Growing Up Laughing_ My Story and the Story of Funny - Marlo Thomas [68]
One day an old man, in terrible grief, came to see Jessel.
“Oh, Mr. Jessel,” he said. “I have had the most awful loss. I have lost my dearest companion of many years. I would be most honored if you would do the eulogy.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Jessel responded. “Who was it, your wife?”
“No,” the man said. “It was my cat, Fluffy.”
“No, absolutely not,” Jessel snapped. “I would never do a eulogy for an animal.”
The man begged him. “Please,” he said, “I’ll pay you double—$10,000.”
Jessel said okay.
The service was held in the backyard of the old man’s house with only his housekeeper and a few neighbors in attendance. He solemnly brought out a small box and placed it near a small hole he had dug in the ground. Jessel began his eulogy, and it was magnificent, as always. Everyone cried. It was beautiful.
When it was over, the old man handed Jessel the check.
“Mr. Jessel,” he said, crying, “how can I ever thank you? How beautifully you spoke, it brought tears to my eyes. And not until today did I realize how much my Fluffy had done for Israel.”
Chapter 35
The Comedian’s Comedian
What do Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, Steven Wright and George Lopez all have in common? Every one of them reveres George Carlin as one of the greats.
On the set of That Girl, with a clean-cut, buttoned-up, relatively unknown George Carlin.
Chris told me that Carlin once said to him, “I’m not in show business—I’m a comedian.” Leave it to Carlin to make that distinction. He also said, “I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.” It’s hard to believe that a radical rabble-rouser like Carlin was once out there auditioning for jobs on episodic television. But he was, and, in fact, he landed such a job—as Ann Marie’s agent in the first season of That Girl.
Because so many comics told me what an inspiration Carlin was to them, I went back and watched one of those early episodes. I’d forgotten what Carlin looked like in that part. How odd it was after all these years to see him with a close-cropped haircut and in a suit and tie, trying to play a buttoned-up guy. Every now and then you could see him break out of the straitjacket he was in. With a rasp in his voice and a hint of a mug, for a brief moment he would become what we would later admire as pure Carlin. Mostly, he was just trying to be a good boy and color inside the lines. But it wasn’t his gig. And he knew it.
One day he just disappeared. We didn’t hear of him again for a few years. Then all of a sudden, there was this startling new comedian rocking our world—and that’s when we met the real George Carlin. You can only wonder how many great talents never had the guts to walk away and try to find their own voice. It wasn’t that George couldn’t play the part of Ann Marie’s agent—it was that the form wasn’t roomy enough for his genius. Like Seinfeld said, “If you can do stand-up, that doesn’t mean you can do anything else. And if you can do anything else, that doesn’t mean you can do stand-up.”
WORDS TO LAUGH BY . . .
“Women like silent men. They think they’re listening.”
—George Carlin
“I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.”
—Jon Stewart
“The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot.
The guy who invented the other three, he was a genius.”
—Sid Caesar
“I can’t think of anything worse after a night of drinking than waking up next to someone and not being able to remember their name, or how you met, or why they’re dead.”
—Laura Kightlinger
“I always keep a supply of stimulant handy in case I see a snake, which I also keep handy.”
—W. C. Fields
Q: What’s the difference between a Rottweiler
and a Jewish mother?
A: Eventually, a Rottweiler lets go.
—The Internet
Chapter 36
Growing Up Free