If You Ask Me - Betty White [15]
From the very beginning we were each thrilled by the professionalism of the other three. No one had to be carried. Whatever one of us served up was returned in kind . . . or better.
Of equal importance, if a set is to be a happy one, we were also blessed by the work manners of our group. No one had to be waited for . . . each was where she was supposed to be when she was supposed to be there. This set the tone and allowed us to relax and get silly, knowing that when the whistle blew, we’d all be in the chute.
It’s as though I wrote that about Valerie and Wendie and Jane! How can you get that lucky again, twenty-five years later?
We all just love to laugh. One night we went off the air in hysterics—we couldn’t tell anyone what the joke was. We still can’t. Valerie came in, early in the season, with this not-nice joke and we all found it so funny that before each show we put our arms around one another and say, “One for all and all for one”—and then we add the punch line. And it works every time.
I feel so fortunate to be on another show with the rare chemistry and goodwill that I experienced on The Golden Girls. It feels a little bit like lightning striking twice.
But I’ll take it.
With the Golden Girls—Bea Arthur, me, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty.
ABC PHOTO ARCHIVES/ABC VIA GETTY IMAGES
On The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.
FRANCIS SPECKER/LANDOV
STAND UP?
People often mistake me for a comedienne and ask me to do stand-up routines for charity. But that’s not my skill set. I’m an actor, not a comedienne. Doing stand-up is an entirely different beast.
Witnessing good stand-up makes you appreciate what people like Craig Ferguson and David Letterman and Jay Leno do every single night, night after night. Sure, they have writers, but they have to put their stamp on it, too. Night after night. Did I mention that?
I asked Craig once, “Are you getting a little roadweary?”
And he said, “Not all the time.”
When you’re a guest on one of these shows, you’re successful when there’s great repartee. Now, we know the hosts are accomplished comedians, so the question is, can guest and host play well together?
The producer has some assistant call you for a preinterview, which I hate. The assistant calls, and then you end up giving your whole interview to them, and you don’t want to repeat it when you’re on the air! It’s obviously a safety net for the host, so he has something to fall back on.
But when I’m on Craig’s show, we never go near those notes. He’s got them all there on his desk, but we just start talking.
Usually when I appear on his show, I’m doing a sketch involving some kind of costume, and I’m always short of cash. That’s a running theme. But recently I was on and we didn’t have any idea where we were going.
And Craig, like Tim Conway, is one of those people you have trouble making eye contact with for fear of cracking up. He has these eyes that just dance. So when I’m on his show, on the couch, I talk to him looking down at the floor, and he talks to me peering intently into my eyes.
So we sat down and just started having this easy conversation, and we didn’t know where we were going or how we were going to end, but somewhere along the line it just got funny. I can’t tell you how or when, but it did. And then it just came to its natural end. So at the end, the crowd was clapping and laughing, and he hugged me and whispered in my ear, “We did it! What did we do?”
It goes back to that repartee and comedic timing both. You have to listen and play off what someone else says. You can’t be thinking of what you’re going to say next or it dies right there. If you listen to people, it triggers something in you to which you can respond. It’s about both really listening and hearing that funny track that you can pick up and deliver back.
I can’t tell you it’s innate. I don’t think it is. But I think you have a propensity for it. And after that, practice helps a lot.
But this is not stand-up comedy.
With comedy, as opposed to drama, you get an instant review. With a dramatic performance