Live From New York - James H. Miller [106]
Doumanian got out of control. I think the thing that really did it was that there was a kid on the show by the name of Charlie Rocket, and one night he did the unpardonable: He said the fuck-word on live television, and it went out to the whole network. And that was it. I said, “Who needs this aggravation?” I think we’d made the decision even before then that we had to get rid of her. This woman was a train wreck, and the shows were just not watchable.
GILBERT GOTTFRIED:
I was sitting in the offices talking to Eddie one day, when all of a sudden some woman comes in and says, “Eddie, somebody from NBC wants to speak to you.” And he gets on the phone and he goes, “Yes, yeah, okay, no. No, I won’t tell anybody.” And he hangs up. Before the phone even hits the cradle, he tells me, “Jean Doumanian’s been fired.”
The next day or so, Jean Doumanian was going to make this announcement to the cast and crew that she’d been fired, but by then everyone knew it. And it was weird, because they had this improv teacher named Del Close hired there for some reason, and so she calls everyone into her office, and everyone’s sitting there, and she’s tearfully telling everyone that she’s been fired and everything but that she wishes everyone the best and whatnot. And, in the midst of all this, all of a sudden they walk in with a cake, singing “Happy Birthday,” and it’s put in front of this Del Close guy. It was a very surreal situation.
DAVID SHEFFIELD:
It was clearly coming and she knew it.
JEAN DOUMANIAN:
I was down in Irwin Segelstein’s office for maybe four hours, trying to convince him to please give us more money for the show, but I also found out that some of the people on my show, that I’d hired and helped, were going downstairs and talking to the brass behind my back. I don’t know this for a fact, but I was told. They were really sabotaging the show and me.
He had sent me some wine when I got the job, as a congratulatory thing. But before I told anybody anything, I broke open about five bottles of wine and I said, “Everybody, come on in. I have something to tell you, and don’t be upset about it, because I’m not upset about it. I just want to tell you you’ve done a wonderful job. I think you’re all terrific. I want you all to go on and try to make the best of it, but they told me that I’ve served my purpose and that’s it for me.” And that was it. In retrospect, I think really they put me in there on purpose, because after a very successful show, the second guy usually fails and then the third guy comes in, takes over, and succeeds.
PAM NORRIS:
I’ve sort of learned, in the subsequent twenty years I’ve been in show business, that people just aren’t that clever, and sometimes things that look like clever schemes are just people stumbling over their own feet.
JEAN DOUMANIAN:
I must say, my friends were very happy that that part of my life had ended. Because they thought I was working so hard and I was so determined that they were concerned about my health. But I was really disappointed. I thought Brandon and the network were going to stick behind me, and they didn’t at all. If you read the newspapers, they didn’t support me at all. So that’s when I kind of discovered that I had been used. I don’t consider that show a failure for myself. I consider it truly an accomplishment.
GILBERT GOTTFRIED:
After I was fired from the show, I kind of was like walking around with this feeling that everybody was looking at me going, “Oh, that’s the guy who was on a bad season on Saturday Night.” The funny thing is, after time passes, people come up to you and go, “I really liked you in that sketch with John Belushi.” Or, “I liked you in that sketch you used to do with Gilda Radner and Molly Shannon.” It gets all mixed up together. I didn’t feel like I was a big star when I was on the show, and I didn’t feel like I was a nobody without it. But I walk around with that stigma. I hated it for the longest time when someone would recognize me from Saturday Night.
CHRIS ALBRECHT:
In retrospect, what Jean did was just take the