Growing Up Laughing_ My Story and the Story of Funny - Marlo Thomas [5]
Like everything else the boys did, it was all about having fun and getting laughs. That’s what they knew. That’s what made them the most comfortable.
But the toughest hecklers of all were the kids Milton Berle faced when he did card tricks at our backyard birthday parties. He wasn’t the world’s smoothest magician, and the kids called him on it.
“I saw what you did with that card!” they would holler. “Cheater!”
But nothing fazed Milton—or stopped him. He was on, and that was just where he wanted to be.
Years later, when I was doing my television series, That Girl, Milton appeared as our guest star one week. I had never worked with him—I only knew him as one of my dad’s pals. But he was different on the set. Difficult, really. He’d roam around the soundstage in his big, white terry-cloth bathrobe, with a towel wrapped around his neck, like he’d just gone six rounds with Ali—constantly complaining. It was too cold in his dressing room. It was also too small. He’d been kept waiting too long. He wasn’t feeling well. He had to get home. On and on and on.
Milton was driving everyone so crazy that our assistant director begged me to do something. Desperate, I called my father.
“Dad,” I said, “Milton is behaving impossibly and I don’t know how to deal with him. What should I do?”
Without a pause, my father said, “Ask him to spell words that begin with R.”
“What?” I said. “Ask him to spell words that start with R?! What are you talking about?”
“Just do it,” Dad said.
I walked back to the stage baffled, and spotted Milton, who by now was coughing and hacking and whining about how sick he was to anyone who would listen.
“Hey, Milton,” I yelled, “how do you spell recluse?”
Milton snapped his head toward me.
“R-E-C-Q-U-L-S-E,” he shot back, feet pointing inward.
Everyone laughed.
Then I yelled out, “How do you spell remember?”
“R-E-M-M-M-E-M-M-M-B-M-M-E-R-M.”
Another big laugh from the crew.
That was it. Milton just wanted to feel comfortable. And he felt comfortable when people were laughing. Now he could go to work.
Kind of touching, really. I loved those guys.
P.S. Jan never got Frank’s autograph.
DID YA HEAR THE ONE ABOUT . . .
An old man and his wife die and go to heaven.
They’re sitting at a table having iced tea, with little
umbrellas in their drinks. They’re looking out at the lush
hills and valleys, birds are fluttering about and the
beautiful aroma of lilac trees is wafting over their table.
Everything is perfect. Even no waiting at the tees.
After a while, the wife turns to her husband.
“Darling,” she says, “isn’t heaven wonderful?”
“Yeah,” he says, “and if it hadn’t been for your goddamn
Oat Bran we would have been here ten years ago.”
Chapter 4
Socks and Moxie—Jerry Seinfeld
Like the comics I grew up with, Jerry Seinfeld has a genuine need to perform. No matter his success or the fortune he has made from it, Jerry is still out there on the road, building an act—story by story, joke by joke, laugh by laugh. In 2002, he produced and appeared in the documentary The Comedian, which trailed him as he traveled the country, determined to try out untested material one small club at a time, motivated only by the sheer challenge and his love of the craft. It was a brave and humbling adventure, and I found it touching to see into the heart and mind of a comedian who, like the legends before him, takes very seriously the art of being funny.
—M.T.
Marlo: Your generation of comedians is not all that different from “The Boys” I grew up with. No matter which generation, there’s never a formula, but always a wide range of styles. And they each have their own loyal following.
Jerry: I was just saying to someone this morning that comedy is like smells. It’s like a cologne counter at a department store. People just pick up the little tester bottles and say,