Live From New York - James H. Miller [300]
DON OHLMEYER, NBC Executive:
The show has had its great seasons; it’s had its fabulous seasons; it’s had its down seasons. And a lot of times when the show’s had troubles, it was because Lorne was so loyal to his guys.
WARREN LITTLEFIELD, NBC Executive:
I think if you put Don under sodium pentothal you would find him saying he was very fond of Lorne. But Don probably considered himself a better producer than Lorne. I think Don was frustrated by Lorne’s methods and wanted to exert control over Lorne in ways that Lorne didn’t want to be controlled. It was a battle of wills and egos, with Don saying, legitimately, “Hey, if we want to keep this thing going, we’re going to have to bring this under some fiscal control, because otherwise we don’t know how to justify to finance and NBC Inc. what’s going on.” And so we took on a parental role to Lorne.
DAVE WILSON, Director:
A long time ago, a reporter was interviewing the renowned composer Jerome Kern. The reporter asked Kern what he felt was Irving Berlin’s place in American music. Kern answered that Irving Berlin was American music. And that’s the way I feel about Lorne Michaels. Lorne Michaels is Saturday Night Live. He made it a legendary hit. And then he kept reinventing it to reflect that young adult audience’s tastes in topical comedy and in popular music.
CHRIS ROCK:
I’ve never been broke a day since I met Lorne Michaels. When I met Lorne Michaels I lived in a little studio apartment, my family lived in the ghetto for the most part. I met Lorne Michaels, and me and my family have been more than comfortable ever since.
BERNIE BRILLSTEIN:
My dad died in New York and the funeral service was ten-thirty in the morning. The last person I think that’s going to be there at ten-thirty in the morning is Lorne. But he was the first one. That’s Lorne. His depth of feeling, his depth of being hurt, is really tremendous. And so is his depth for enjoyment. He’s really the most unique guy I’ve met with his loyalty. We’ve been together thirty-some years, and he was romanced by the best of them. But he’s never left me.
DAN AYKROYD:
Clearly he enjoys what he’s doing. He presides over an institution now, and I see him there ’til he’s eighty years old if he wants to be.
TIM MEADOWS, Cast Member:
I walked around the corner once just as Lorne’s children were freeing themselves from their nanny’s clutches. I saw him get down on his knees and they ran to him and piled all over him, and I thought, “Man, you’ve got it goin’ on, brother. You got this thing working.”
JULIA SWEENEY:
He’s had so many years of practice being Lorne Michaels, he puts across just the impression he wants to put across.
BILLY CRYSTAL, Cast Member:
We had one really nice moment together after all this time at the twenty-fifth-anniversary show, where I came out as Fernando. I had a great four or five minutes, great to be back in the character again, it really was a very strong thing. But Lorne walked me to the mark backstage and met me back there. And he was very warm with me. And that was very nice.
TOM HANKS:
Lorne invented this thing. It’s hard to imagine now the place that Ed Sullivan held in the esteem of the country and the medium of television because he was on every Sunday night. But it was a substantial thing to go on the Ed Sullivan Show — just to get the shot in the first place. And then to be called over and shake hands with Ed and maybe even chat with Ed before you went off. When you did Sullivan, it was literally a watermark for anybody’s career. And if you did well on Sullivan, it guaranteed you some spot in the firmament. You could