Live From New York - James H. Miller [124]
Even my brother John left after four years. I said, “John, what are you doing leaving? It’s like the hottest thing going.” He goes, “Well, you know, Jimmy, it’s like high school — freshman, sophomore, junior, senior year, and then you’ve got to move on.”
Dick Ebersol’s initial version of Saturday Night Live was efficient and commercial but fundamentally uninspired. It had little soul or spark, except for that provided by one magnificently conspicuous member of the cast — the man whom Doumanian had failed to feature. Now, allied with two of the show’s best writers — Blaustein and Sheffield — Eddie Murphy blossomed forth during the Ebersol regime. He was fresh, funny, electrifying. He lit up the screen. Audiences who had wearied of the show’s sameness and dropped away were lured back to see this spectacular new kid in town. Murphy had another loyal ally, or perhaps fervent disciple, in cast member Joe Piscopo. Offscreen, Murphy and Piscopo played the role of campus cutups — though to some observers, Piscopo seemed sycophantic in his adulation of Murphy and basked to the baking point in Murphy’s refracted glow. And more than one insider reportedly remarked, “Eddie Murphy’s success went to Joe Piscopo’s head.”
BRIAN DOYLE-MURRAY:
Eddie Murphy wasn’t too happy. He wasn’t being used when he first started. And then he proved himself and he moved up. He was trying to get a spot on there at first, and they weren’t really giving him a shake. I always liked Eddie, yeah. Yeah, in fact when Del Close came to teach improv, Eddie wasn’t too up for that. He went, “Hey, I’m funny. I don’t have to learn that shit.”
NEIL LEVY:
I had this tape of Elvis Presley’s 1968 comeback concert, where he wore that black leather jumpsuit thing, and Eddie used to come in and watch that over and over — and a few years later he was wearing black leather.
I also remember sitting in the bathroom and you could see in pencil on the wall, “Eddie Murphy No. 1.” And as he got famous, it got bigger. He put it in bigger writing and switched from pencil to pen. He told me when he was nineteen that he was going to be a millionaire before he was twenty-one. He said that to me. I never met anybody so sure that once he got his foot in the door he was going all the way.
MARILYN SUZANNE MILLER, Writer:
Eddie Murphy had been some kind of a part-time guy under Doumanian, and Michael and I screened something, or saw some of his work, and Dick went, “This guy is unreal! He’s got to be on the air.” And we met with Eddie, and Eddie was very quiet. You know if you’re great, and he just seemed to be saying, “Yeah, I’m great, what do you want to do?”
ELLIOT WALD:
To his credit — and I think Dick deserves credit for certain things — they made some good hires. Doumanian hired Eddie, but it was Ebersol who immediately realized that he was going to be a star. Dick saw Eddie’s potential right away. He sort of picked Piscopo out of the mix; I am not a huge fan of Joe’s, but he stuck in people’s minds, which gave them kind of a peg.
MARGARET OBERMAN, Writer:
All you had to do with Eddie at that time was be a real good stenographer. Because you’d get him in the office and he’d have the character down, and he’d have the voice down and then if you had a good ear, you could kind of figure it out and give him the stuff right back, and he would just kick ass.
I likened him a lot to Bill Murray. I think Billy and Eddie are probably the most talented people to ever come out of the show. There’s a drive that they both have. I think they’re both really unique talents.
NEIL LEVY:
One time Eddie asked me if I’d be his manager, and I said no, I wasn’t interested in doing that. Like a fucking idiot!
DICK EBERSOL:
When I came back and did that first show in the second Saturday in April of ’82, the writers strike happened at midnight that night,