Live From New York - James H. Miller [249]
In its earliest days, the show’s famous “home base” was occupied by a more eclectic array — Raquel Welch, Desi Arnaz, O. J. Simpson, Hugh Hefner, Cicely Tyson, Ralph Nader, Norman Lear, Anthony Perkins, and Miskel Spillman, a little old lady who won an “Anyone Can Host” contest. But still today there are surprises — political and sports figures one might not expect take their turn in the show’s one-of-a-kind spotlight, or at least make a cameo appearance. Like Robert De Niro popping up to gripe about the way he was impersonated on the show, or Janet Reno busting through a fake wall to make essentially the same complaint.
The best hosts — Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken, Alec Baldwin, John Goodman — are invited back repeatedly. The worst are, properly enough, dissed and trashed behind their backs once they’ve gone home.
ELLEN DEGENERES, Host:
I can honestly say hosting was probably one of the highlights of my life so far. It was so much fun. I’d never even been to the show, so I didn’t even understand the speed of it. When you’re watching at home, you don’t realize they had to get out of that outfit and into another outfit just during the commercial. So as soon as the camera goes off you’re just pulled and people are ripping your clothes off and putting on a different wig and a different outfit. That was another thing to get over too, because I’m the most modest person in the world. So to have people ripping my clothes off and stepping one leg up while someone’s putting a wig on and you’re half-naked in front of these people — that was a bold move to me.
MARCI KLEIN:
In terms of desirable hosts, we of course always want to get Tom Cruise. I’m always trying for him. Then there are the ones that the writers want, but I don’t know how to explain to them that the network might not understand. Like Harvey Keitel, one of my, I thought, really good bookings. But we had to fight for Harvey. To me it’s important to have funny shows so that people hear that the shows are funny and then you’ll get ratings. It’s a longer way to getting a rating, but then there are times where you do a Britney Spears because you know it’s going to work. And it gets a big rating and she was really good at it.
I show Lorne the list, but it never gets circulated. No one sees it but him. I’ll talk to Jim Downey sometimes. We would have meetings — me, Lorne, Jim. We have meetings now and it’s me, Lorne, Steve; it’s not that I’m excluding anybody, but too many opinions get clouded. I know what they want, I know what Lorne wants, I know what the network wants, I know what I want, I know what the viewer wants. My job is to present the best of what I can. You know, hopefully, I don’t want to spend three weeks on one person. I want to say, “Let’s make an offer.” Cuba Gooding Jr. is a good example of somebody where I went and I saw Jerry Maguire and I came back and I said to Lorne, “I know no one knows who this guy is, but I’m telling you he is going to be a big star from this.”
Gary Oldman, who would be my dream host personally, was booked, and on a Thursday night before the Monday that he was supposed to come in, something happened and he had to drop out. I think Tom Hanks came in and really saved us on that one. Gary Sinise was another one. I was so excited. It’s always the ones you’re like really excited about that drop out. You call in Alec Baldwin, Tom Hanks, John Goodman; John’s done it when someone has fallen out. I mean, this is a major thing to ask somebody — “Hey, can you show up in two days?” — when they’re not prepared.
No one has ever dropped out during the week of the show, no, because the minute you get here it’s too much fun. I mean, honest