Take Your Shirt Off and Cry: A Memoir of Near-Fame Experiences (10 page)

“Aw, Goof, just go in and do the fuckin’ Winger thing. We’ll figure the rest out later . . .”

I went in for the Monday meeting and, after five minutes of pleasantries, did the bit from
An Officer and a Gentleman
, and Dan promptly opened up the big, black desk calendar. “I’d like you to meet Lorne,” he announced. “How’s Thursday?”

I was instructed to show up at midnight.

“Midnight?” I asked.

Dan nodded. “The meeting,” he explained, “will actually be at one A.M., but it’d be good if you show up at midnight to get
settled.”

“Well, I’m not letting you loiter there by yourself,” Billy whispered as we sat backstage on the closing night of the Molière
play. “Robin and I will take you there, and we’ll wait in the Rainbow Room. We’ll toast you and take in the lovely view.”

When I arrived at the studio, Dan escorted me to the Writers’ Room, which was adjacent to Lorne’s office. Sam and some of
the other guys in the cast were there, and I was introduced to Al Franken, Norm MacDonald, and Tim, the director of
SNL
. As we sat around a conference table, Al, Norm, and Tim counseled me for over an hour on “How to Behave in Front of Lorne”:

“Don’t talk until he talks to you first!”

“Don’t try to fill the silence!”

“Don’t try to be funny!”

They practiced with me, doing mock Lorne scenarios, preparing me like a witness for a murder trial, as one A.M. came and went.

Finally, at two fifteen, I was ushered into Lorne’s Lair.

I sat in between Al and Tim on a couch, Dan sat in a chair next to the door, and Lorne sat behind his desk, his head slack,
with a depressed mien that suggested a party’s-over weariness. He was wearing sunglasses. Beside him was an assistant with
a notepad and a pen, poised at the ready. There was silence for several long minutes while Lorne sat, staring at the floor.
I started to wonder if he was napping. Finally, he looked in my direction.

“How long have you been doing stand-up?”

“I don’t do stand-up, actually. I’m an actor.”

Everyone shifted, cleared their throats, then more silence.

“What are you doing now?”

“Well, I just closed in this Molière play off-Broadway, and I’m about to start rehearsals for a downtown production of
Troilus and Cressida,
which is, you know, Shakespeare . . .”

I felt the air leave the room, as everyone’s energy died in a glue trap of shared dread.

Lorne took off the shades and stared at me, wordless, for a while, then picked up a pen and pointed it at me, like an offering
of some sort.

“I hear you do a good Debra Winger impersonation.”

“Yes . . .”

“Can I see it?”

“Sure.”

I stood up and did
An Officer and a Gentleman
.

Lorne was laughing pretty much all through it. His laugh was a sort of closed-mouth chuckle, which made him red in the face.

“Good,” he pronounced, to everyone’s relief. “Funny.”

“She does other people, too, Lorne,” Dan offered.

“So,” Lorne declared ruminatively, “she does impressions and the like, but she’s not a comic per se.”

“Right,” someone said. “But she was on
Remote Control,
and she wrote characters and stuff.”

“Do you watch
SNL
?” Lorne asked me.

“Yeah,” I lied. I’d maybe seen half an episode here or there, but the truth was, I hadn’t watched it in years. “I’ve been
watching it since it first came on the air; I grew up with it.”

Lorne seemed to dig hearing that.

“What did you like about it? What’s different, do you think, about it now?”

A few seconds went by as I thought about how the difference to me was that it used to be
good
and now it
sucked.

Again the tension in the room seemed to mount.

“Well, you know, I think the thing was that . . . in the old days . . . there were these, you know . . .
characters
that . . . that were really, really popular, and the audience looked forward to seeing them every week. Like, they got excited
if the Greek Diner or, you know, Roseanne Roseannadanna was on, or Belushi as the Samurai or, you know, whatever, and I think
people might really miss that. And the
writing
, too. That was key, I think. All those sketches back then—well, they were
scenes
, really—were so well constructed, know what I mean? Really well-written
scenes
, really well-executed . . . beginnings, middles, and ends. I mean, look: the
writing
was just great. And then, of course, the
cast
was just so hilariously funny! And none of them stand-ups! They were just like these—obviously skilled improvisers—but ultimately
they were just these really amazing comedic . . .
actors.
You know? Anyway, I think it would be great to maybe, you know . . . to somehow include those old elements again, back in
the show.”

Lorne nodded.

“Have you ever considered being blond?”

“Blond?”

“Yeah . . .” Lorne tilted his head and studied me.

“Well, sure,” I said, trying to figure out where this was going. “Hasn’t everyone?”

This elicited more laughter and mirth all around as everyone got to take part in imagining a revamped, better-looking me.

“Why? Do you think I’d look better as a blond or something?”

Lorne, like Louie Mayer on quaaludes, gazed groggily at me.

“Possibly,” he nodded presciently. “Very possibly . . .” His voice trailed off, and he seemed to lose his train of thought
for a moment.

“I want to set up an audition for you,” he said finally, leaning back in his chair and putting his shades on. “But I’m not
sure how since you don’t have an
act
. The boys seem to like you, and that’s a plus, so we should figure out a way to see you in front of an audience.” He gestured
toward his assistant, who started writing furiously. “In the meantime, start working up some characters and all your impressions,
and we’ll . . . we’ll be in touch to set up another meeting.”

“OK, sounds great,” I said, standing up. “Well, thank you very much. Nice meeting you . . .”

A week or so later, Dan, the talent coordinator, called me.

“Lorne wants to see you to night. In his office.”

“You mean—to audition?”

“No, no, just a meeting.”

“Oh. OK. What time?”

“I don’t know. Sometime tonight. Can you just be . . . ready?”

I was dressed by four P.M. and sat on my couch and waited. And smoked. And waited.

Finally, at around nine P.M., Dan called.

“Can you be here at one thirty?”

I arrived at one thirty and at two A.M. was shown into Lorne’s office, where I found him behind his desk, staring at the floor
again. I was starting to think he had narcolepsy. Finally, he looked up and motioned for me to sit.

“You know, I used to date Debra Winger.” He smiled sheepishly. I was floored.

“
Really?
I . . . I had no idea.” Was this good or bad?

“Uh-huh.”

“When?” I asked, not really knowing what the hell to do.

“When?” He looked at me blankly.

“Did you date Debra Winger? Was it . . . during
An Officer
and a Gentleman
?”

“No. Later . . .”

“
Terms of Endearment
?”

“Later . . .”

I was at a loss. “
Mike’s Murder
?” We both laughed.

“Yeah, around then.” Our laughter died away awkwardly, and we were once again sort of looking around the room silently. Thinking
we had finally had a decent exchange, and not knowing what I was really doing there, I continued on my line of Winger questioning.

“So, is she nice . . . Debra?” Lorne considered this and smiled, remembering something.

“She’s . . . she’s very . . . yeah. She’s nice and she’s very sexy. Very strong, very . . . fiery. Says what’s on her mind.
Doesn’t take shit from anyone. We had fun.”

For the first time, I was seeing a side of him that seemed vaguely human. I noticed he had sort of sad brown eyes that drooped
in that way I had always liked and found approachable. Or one of his eyes did, anyway.

We were, once again, enveloped by quiet. During this time, I considered Lorne’s Canadian accent, which had, for some rea-son,
previously eluded me. I had always had a thing for Canadians; they had always seemed to me such a peaceful folk, taking our
draft dodgers in the sixties, humanely doling out health care, saying “eh” after all thoughts.

I thought of the Mounties with those hats, and Joni Mitchell and Neil Young.

In sixth grade, I did a school report on Canada. While I was certainly intrigued by things like their Parliament and Fran-cophones,
I was mostly obsessed with Margaret Trudeau, the hot wife of the prime minister, who had a scandalous lost weekend at Studio
54 in the late seventies. Grainy pictures of Margaret, resplendent in her
blouson
, splashed across the
New
York Post
’s front page as she discoed the nights away, on a glittery bender with Mick Jagger and Bianca and Halston. “What fun she
is,” I thought, “all freewheeling and naughty, rocking her designer jeans and Candies with the Beautiful People.”

I didn’t tell Lorne any of this, though. We just sat through the silence, waiting out his fugue, listening to the muffled
sounds of life outside his door.

And then, he invited me to Chicago.

“I have to go out there to see some people at Second City in a few weeks,” he explained. “We’ll have you come along, and we’ll
set something up for you to perform there. We’ll arrange something, some way for you to do an act there, in front of a crowd,
and, you know, see how you do. How does that sound?”

“HUH? IT SOUNDS INSANE IS HOW IT SOUNDS,” the voice in my head screamed. “I LIVE IN
NEW YORK
! WHAT’S WITH CHICAGO? AND WHAT’S WITH THE DEEPLY BIZARRE MIDDLE-OF-THE-NIGHT MEETINGS ABOUT NOTHING? YOU’RE A TOTAL FREEEEEAAK!”

“It sounds great,” I said, and then I got up, smiled, and thanked him for the meeting.

I walked out of Rockefeller Center at around three A.M. and decided to walk the forty-something blocks home so that I could
think.

In those days, I had a recurring dream of being in the opening number of
Cats
: as we slunk about the junkyard set during the first few bars, I would suddenly be overcome with panic because I had no idea
which cat I was. Wandering home that night, I thought of how I had always interpreted this as merely an anxiety dream, an
“actor’s nightmare.” But in the midst of the Lorne Michaels meetings and the prospect of getting hired for
SNL
, I understood the dream’s divinatory significance:
I
wasn’t sure what kind of cat I was.

I wanted a career as a working actor in the theater, to be involved in projects that meant something to me, plays I could
feel proud of—but was I just kidding myself? Was I, in fact, really a “comedy chick”? Maybe. And maybe Lorne Michaels had
the ideal job for me. Deep down, though, I hated the idea of it. I couldn’t help thinking that even if hired, I would wallow,
like I had over at
Remote Control
, where, when push came to shove, I could neither push nor shove, essential ingredients for thriving in comedy. Like
Remote
,
SNL
seemed to me like nothing more than a dead end. A dead end with endless late nights, embarrassing material, and bullies.

Men don’t like brawds who break their balls.

Saturday Night Live
seemed to me to be a sort of way station at which comics would bide their time, plotting how to turn characters that could
barely sustain a sketch into big-budget movies. They wanted fame, and this was their conduit. But I didn’t have any interest
in being famous. Or did I?
Which cat am I?

The boys seem to like you, and that’s a plus.

I thought of my conversation the day before with my father.

“Don’t blow this. Don’t screw this one up,” he had implored me. “It’s about time you stopped being such a goddamn snob about
TV. Jesus! You used to love TV till that Mamet character got his meat hooks in. One
farkakte
play after the next.
What a
waste!
You used to sing, you used to dance—
you were an entertainer,
for Christ’s sake!
Now, well . . . I dunno how you live with yourself, doin’ all this crap. So, whatever you do,
don’t
screw this one up, I beg you
!”

The next week, rehearsals began for
Troilus and Cressida
. I was playing Helen of Troy, which, since she’d been abducted, was a very small part, so I spent most of my time in the
dressing room, coming up with characters to put into an act I could do for Lorne. After rehearsals, I’d race over to my director
friend Doug’s apartment on Mott Street and try them out for him. We’d drink pitchers of iced coffee and smoke millions of
cigarettes while I ran through everything over and over again, until finally, at dawn, I’d leave to get a few hours of sleep.

I heard from Dan, the
SNL
talent coordinator, that the Chicago trip was a go, but not for a few weeks. Since I had a week off from
Troilus and Cressida
, I decided to take a short trip to L.A. Billy’s friend Robin suggested that she could “side-pocket” me under her big-shot
agency’s auspices for a while. I told her I was game, thrilled at the chance of escaping from Sandy, my malevolent troll agent,
in her mother’s Upper West Side apartment. Robin let me stay with her, and she set up a bunch of meetings. Various TV casting
directors found me “likable” and were intrigued by my “heat” due to the
SNL
interest.

The best meeting by far was with the casting director of
Se-infeld
, who said that he felt sure there would be something for me to do on the show, and that if I lived in L.A., he’d bring me
in to audition until I booked something.

“And, if you get some decent TV credits under your belt,” Robin opined, “you’ll definitely be able to book more stage work.
Trust me.”

I thought about what it might be like to live in L.A. It had never appealed to me before, but now, with the possibility of
work, I felt differently. I felt seduced by the sun, the flatteries, and the attention. My friend Jane had moved out there
a few years before and was always raving about how great it was. She was getting tons of TV jobs and buying expensive handbags
without ever even looking at the prices. She told me that she would lie in the sun every day, reading scripts as she tanned.
How bad could that be?