agent. So how did he get you on the show?
Joan:
He didn’t. I went on because Bill Cosby had been on the show with a comedian who was so bad, he said to the bookers, “You might as well use Joan Rivers. She can’t be worse than that guy.” And that’s why they finally put me on.
Marlo:
What a recommendation.
Joan:
No one had faith in me. They didn’t even think I was good enough to do stand-up, so they brought me out as “a girl writer.”
Marlo:
And it went great, right?
Joan:
Yeah, I was funny out there—and Carson, right on the air, said, “You’re going to be a star.” But it wasn’t until the next day, when every critic came out and said something wonderful, that the phones went off the hook. It was like an overnight sensation, really. Amazing.
Marlo:
So you were on your way.
Joan:
Not yet, because I knew one thing—and no one told me this, I just knew it was true: that it wasn’t the first shot, it wasn’t the second shot, it was the
third
shot that establishes you and proves you weren’t a fluke.
Marlo:
So how far apart were your three shows?
Joan:
About six weeks—and, every night, I went to a club in the Village with my Wollensak tape recorder and continued to do exactly what I had been doing—working on the shots, working on the shots. That’s all I did—I wanted to show them. Anyone can be funny once. We’ve all got seven good stories in us. But can you come up with 160 good stories?
Marlo:
I love that you taped it. It’s the craft.
Joan:
Yeah, I still do that. Nothing has changed. I work in a place on Forty-second Street in New York every Wednesday night. I go in, ad-lib, and tape the whole thing.
Marlo:
No kidding.
Joan:
Nothing has changed—just the machine is smaller.
Marlo:
Are you creating material to use on television?
Joan:
To use on television, to use on a roast, to keep me relevant. Right now, I’m going over last night’s transcript so I can pull stuff together for Vegas next week.
Marlo:
What joke is in front of you right now?
Joan:
My “Helen Keller Was My House Guest” routine.
Marlo:
Tell it to me.
Joan:
Oh, please.
Marlo:
Come on, tell me!
Joan:
It’s still so new. Okay—here’s one joke: Barbara Walters wrote in her book
The Art of Conversation
that if you’re a house guest you have to have one good story at every meal.
Marlo:
Okay . . .
Joan:
So Helen Keller has one story: “I put my hand under the water and I went
wa-wa
.” Which is good for Friday night—but come Sunday morning, it’s like, “Okay, we heard it, Helen.” You can’t even tell her to shut up.
Marlo:
You’re vicious! Let’s talk about marriage. I didn’t realize that you were married before Edgar. How long did that last?
Joan:
About seven months. As I’ve said, “Our marriage license turned out to be a learner’s permit.” It was all about
I don’t think I have the courage to go on and do what I want to do.
I knew it was bad for me. While I was married to him, I wouldn’t go to the theatre. I just couldn’t bear to go and see live performing because I wanted it so much.
Marlo:
How sad.
Joan:
When it was finally over, it was truly like getting out of jail. Years later he called me up and wanted to meet me, and I took a vote. My entire body voted.
Marlo:
And what was the verdict?
Joan:
A hundred percent
no way
. “Come on, toes! Everyone’s gotta vote here!”
Marlo:
“Come on, toes”—that’s funny. It’s what you said—“Personal truth is the foundation of comedy.”
Joan:
Oh, it has to be. Comedy has got to come right from the gut. And that makes all the difference in the world.
Marlo:
And what are you saying about age in your act now that’s right from the gut?
Joan:
How horrible it is. How I hate old people—especially old people who buy in bulk. “What are you doing with eighteen jars of mayonnaise at Costco? You’re not even going to make it through the checkout line!”
Marlo:
You’re so funny.
Joan:
As long as you talk about what you really experience, audiences know you’re telling the truth.
Marlo:
And how did you deal with that when you were coming back from losing Edgar?
Joan:
Oh, I talked about it immediately—I had to. You can’t come on stage with this elephant in the room and not mention that your husband has committed suicide.
Marlo:
How did you?
Joan:
I would come out and say, “I’ve had some year. You think you’ve had a year, don’t start with me because I’ve had a worse year than you, okay? My husband committed suicide.” My joke was “And it was my fault. While we were making love, I took the bag off my head.”
Marlo:
Oh, God . . .
Joan:
But it gave them relief, you know what I’m saying? We all knew it. I knew
they
knew it. And we were able to go on from there. I work everything out on stage.