Love, Ellen: A Mother/Daughter Journey (16 page)

Not many weeks later, I was thinking much the same thing: Oh, that Ellen, and Oh, that Vance.

To raise money for El’s move, the two had come up with the idea of staging a farewell show at the Toulouse Theatre in New Orleans. On the drive down from Shreveport—where B. and I had relocated temporarily—I was already getting misty-eyed. Watching the show from my seat in the front row, I was proud of my son and my daughter. Vance was a masterful master of ceremonies and Ellen really delivered to these hometown fans, many of whom had been following her career since her humble beginning at the UNO Coffee House. There was a farewell party after the show, and it really felt like a family affair—all for an admission fee of only six dollars.

The reviews were raves. One of them, a local writer, mentioned that Ellen was in the running for Showtime’s Funniest Person in America contest, a prestigious national comedy competition. He predicted that she would win it.

“El,” I asked her on our last phone call before she left town, “did you read what he said?”

“Yeah,” she said somewhat skeptically. “I also talked to a guy I worked with in Dallas who said that the guy who won ‘Funniest Person in Dallas’ heard through someone that they chose the national winner but haven’t announced it yet. The rumor is that it was a woman who won. As far as I know, I’m the only woman in the finals.”

“Ellen, that’s wonderful!” I exclaimed. “I’m crossing my fingers and my toes.”

Not wanting to get her hopes up, she said, “Oh, well. we’ll just wait and see. I mean, I doubt it was me. It couldn’t be.”

Then again, maybe it could. Before finding out the verdict, Ellen left with Kim for San Francisco. This time, armed with more experience and insight, she was ready for the big changes that were about to happen.

El had just turned twenty-six years old. On her birthday card I wrote:

7

Big Breaks

C
OMIC
H
AD TO LEAVE
NO to Find Bucks for Yucks,” read the headline in the New Orleans newspaper-
Lagniappe
in February 1985. The story told of the dramatic strides a hometown girl had been making over the past year. The article described how Ellen had entered Showtime’s Funniest Person in Louisiana contest—mainly for the $500 local prize, never dreaming that she would have a chance to claim the national title.

But not long after arriving in San Francisco, Ellen learned that, indeed, the Showtime judges had selected her to wear the crown as 1984’s Funniest Person in America.

Was she surprised? Absolutely. Ellen did remark, however, “I think it surprised Steve Martin and Woody Allen even more than it surprised me.”

Soon El had a manager and was being booked into prestigious comedy clubs all around the country. For the rest of 1984, my mailbox was always full of letters, cards, and clippings detailing her exciting adventures and showing that she was really coming into her own as a rare comedic talent: 5-20-84

I am in Los Angeles at this moment on an airplane that should have left for O.K. City approximately 20 min. ago. The pilot (or at least he claimed to be the pilot. It was a man’s voice) announced that there is a small problem and it should take about 15-20 min. to “fix it.” Immediately I heard a woman across from me tell her new acquaintance “Last time I was on a plane and they said it would be 20 min. it turned out to be 3 hours.”

It’s been 30 minutes now. If you ask me, the problem is a lot more serious than anyone is letting on. I just looked out of my window and there are 5 guys staring at the plane shaking their heads—one seems to be saying, “I don’t know, it might make it.” At this point, I’m remembering noticing a Christian Science Reading Room in the airport. Maybe I should’ve stopped in.

At this point, the woman across from me says, “What did I tell you, didn’t I say that …” (her friend got up and left during the sentence, so she started to continue to me). I looked at her like Jack Nicholson would look at a woman like this. She shut up.…

The time now is 11:35. Since I last left you, we were told to get off the plane, that it was not able to take off. So I stood in yet another long line of angry strangers. The woman next to me was nice, she struck up a conversation with me and we exchanged our reasons for needing to be in Oklahoma City at a certain time. She said her daughter just had surgery and she wanted to be there when she got home. But I convinced her my reason was more important. So I won. Then, she started to hum some song, foreign to me, in an extremely high pitch. Dogs started circling us. I asked her to stop. She did.

Now I’m on the plane next to someone’s grandmother, she must be 70 or so. Since I sat down, she hasn’t stopped talking to me—telling me about her trip to Australia, showing me her menu from her last flight. I’ve had to open her packets of mayo, mustard, French dressing—salt-pepper—and finally peanuts. I wish she’d go to sleep. I have tried everything so she’d stop talking to me. I have on headphones listening to the sound for a news video which is being shown for
everyone
to see & listen. But she keeps tapping me and asking me what they’re talking about. Shouldn’t she just put her headphones on?? Then I tried to pretend I was going to sleep, I put on pajamas—just to stress this! But oh no, that didn’t work either—She commented on the fabric. O.K., O.K. I’m going too far—She didn’t comment on the fabric .. .

I’m exhausted—I just tried to put mascara on in the “bathroom”—but, uh, I started looking like Alice Cooper (he’s the guy who wears black all around his eyes). And everybody thinks showbiz is all glitter and gold, HA!

If I get a part on a sitcom, I’ll have to wake up for 5 a.m. every morning—but, I guess it’s worth it for $9,000 a week! …

Although being named Funniest Person in America was a big break, it really put pressure on Ellen to prove that she was as funny as the judges at Showtime had said. It wasn’t all smooth sailing.

I recall that El got her first taste of controversy in her own hometown, when one writer for the
Times Picayune
took a bah-humbug attitude toward the next year’s contest and wrote a negative article about the dearth of gifted comics in the area. Vance, the protective big brother, was angry and wrote a passionate letter to the paper, defending the importance of the contest and pointing out:

Because Vance was a local celebrity, his letter got a lot of attention. How gratifying it was—and is—to see how much brother and sister cared for and admired one another. I often hear stories about jealousy and rivalry between siblings who both pursue careers in show business, but that was never the case with Vance and El. Indeed, whenever Ellen is asked about influences and inspirations, the first person she always names is Vance.

The pressure to live up to her lofty title wasn’t El’s only challenge. She also learned quickly that life on the road can be exhausting—and expensive. Even when the accommodations were paid for and she was given a per diem for some expenses like food and transportation, it never quite covered the incidentals and other requirements for being ready to travel at a moment’s notice. Also, once she began to have managers and agents, after taxes and commissions, the paychecks that seemed so much more ample than before weren’t so large after all. Then there was the manager whose mismanagement put El in a financial jam. My mother, Noni, tried to help by giving her some down-to-earth advice:

Ellen’s financial worries notwithstanding, within a year of having moved to San Francisco the second time, she was on her way to building a solid career. She regularly appeared at comedy clubs in Dallas, and I always managed to get there to see her and spend precious time with her. There were two shows each night—and for however many nights I was there, I watched two shows, always.

Between our letters and meeting up with her so often in Dallas, the distance between Shreveport and San Francisco didn’t seem overwhelming. Whenever we saw each other, El wanted to hear everything that was going on with me—both good and bad. In early 1985, my good news was that the previous spring I’d proudly received my bachelor’s degree and gotten started on my master’s in speech pathology. That was going well, I told her as we sat down over lunch to get caught up. With a laugh, El brought up a recent letter she had received from me, in which I had written facetiously:

I laughed too. The truth, we both knew, was that B. and I did work hard making our homes attractive. The house in Shreveport was really coming along. “It will mean so much,” I said with a sigh, “when you and Vance can come see it.” Then I became more serious, saying, “I was thinking the other day about the quality, as opposed to quantity, of the time we spend together. Goodness knows we have quality. Many mothers and daughters who live in the same town and see each other every day don’t enjoy anything near the quality relationship we have, El.”

Ellen nodded. On the other hand, she pointed out, she’d much prefer it if I lived closer to her. Nothing was said, but reading between the lines I knew that Ellen firmly believed I would leave B. sooner or later. She certainly would have preferred it to be sooner. “What was this about an unprovoked verbal attack?” she asked.

“Oh, it blew over,” I said quickly, as usual doing my best to put a pleasant spin on things. B. had flown into a rage with me for no specific reason, only to back down the moment he realized how upset I was. “He’s been super nice, trying to make up for it.” Then I brought up my other bit of news—the diamond B. had given me for Christmas. It was over a carat and really gorgeous. “Did I tell you that we’re having it set in my gold nugget ring, with six diamond chips set randomly around it?”

Ellen reminded me that I had written to her about it. “Remember?” she said. “You wrote me about all the strings attached.” El was referring to the fact that B.’s sister didn’t want to sell him the diamond because she wanted to “keep it in the family” and had sold it to him only on the condition that when I died it would go to his daughter. “That’s a bunch of horse manure,” El went on. “Like you said, you don’t want to be in that stupid family anyway.”

“It’s put a damper on the whole thing,” I admitted, repeating how I had told B. that when Ellen made it in show business she was going to buy her own diamonds—if she wanted any. “Just so you know,” I told her, “if anything happens to me they can have the diamond back but the ring and little diamonds go to you and Vance. That’s worth something, and you all can do what you want with it. Plus, you’re going to get my silver, china, and crystal, and Grandmother Pfeffer’s china—all the stuff that was mine before.” Before I became too maudlin, I let her know that I had some genuinely exciting financial information. Brightening, I said, “I bought a $300 IRA. You and Vance are my beneficiaries—$150 each! The lady at the bank asked if you’d want it in payments or in one lump sum. I figured what the hell—live it up—so you each get the entire lump sum at once.”

Ellen smiled with appreciation and thanked me for her future inheritance. Then she said, “And if anything happens to me, you and Kim can split my clothes. Since you have a car, Kim gets mine. But you get all of my notebooks and material, in case”—with a deadpan expression—”you want to continue on my career.”

The subject somehow made her think of her father and how he had taken to sending her stand-up ideas on index cards. “They’re funny. Well, some of them are funny,” El said, “if he was to say them. They wouldn’t be funny coming from me. “ Ellen also mentioned that Elliott had asked after me. It made her feel good that we always spoke respectfully about one another to her.

I agreed. “It is nice that your Dad and I have friendly, warm feelings toward each other. When you talk to him again, tell him I heard the
Trout
the other day.” Before Ellen could make too much fun of that comment, I explained that the
Trout
was a piece of music by Schubert that Elliott and I both liked.

The topic changed to Ellen’s latest hope—that she would soon be moving to Los Angeles, the big time. Had she been content to continue traveling and working clubs around the country, she was doing well enough that such a move wouldn’t have been necessary. But El had other things in mind: television and movies. For that, she knew L.A. was the only place to be.

“Oh, Ellen,” I said, ever the practical one, “can you afford it?” She had just finished telling me about buying a brand-new TV she couldn’t afford.

“OK,” she shrugged. “The TV was impulsive. And I have to be impulsive while I’m miserable.” This was a reference to her being single at this juncture and spending her free time watching TV. I smiled as she continued, “I’m just a very impulsive person. It was impulsive to move to San Francisco. It was impulsive to get into this business.”

I understood, having my own impulsive streak along with my practical side. Still, the whole image of Los Angeles and Hollywood seemed so daunting.

Ellen’s opinion was that it was necessary to take risks in life. “Look at Dad,” she said, as I thought back to how painstakingly he deliberated over every decision. “Dad has never been impulsive, he always plays it safe.”

“You know,” I said, enjoying our long talk, “you’re very insightful. You really understand people—all different kinds of people.”

“That’s why I can’t wait to start acting,” she said. “I can read people really well. And I see so many different fronts—all the different ways to handle situations or emotions. Somehow, whatever I’m made of is able to absorb that and let me feel it myself. I can feel an emotion and portray it in my eyes—in my own emotions.”

This was a new development in her aspirations—a desire to have serious acting roles one day.

And so, in September of 1985, Ellen took her next step of consequence and moved to Los Angeles. Lest you think her days of struggle and stress were over, let me tell you that her first address was in East L.A. Upbeat and optimistic as Ellen can be, she told me it was advertised as having “New York charm.” But once she moved she found that the neighborhood was being used in movies to show gang warfare and other horrors of urban decay. She was out of there after a few paychecks.

Soon El wasn’t the only DeGeneres transplanted to Los Angeles. Just before Christmas, Vance also moved there. It was an important career step for him, given L.A. s status as a music industry hub. Within no time, he formed a group called House of Schock with Gina Schock, the drummer from the Go-Go’s, a very successful all-girl group of the 1980s. House of Schock quickly got an album deal that put Vance in the studio for many long months. He had never been the best correspondent before, and now I heard from him even less.

W
HY WAS
I feeling so low? That’s what I was asking myself one Sunday morning as I drove myself to mass. It was a typically hot Shreveport day and my life was typically busy and activity-filled. B. and I were almost finished with the renovation of our house, and my course work in graduate school was interesting—albeit very demanding.

Though B. missed Atlanta, the move to Shreveport was a welcome change for me. With Centenary College and LSU, Shreveport offered a busy cultural life. It had a small museum, good shopping, and nice neighborhoods. It was a pleasant place to live. I even became active in a local community theater and made some new friends.