Live From New York - James H. Miller [288]
So I was in New York. My mother was donated to science, so you have to understand she just disappeared for a year after she died. They took her. Then all of a sudden her ashes arrived, and so my brother sends me a Ziploc baggie and a candy tin, to New York, part of my mother, because she wanted to be spread over Broadway. So I called Lorne, because he had an office in the Brill Building, and I said, “Lorne, can I use your office? I gotta throw my mother over Broadway.” He says, “Excuse me?” So I explained it all to him and he said, “Sure, no problem.” Lorne’s favorite expression is “No problem.”
So I went there with my daughter and a plastic spoon and a Ziploc bag, and we were singing this song from dancing school that my mother ended every show with when she put on shows. And out the window she went. Joe Mantegna, who was in Glengarry Glen Ross then, said, “You should have told me, I would have put her onstage. I could have carried her ashes onstage in my pockets.” I said, “She wouldn’t have liked the play.” He said, “It’s a Pulitzer Prize play.” I said, “She wouldn’t have liked it. There was cursing. Lorne’s office is fine.”
Cut to Paris years later, and my father, who had a stroke in ’91, I think, whenever Awakening was happening, wouldn’t go get therapy or anything. They live for a long time, my family; they don’t do well, but they’re there. Their hearts won’t stop. So I’m in Paris, and my brother called to say my father wasn’t looking well. And I asked him, “What should I do? Should I call Lorne?” He calls him Lor-en. “Is Lor-en around? Will Lor-en be in New York?” And ultimately he didn’t die that trip, but a couple of years ago I had to call Lorne, because we get cremated in my family. I went to New York with my father in a baggie and I said, “Lorne, I need your office again.” He said, “No problem.” So I brought my father to the window in a baggie with a spoon, and out the window he went. And I’m trying to brush it off so it doesn’t blow back on Lorne’s desk, because Lorne never even met my father. And then my grandmother, who was cremated way before, in the seventies, was in a wall that looked like Hollywood Squares, out in the Valley, and for some reason my brother recently said, “Why is Nanny there all by herself?” So I don’t know if I’ve got to bring her to New York and call Lorne. I’m not sure yet. But my family goes out Lorne’s window.
I love Lorne and I’d do anything for him and at any given time. Not only his talent but his friendship has meant the world to me. Sometimes we’re parted for a long time, but you know there’s someone there who still understands what you’re talking about. Besides, you never know, I may need his window.
ROBERT KLEIN, Host:
“Or walk with kings — nor lose the common touch.” I know Rudyard Kipling was a racist, but that’s still a wonderful poem. Lorne just doesn’t have that touch. His arrogance can make me smile. He’s just very taken with himself and what he’s accomplished. He’s certainly done a wonderful job — though I wish he could have done more for Belushi.
BRIAN DOYLE-MURRAY:
Lorne’s very hard to get close to. He was kind of isolated, you know. I remember being shocked when we had the Monday night meeting where you meet the host and pitch ideas. That meeting would always start with Lorne being delivered food at his desk, usually sushi. And I always thought that was really weird that he would eat while everyone else was crouching and kneeling before him without any food for themselves. I thought it was a little rude, and I thought it was some kind of a power trip.
GRANT A. TINKER, Former NBC Chairman:
I’ve been in the Grill in Beverly Hills a couple of times, and Lorne will come in, and he will just walk right by me. Which is not the end of my world, but it has always made me wonder, why does he do that?
I have no idea what it comes from. What could it have been?