Live From New York - James H. Miller [179]
I know that Lorne felt I didn’t talk to him, but he was not accessible. He was never accessible. The whole experience had a huge impact on my life, and ultimately it was a really, really good thing.
TERRY TURNER:
I remember there were metal detectors at the show for the first time, which was a little disorienting. People were calling up our house to talk to Bonnie, saying, “How can you write this week? How can you possibly continue working there when this man is hosting?” Some people called our house and harassed my wife about why go to work, and I wanted to say, “Well, there’s tuition, there’s a car payment,” you know. There were a lot of reasons to work that week.
I felt that we were blindsided by Nora. Why not tell the people she had worked with for all these years that she was going to do this. So at least we’d know what to expect. And it really irritated me that suddenly Bonnie and other women who were writing the show were considered traitors and got a lot of harassment.
JAN HOOKS:
A writer for the New York Post called and it was like, “Do you have a comment?” And I said, “What are you talking about?” And she said, “Nora Dunn has walked off the show.” And I was dumb-founded. I had no idea. Because Lord knows, through all of the trials and tribulations of Saturday Night Live, you go on with the show.
I called the office and there was kind of mayhem going on. What bugged me was that Nora had called the press. She didn’t call Lorne. She didn’t call the other women in the cast. She called the press. And I thought, “God, that’s not fair.” I mean, normally when you work with somebody, you call and go, “Look, I really feel uncomfortable with this and I would like to not do the show.” Instead, she had no contact with us. That week was horrible. I got a lot of hate mail. It was like, “Why can’t you be more like Nora Dunn and stand up for your rights?” — and all that shit.
I knew that her contract was up and I don’t know if they had made an offer to her. But I was really disappointed. And it put us in danger, actually. I mean, all of these radical feminists were sending hate mail and we had to call in security. And I didn’t even know who Andrew Dice Clay was. I didn’t care. It’s like just another host. Steven Seagal, we got through him. I just thought the whole thing was careless and unfortunate.
ANDREW DICE CLAY
I didn’t watch Saturday Night Live every week. I was out. When that show started, I had to be — I don’t know — fifteen, sixteen years old. And I really wasn’t that into comedy at fifteen. So in those days, I was out on the weekends. I wasn’t a Saturday Night Live freak at all.
My management got the call about hosting. I actually got the call from my dad, who was advising me back then. He worked with my manager. And I was back in New York. I was getting ready for my picture Ford Fairlane to open, and the funny thing was, I just wanted a nice relaxing week before it opened, because I was really going through it as far as controversy goes. I just wanted to take it easy. But my dad said it would be a good thing to do. It’s Saturday Night Live. It’s right before the movie comes out. You’ll have a lot of fun. And I said, “All right, we’ll do it.”
So I’ll never forget it. I show up and I’m waiting like in some reception area with my father, my sister, my right-hand guy at the time, Johnny West, and another guy who worked for me. And I’m waiting like a long time, like an hour. All of a sudden this girl walks in — I think it was actually Calvin Klein’s daughter Marci, who was working for the show — and she says, “Lorne will see you now, and this is really crazy with what’s going on.” And I go, “What’s going on?” She goes, “Nora Dunn walked off the show.” And I go, right,