We'll Be Here For the Rest of Our Lives (20 page)

Back in the Toronto of the seventies, the original Second City club, in spite of its wealth of comedic talent, failed. Not to be deterred, the group opened again in a new and better location, the Old Firehall on Adelaide Street. Upstairs was a cabaret room where Marty Short performed in a revue called “What’s a Nice Country Like You Doing in a State Like This?” Downstairs the Second City troupe included a wildly talented guy from Hull, Quebec, Dan Aykroyd, who shared my love for deep-dish rhythm and blues. Dan had a distinct genius for spoofing those lovingly ridiculous characters we had all seen on Canadian and American TV as kids.

The second Second City location did brisk business, and the
producers offered me the job of musical director. I loved the comedy but hated the pay, which was half of what I was making at
Godspell
. I turned it down, but made the scene incessantly.

Meanwhile, Brian Doyle-Murray had moved to New York. By then, he and Gilda were splitsville and Brian was carrying a torch.

“The only thing that’s keeping me from killing myself,” he said, “is Belushi. If I swallow the bottle of sleeping pills, I’ll never get to see his Joe Cocker again.”

“Enough already,” I told Brian. “I’m coming down to see him for myself.”

I flew in. On my very first night in the city Brian took me to the off-Broadway
Lemmings
show. Act 1 consisted of Second City—style sketches. Act 2 was a full-on parody of Woodstock. Chris Guest did a spot-on James Taylor. Chevy Chase was hysterical as a stoned-out drummer. But Brian was right; it was Belushi’s Joe Cocker that brought the house down. He
was
the whirling swirling groveling growling English soul singer, showering the audience with beer, falling on his face, delivering a career-making caricature that’s going to be remembered as long as our memories hold out. That same night Brian took me over to Belushi’s place, where I met John and his wife, Judy. Doug Kenney was also there.

Doug had begun the
National Lampoon
magazine and
The National Lampoon Radio Hour
. He’d used his years at Harvard to develop a devastating wit and earned himself a place of high honor among the generation that was about to reshape comedy. Later, Brian got me a little work on the
Radio Hour
and I got to know Doug. You couldn’t help but like the guy, even though you saw he had a dark side. When he died in the mountains of Hawaii in 1980, his demise was shrouded in mystery. Had he jumped to
his death or merely slipped and fallen? His friends, who loved him dearly, said that he was looking for a place to jump, and slipped. They felt that the twist honored Doug, whose brilliant sense of humor was rooted in the morbid. I agreed when they said that Doug would have appreciated a joke about his own demise.

Meanwhile, back in the happier days of the seventies, Belushi and Doug were thick as thieves. And when Brian told John I was a piano player, John said, “I got a gig as Cocker in Jersey tomorrow. You can do Leon Russell. We’ll do the whole ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ routine.”

“I wouldn’t know what to do,” I said.

“Bullshit,” said John. “You put on one of those crazy top hats, stick your finger in the air, and you’re Leon Russell.”

I thought about it. I had Russell’s piano style down. But I was intimidated by Belushi’s bravado. Without even hearing me, John had more confidence in me than I had in myself.

“Sorry,” I said, “I gotta get back to Toronto.”

Eventually I’d hook up with Belushi. Before doing so, though, I needed a few more notches on my belt.

Shakespeare’s, Marty Short’s favorite eating spot in Hamilton, had opened in Toronto, and Marty was thrilled. He just had to take me there.

Sure, we hadn’t made it in New York, but in our minds we had made it in Toronto. We were in our early twenties; we were in show business; we could pay the rent; life had never been more glamorous.

Shakespeare’s represented such glamour. What other restaurant in town had telephones at every booth? If only we had someone to call.

When the waiter came to take our order, he spoke in a European accent reminiscent of Sid Caesar in a skit from
Your Show of Shows
. He was hard to understand. When Marty pressed him to repeat himself, the waiter got angry.

“You are making fun of me,” he said.

“I assure you, my good man, that we are not.”

Marty’s “good man” tone did not go over well with the waiter.

I tried to explain to the waiter that we were sympathetic to those who had come to Canada from foreign shores and would never dream of belittling them. My explanation fell flat. The waiter got even more incensed. To prove his literacy in our language, he burst out with a line that, to this day, Marty, Eugene, and I often repeat to each other when we want to get a laugh.

“If you … come to my house,” declared the waiter in a state of high indignation, “I will show you
books!”

At our still-going-strong “Friday Night Services,” Marty told a story about meeting Richard Burton after a performance of
Camelot
.

“I was young and nervous,” Marty said, “and somehow found myself backstage after one of Burton’s more brilliant interpretations. I was in line to shake the great man’s hand. It was a long line, and the wait made me that much more apprehensive. When I finally stood there face to face, I managed to say, ‘Sir, I’ve always admired your work.’ I figured he’d smile and I’d move on. But for some unknown reason, he engaged me in conversation. In that elegant English accent of his, he said, ‘Young man, didn’t you think that the reverb in the back of the hall was distracting?’ I was so overwhelmed by the power of his celebrity that all I could reply was ‘Thank you.’”

When Marty was through telling the story, Eugene said, “Marty, it wasn’t Burton you went to see. It wasn’t Burton who told you that stuff, it was Shirley MacLaine.”

“Yes,” said Marty, “but I don’t
do
Shirley MacLaine.”

We all still wanted to do New York.

After
Godspell
closed, I learned that a show at Manhattan’s Public Theater was looking for a rehearsal pianist. Naturally I jumped at the chance. I was told that if rehearsals went well, I’d have a shot at being the musical director. The production was called
More Than You Deserve
.

And it was.

It began with Marty rushing me to the Toronto airport in his VW Beetle. I had managed to book the last plane out for New York. If I missed this flight, I’d miss the first rehearsal and be out of the running. I’d seen that every New York rehearsal was full-on; miss the first one and you’re dead. Marty put on his John Lennon cap and played the part of a harried taxi driver who spoke in an Indian/British accent. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” he kept saying. “I get you there in plenty time.”

But unfortunately Marty hadn’t cared for his Beetle the way he had cared for the woman who would turn out to be the love of his life, the wonderful Nancy Dolman, a talented actress and another member of the
Godspell
company. His relationship with Nancy was in superb shape. His car was not. On the way to the airport the accelerator pedal snapped free of its connecting cable, and, just like that, the Beetle stopped.

“Get on the floor, Paul,” Marty urged, “and pull that cable out with your fingers. That’s the only way we’re going to get going. You’ll have to be my accelerator pedal.”

For the next half hour, as we wove in and out of traffic, I was crouched on the floor, responding to Marty’s exhortations. “More gas, Paul!” “Less gas, Paul!” “Lay off it, Paul!” “Lay on it, Paul!”

Miraculously, I arrived in time to catch the flight, with my fingers bleeding all the way to New York City.

Joseph Papp, who ran the Public Theater, had hired Jim Steinman to write a rock score for
More Than You Deserve
. It was an unsettling parody of
South Pacific
set in the troubled times of the Vietnam War.

I gave it my all, but halfway through the rehearsals, Steinman fired me. He didn’t think I had the right feel for the music. I was bummed, but what could I do? It was back to Toronto, back to Marty’s beat-up Beetle, back to the occasional gig with Tisziji Munoz. Part of me just wanted to up and move to New York, but that would require a union card, and I couldn’t get a union card without having worked in the United States for at least six months. And I couldn’t work in the United States without a union card. Catch-22.

I settled in and helped Marty’s Nancy and my Mary Ann put together a show band called
Synergy
. They were both extremely lovely and talented women, but the
Synergy
didn’t last.

I wasn’t encouraged about my prospects. How could I be? I’d just been fired as a lowly rehearsal pianist. I didn’t have the right papers to get to New York. All I had to look forward to were the “Friday Night Services” at Marty and Eugene’s house. It was during one such service that the phone rang. It was Jim Steinman from
More Than You Deserve
.

“I was wrong to let you go,” he said. “We need you.”

I was in New York the next day.

STARRING…
MARTY SHORT AS FRANK SINATRA
EUGENE LEVY AS DEAN MARTIN
GILDA RADNER AS SHIRLEY MACLAINE
DAVE THOMAS AS CAESAR ROMERO
PAUL SHAFFER AS SAMMY DAVIS JR.

I was back in New York conducting
More Than You Deserve
. My loyal friends came to town to see me in my august role as musical director. For some of them, this was their first time in the big city. The gang included my dear buddy Dave Thomas, who took over Eugene’s role in
Godspell
when Eugene became Jesus.

To celebrate my sweet success at going from rehearsal pianist to musical director, we planned an after-show dinner at Jilly’s.

At this point, we had all learned from Marty that life should be lived out in comedic bits. According to Shortian philosophy, life could be nothing more or less than a series of hilarious sketches. Marty was our Chairman. So when we decided to dine at Jilly’s, the watering hole owned by Jilly Rizzo, Sinatra’s best friend, we tried to take on the aura of the place and go in character.

“Marty is our Chairman,” said Gilda. “There can be no doubt. Marty’s Frank.”

Agreement all around.

“And you, my dear,” I said, “you must be Shirley MacLaine.”

“If I’m Shirley,” said Gilda, “Eugene is Dean.”

“And if I’m Dean,” said Eugene, “you must be …”

“Mr. Sammy Davis Jr.,” I said.

“But what about me?” asked Dave Thomas.

A pause. Then our response in unison: “Caesar Romero.”

“Do I have to be Caesar Romero?” Dave protested.

“Yes,” ordered the Chairman. “You have no choice.”

Thus the casting was set.

When we walked in, our first instinct was to look around to see if Frank himself might be there. After all, he did drop in from time to time. But there was no Frank in sight. In fact, the place was practically empty. Yet despite the dearth of patrons, an eight-piece band was onstage swinging.

“Groovy, man,” I said in Sammy-ese. “If Frank shows, the cats are warmed up and ready to wail.”