Live From New York - James H. Miller [177]
She fought with a lot of people. She fought with me the first year. And then the second year she started again, and I said, “I’m not going through this with you for another year.” She would pick a fight. She fought with everybody. And then one time, one of the funniest things was seeing Dana with her. It was Dana’s first year, and I go, “You’ll see.” He asked me, “What are you talking about?” And then they did this Star Trek thing, or maybe it was a Church Lady. And he and Nora were just screaming at each other.
One of the funniest things was seeing her and Terry Sweeney both dressed as Diana Ross or Nancy Reagan — and the two of them screaming at each other over who gets to play which women.
VICTORIA JACKSON:
Nora told us the first day I was there that she had a close relationship with Lorne. I’m not spreading gossip, since she actually told everyone herself — probably to intimidate us. I don’t respect people who do that. I just went, “Oooh.”
We had this meeting and one of the producers asked us what was wrong with the show. And everyone was supposed to say something, but no one was saying anything. And it was all of us sitting on the floor like high school or kindergarten or whatever. And the door was shut and she said, “Okay, come on, something’s wrong with the show.” Because there was a lot of tension and fighting and anger and stuff. And finally I go, “Okay, I’ll say it in one sentence. You really want to know?” And then I felt like I was Robert De Niro — “You really want to know?” Like, “You talkin’ to me?” I repeated it three times to build up the courage to tell the truth.
So then I was shaking, and I stood up and told everyone that what was wrong with the show was those two women — I pointed to Nora and Jan — and all the things they did bad: They didn’t cooperate in sketches and they slammed doors in people’s faces and back-bite and backstab and all that, you know. And then there was like silence and no one said anything. And so they both got up, really slowly, and walked out of the room. And then I said to the others, “Thanks a lot for standing up for me.” Because everyone agreed, but no one said anything. And Dana goes, “You didn’t hear anyone disagreeing, did you?” And everyone burst out laughing. And so then, after that, they were afraid of me and they didn’t mess with me anymore. I mean, it was weird. It was kind of like you got rewarded for being mean.
TERRY TURNER:
Victoria ended up standing on a chair and said Nora was a bitch. And she turned to Jan and said, “And you, you’re the devil.” So this explosive meeting where everyone got together to discuss how we could make our work situation better just got immediately crazy.
There was more backstage melodrama to come. When vulgar macho comic Andrew Dice Clay was booked to host Saturday Night Live, cast member Nora Dunn found his act so politically incorrect, so antifeminist, that she refused to appear on the same television program with him. SNL was making headlines again — and not loving it.
RICK LUDWIN, NBC Vice President for Late Night:
I will admit to a professional mistake when Lorne first said to me, “What do you think, Andrew Dice Clay is being offered to us.” Andrew Dice Clay was then the hottest thing in comedy, and my reaction was yeah, we should do it. I knew he was controversial, but Saturday Night Live had been no stranger to controversy over the years, and frankly, controversy can help ratings. So my reaction was, “Let’s do it.” Lorne obviously has the final say and agreed to do it, and it was only after that that I caught Clay’s concert film on HBO or someplace. And after I saw it, I thought, “Oh my God, we’re going to catch far more heat than I anticipated.” Because I didn’t realize just how misogynistic his act was and is.
On the night of the show, the network broadcast standards people insisted that Saturday Night Live be put on a delay so that if Andrew Dice Clay said something or did something that needed to be cut, it could be cut via seven-second delay