Live From New York - James H. Miller [71]
But they would never edit the stuff, never cut the stuff. And I’d say, “Look, the sketch is running eight minutes, it’s never going to go, can’t we just cut some stuff?” And they’d never cut it. And finally between dress and air, Lorne would say, “You’ve got to take two minutes and fifteen seconds out of that sketch.” And we’d already figured out what was wrong with it so we’d never even committed to the stuff we didn’t like, so they’d be there doing all these cue card things and saying, “Here, I’ve got the new changes,” and we’re like, “Yeah, sure. Whatever.” We already knew what the hell was going to go. Both Gil and I knew what was working and what wasn’t, so we never got attached to the garbage part of the sketch, the thing that was going to be gone, but we still had to rehearse the damn thing for hours and hours and hours.
Pulling my pants up as Todd — that was my skill. I remember guys that I knew that were like that. You stick your belly out through your pants, your belt’s over your belly, it’s sort of like you have your emotional armor in your belly and it’s like you’re banging at people with your armor. You go at people with that emotional armor. You lead with it. Rather than being attacked first, you sort of lead with that belly. And it was great to have it with Gilda, because her body was this other thing with these crazy goofy shoulders and stuff, and she was like almost getting hit from behind all the time in the back of the neck. You’d get the feeling like somebody was thudding her with a mallet or something.
ROSIE SHUSTER:
Todd and Lisa also became a medium for Gilda and Billy to work something through on television. There was definitely some of that going on. They went through different permutations where they were together, they weren’t together, you know. You could probably track what was going on by seeing how they related to each other on the air. Beatts and I would really write for them with a mind to letting them take off. We thought we had a sense of how the chemistry was operating. And sometimes, when our foreknowledge of that came together at a particularly juicy point in their relationship, you could see the results on-screen. On the “Prom Night” sketch, they were really present. They were both really playing and they were both really good. And they just took off. The best of that was fab, just to see them together like that.
CARRIE FISHER:
There was a time when Gilda had gotten a very big crush on Paul and then I went out with Paul and then there was sort of a drama and I didn’t want to be in a drama and somehow I remember being on the phone with Gilda and there was crying. I was just twenty-one. I didn’t know how I got into this thing. But it was sort of a fun drama, I suppose.
I couldn’t figure Gilda out. The thing that happened, whatever that was with Paul, kind of estranged us. The horrible thing was, years and years later I went to this stomach doctor, and he had treated Gilda when she was very, very ill, and she had talked about this thing that had happened with Paul and myself and her.
NEIL LEVY:
There was a profound sadness inside Gilda. At the same time there was this boundless joy and energy. She fluctuated. It wasn’t like bipolar. She didn’t go on periods of horrible depression and then elation. They existed side by side. And sometimes she’d just disappear. She would just go away, and maybe that’s when she was sad.
I remember somebody was coming to town, somebody very important to her, she said, because she had tried to kill herself and this guy had saved her. I remember her telling me that.
I loved Gilda, that’s the thing. If I ever had a problem, I could talk to her.