Live From New York - James H. Miller [176]
Then I did it and everyone loved it. It was the Sting–Steve Martin show. I couldn’t believe that a song I wrote was actually not only on national TV but that Sting and Steve were watching me, and it was perfect. At the party afterwards I could tell everyone was like loving it. And then it was in the paper the next day. The Wall Street Journal had an article called “1987 — The Year of the Bimbo,” and they talked about all the bimbos in the news that year, like Donna Rice and Jessica Hahn, and they mentioned my song. So I framed it and it’s on the wall.
CAROL LEIFER:
There were two women on staff, me and Suzy Schneider, and she got fired in January. I’m used to boys-club situations. From starting in stand-up to any staff I worked on, women are always the minority, and I’m used to it and I’m very comfortable in that situation because I’ve never felt alienated. I’ve always felt welcomed by the men in those situations. It’s only when I’m in a situation where I don’t know the guys that I see the boys-club mentality.
LORNE MICHAELS:
The Turners’ big thing was “boys club,” and that was a very hard thing to overcome. There was an incident, I think, when from what I’ve heard described — I wasn’t there for it — I think Adam Sandler peed in a plant to make Downey laugh or something, and Bonnie Turner was disgusted by it — with, I’m sure, absolute justification. She was also, you know, a mother, and this all seemed to be wasting time. It was a natural complaint. And it was the end of a cycle: that it was a boys club and that women were not treated well.
VICTORIA JACKSON:
I was the first woman in the cast to get a lead in a movie — Casual Sex? And my poster was all over town. And we never talked about it, but I’m sure that was everyone’s goal. So that probably really bugged the rest of them, you know. No one ever said a word about it. It was invisible.
My theory is that men compete better than women. The men were competing against each other too, for lines, but when they compete and then the show is over, they pat each other on the back and have a beer. Women are much more vicious and scary. They don’t do that. And sometimes I actually thought the other women were going to try to poison my coffee and kill me. If I had a really good joke in a sketch that got a huge laugh and was like a really great moment that would be repeated for all eternity — as in the “Big Pill” sketch, where I got this huge golden nugget of a great moment — it got mysteriously taken away from me. And I was like, “Why don’t I have a line all of a sudden? It got a huge laugh at dress rehearsal.”
They weren’t nice to me. Maybe they were jealous or something.
JAN HOOKS:
I had a huge ego. I just loved anybody that wanted me to show my stuff. I will do it. Oh man, let me go out there and show my stuff. And in my midtwenties, it kind of hit that it wasn’t a hobby anymore, that it was my vocation, that I had to do this in order to live. And that shaded it in a whole different way. It made me afraid, you know.
Frankly I kind of miss those silly years of youth, where you’re all ego and you just want to get out there and show your stuff. But now, I don’t know. I’m in therapy.
NORA DUNN, Cast Member:
I hadn’t been to church in years, but when I got the part on Saturday Night Live, I went right to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and just wept, because it was monumental. It really came out of the blue. I’d never even considered in my head that I was ever going to be on television.
No one takes you under their wing at Saturday Night Live. There are no wings. I was also shocked that it was so hard for the writers to write for women.
JON LOVITZ:
I think that Nora Dunn got a lot of her stuff on because of her relationship with Lorne. She would get everything on. I thought that was the reason, and a lot of other people thought that was the reason. Then she would complain: “The show’s against women.” She got all of her stuff on — almost all of it. She had her own writer hired for her, Christine Zander. And then she would say how tough