Live From New York - James H. Miller [292]
Lorne’s presence was mostly felt on tape day, what I call tape day, which is the day it’s done live. On Saturday he would come and he would do the dress rehearsal, the first show in front of an audience, and that’s when I went up into his office and just watched him very intuitively reorder the sketches on a big board and cut very intuitively without any doubts. He was really one with that show and the process of selection of what finally aired. He was like a surgeon — very quick, very smart. I certainly don’t remember anyone arguing with him.
ANNE BEATTS:
I always felt a little concerned that Lorne never so much as made a pass at me. I thought he was really cute. I remember thinking that he was really cute and interesting.
ROSIE SHUSTER, Writer:
The first summer we were separated — I was fourteen, and that was the last separation we had for many, many, many years — he announced that when I came back from Los Angeles he wanted to “pet.” So I spent the entire summer straining, pulling, doing my best to grow a set of tits.
ELLEN DEGENERES, Host:
To be honest, I thought that Lorne would be a tyrant. He seems to have a reputation of being this really mean kind of scary presence. And he was so nice. Just the reception you get — the first day, when you’re brought into his office and he welcomes you and the cast comes in and sits in his office. It’s such a warm way to welcome the host and makes you feel good about being there. I don’t know what it’s like to work with him on a daily basis, but the experience I had with him was great, and he seemed respectful of me. I could feel that he liked me; he made that clear. I really liked him. I really thought I’d be scared of him, and he was so nice and warm. He was great.
And I think he’s good-looking. He’s a looker. He’s a handsome man and he’s a good dresser. I like the way he dresses. You know — he’s a cutie. I think he knows that. He can’t not know that he’s cute. There’s that picture in his office of him younger, and he was really cute then, but I love the way he looks now.
ELLIOTT GOULD, Host:
Gilda once said to me at a party after I had hosted, “Look what you’ve done for Lorne.” Perhaps she meant my accomplishments prior to Lorne’s success — my coming on the show and working with some degree of consistency on the show and exercising my humility and my sensibility and giving the show everything that I had. Lorne has always been decent to me. And therefore I’m centered with Lorne.
TRACY MORGAN, Cast Member:
It’s like Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Whenever Luke was in trouble, Obi-Wan would come out of nowhere. That’s who Lorne Michaels is, he’s Obi-Wan. That’s what I call him. Everybody has their little nicknames for him. Chris Farley used to call him the Chief. Some people just call him boss. And some people call him Daddy. I call him Obi-Wan.
BOB ODENKIRK:
I mean, the whole thing was weird to me. The whole thing. To me, what was fun about comedy and should have been exciting about Saturday Night Live was the whole generational thing, you know, a crazy bunch of people sittin’ around making each other laugh with casual chaos and a kind of democracy of chaos. And to go into a place where this one distant and cold guy is in charge and trying to run it the way he ran it decades ago is just weird to me.
WILL FERRELL, Cast Member:
Lorne can never tell you that flat-out you’re hired, with a hip hip hooray. The way he told me was, “So, we’ll bring you out to New York,” and I thought, “Oh, another audition.” Then he said, “Have you ever lived in New York?” And that’s when it hit me: Oh, I got the job. Then I felt self-conscious because I was so relaxed and I wasn’t jumping up and down, and so I was like, “Oh, okay.” And then I said to Lorne, “Well, I’m going to shake your hand.” And he was like, “Do whatever you need to do.” And then I walked out.
MARGARET OBERMAN, Writer:
I think Lorne Michaels is a very lucky man, that’s what I think. He was at the right place at the right time and he recognized some very talented people, and it was the right moment and all