Growing Up Laughing_ My Story and the Story of Funny - Marlo Thomas [92]
Step Eight: Be Discovered
I began working on Saturday Night Live in 1997. I was a writer there for a few years before I moved to on-camera. It took some adjusting moving from performing full-time to writing full-time. It’s tough giving away your best material to someone else—though when they’re a better performer than you, that makes it a lot easier. When the job opening came up to co-anchor the “Weekend Update” news segment, [producer] Lorne Michaels asked me to do a screen test. I wasn’t that nervous because I’d been working there for three years. I knew the room and the people I was auditioning for, and I knew I had a job to fall back on. I was lucky in that way because, if I’d come in out of the cold, I would have been really, really intimidated. To audition in that room is scary. There’s, like, two people watching you and nobody laughs. It’s the worst.
Step Nine: Become a (Gasp!) Sex Symbol
I was extremely amused when people in the media started calling me “a thinking man’s sex symbol.” Obviously, it was because of my glasses, but glasses make anyone look smarter. Put a pair on a Playboy model and she becomes a paleontologist.
But the most hilarious thing for me was when People magazine named me one of the 50 Most Beautiful People of the year. Every year, there’s always a person on the list who makes you roll your eyes and say, “Yeah, right.” I guess I was that year’s person. Still, I’m not going to complain about it. I’ve decided to stash all those magazines in a trunk, and then show them to my daughter one day.
Step Ten: Learn to Do a Dead-on Impersonation of a News-Making Vice Presidential Candidate
People were fascinated with Sarah Palin, regardless of whether they loved her or not. The weirdest thing for me was when everyone kept commenting on how similar we looked. Hello? This woman has perfect teeth and a great tan—and she’s got really long legs. I will admit, however, that we have similar noses.
THE BOOK OF PAUL
One of the quickest minds ever to light up a television game show was comedian Paul Lynde on Hollywood Squares, hosted by Peter Marshall. Let’s go to the tape . . . —M.T.
Peter: Paul, what is a good reason for pounding meat?
Paul: Loneliness.
Peter: Do female frogs croak?
Paul: If you hold their little heads underwater long enough.
Peter: If you were pregnant for two years, what would you give birth to?
Paul: Whatever it is, it would never be afraid of the dark.
Peter: According to Ann Landers, what are two things you should never do in bed?
Paul: Point and laugh.
Peter: Paul, how many men are on a hockey team?
Paul: Oh, about half.
Peter: What did the Lone Ranger always leave behind when he left town?
Paul: A masked baby.
Peter: Why do Hell’s Angels wear leather?
Paul: Because chiffon wrinkles.
Peter: Paul, in ancient Rome, bakers were required by law to bake something into each loaf of bread. What was it?
Paul: A Christian.
Chapter 45
The Reluctant Interview: An Improv
When Elaine May and I first met, we didn’t like each other. She was directing a revival of Herb Gardner’s play The Goodbye People at the Stockbridge Theatre in the Berkshires. I had just started going out with Herbie, and each day we would watch the rehearsals together. Later that night, he’d ask my opinion of what I had seen, and I would give him my comments, never dreaming he would tell them to Elaine. Unfortunately, he did.
Elaine wanted to kill me—here was this girl from Hollywood, swooping in and critiquing her work. But by then the feeling was mutual. I didn’t like her either because, from the moment we’d met, she called me “Margo.” I had just finished my TV series and was pretty well known, so I took her getting my name wrong as a personal—and intentional—knock.
The following year, we were thrown together quite a bit because of her close friendship with Herbie. One night she heard someone call out my name.
“Wait—your name is Marlo, not Margo?” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“I just assumed you were mad at