“Candy!” my grandmother scolded.
“No, no, she does not insult me,” said Madame Pepper. “It is the nature of our relationship to tease one another. A little game we play.” One final sip finished her coffee and she set the cup on its saucer.
“Miss!” said my grandmother. “Could we get some more coffee, please?”
“Sure,” said the waitress, bringing the pot over. “But just so you know, we charge for refills.”
Having been at Schwab’s with Maeve, I was familiar with this policy, but my grandma wasn’t, and she gaped at the waitress.
“You charge for refills?”
I knew this practice was an abomination to people who came from the part of the country that invented—and embraced—the bottomless cup of coffee.
“It’s because of all the actors,” said the waitress. “They’ll sit here all day, drinking gallons of coffee, waiting for their agents to call. So the boss says they’ve got to pay for refills. But I’m from Iowa,” she said, filling our cups. “And I don’t always enforce it.”
MY GRANDMOTHER SIPPED AT HER CONTRABAND BREW and then asked quietly, “So when did you realize you had the gift?”
“The gift?” I said. “Grandma, Madame Pepper is a businesswoman. If she’s got the gift of anything, it’s the gift of salesmanship.”
“I understood from a young age,” said Madame, leaning toward the counter to better speak around me and to my grandmother, “that the veil that covers much was not so opaque for me.”
I laughed, at both the sentiment and its clunky expression, and my grandmother nudged me, hard.
Offering a patient, slightly sour smile, Madame Pepper continued.
“For years I tired to ignore it, but after my husband died and I had no one to rely on, I decided it was time to make use—and a living—off my talents. And I am happy to tell you that your new marriage will be both long lasting and loving.”
I wasn’t about to make fun of that pronouncement, but had I the slightest inclination to, seeing my grandmother’s smile would have stopped me. After a moment her expression grew serious.
“And what about Candy?”
“Well, Candy, as you know, is a giver.”
“Oh, absolutely,” agreed my grandmother. “She’s always been willing to share what she’s got.”
I felt as if I were eavesdropping on a conversation about someone I didn’t know.
“Yes, I have benefited from what she shares,” said Madame Pepper. “From cakes to cookies to jokes to friendship. There aren’t too many young girls willing to give these things to an old lady.”
“You’re not an old lady,” said my grandmother, defending a fellow member of her generation. “But I know what you mean. Candy had a lot taken away, but she never stopped giving herself.”
“And she will be rewarded for that.”
Not prepared to hear this sort of answer—not prepared to hear this sort of conversation—I coughed a bit as I swallowed my coffee.
“So you see big things for Candy?”
“Oh yes. I see big changes coming.”
“Oh brother,” I said, knowing that if I didn’t make a joke, I was going to start crying. “‘Big changes coming’—that’s right out of Fortune Telling 101.”
While my grandmother tsked at my irreverence, Madame Pepper winked.
“Matter of fact, I got an A in that class.”
41
THE FIRST BIG CHANGE that Madame Pepper predicted had to do with Peyton Hall.
“Did you see this?” asked Melvin Slyke, after banging on my door. He thrust a piece of paper in my face. “Did you read this goddamned letter?”
I hadn’t seen or read anything, including the newspaper, due to the fact it was seven a.m., and I had only gotten home a few hours earlier, having gone to Canter’s Deli with several comedians after our sets.
Stepping back—Melvin was shaking the letter in front of my face and I didn’t want to get a paper cut—I saw an envelope that had been slipped under my own door. Melvin noticed it, too.
“That’s it! That’s the letter, Candy!”
Its contents were brief and to the point. Our apartment complex had been sold to a developer who had plants to demolish it and build a high-rise, and we had three months to move out.
“You see that?” said Melvin, pointing one of his narrow artist fingers at the print. “Three months! In three months we have to be gone!”
I stood there mutely, feeling as if someone had punched me in the stomach.
“I’m glad Francis isn’t around to see this,” said my neighbor, and trouncing back to his apartment he added, “I’m calling my lawyer!”
WHEN CLAIRE PHONED with a last-minute invitation to meet her and Eric at Michael’s, I told her sorry, but Solange was on her way to pick me up for dinner.
“Have her come, too. The more the merrier!”
We joined them sitting in a gold vinyl booth, and after our hellos and Hollywood air kisses Claire asked, “So how’s Frank Jr., doing? I worry about him.”
“You should be,” I said. “He just got evicted!”
“What?”
“We all did! They’re going to tear down Peyton Hall and build a high-rise!”
“They can’t tear that place down,” said Claire. “It’s a Hollywood landmark.”
“If you can get more renters into a high-rise,” said Eric with a shrug, “then the landmark’ll have to go.”
“That’s pretty cold, Eric,” said Solange.
“Cold, but true. When do we let a little history stand in the way of profit?”
“Well, look at Rome,” said Solange. “Look at Athens. Look at Bagdad and—”
“—you tell him,” said Claire, nodding in approval.
“I’m talking about Hollywood,” said Eric. “And Hollywood’s an American city where unfortunately, old is not considered gold.”
“My brother the poet,” said Claire, bumping Eric’s shoulder with her own. I can’t say that struck me as a particularly hilarious line, but Eric and Claire felt differently; both burst out laughing.
“Gee, I’m glad they’re getting such a charge out of my potential homelessness,” I said to Solange.
“Here you are,” said the waiter, setting down a silver champagne bucket.
Watching him pour four glasses, I asked, “Am I missing something?”
“Candy, believe me, I’m sick about Peyton Hall,” said Claire, “but we’d already planned this celebration.”
“Celebration of what?” I asked.
“Of new experiences.”
Eric raised his glass. “And starring in them.”
“I cannot wait to find out what you’re talking about,” I said, clinking everyone’s glass with my own.
THE MAN BEHIND THE BEL MONDOhad given Claire Hellman that much-coveted commodity in Hollywood: attention. People who wouldn’t take her calls prior to its air date were now inundating her with theirs. Everyone wants to work with a success, and her documentary had set ratings records, and because of so many requests it already had an encore performance.
“Of course I want to keep making documentaries,” Claire said. “Real stories about real people. But I’m not adverse to a few side projects either, especially when one virtually drops into my lap.”
“Remember when we brought a couple of people to see you at the Improv a few weeks ago?” said Eric.
“Yeah,” I said, clueless but excited.
“Melanie Breyer was one of them.” Claire took a sip of champagne. “So Melanie—from the Breyer Candy family, by the way—and I were talking after she saw you onstage, and she was saying she’d love to do a show with you—”
“Something new and fresh,” said Eric. “Comedy, but not necessarily stand-up—”
“We were talking about how there are so few women comics compared to men, and then we got to talking about nighttime television talk show hosts, and how they’re all men.”
“Starting with Steve Allen and Jack Paar,” said Eric. “And John
ny Carson, of course, and Joey—”
“—Bishop and Merv Griffin and Dick Cavett and Tom Snyder,” said Claire nodding. “And this is the really great thing Melanie said to me, Candy: ‘Women stay up late, too—when’s there going to be a female host?’”
“Well, there’s Joan Rivers,” said Solange. “She’s great.”
“But she’s only Johnny’s guest host,” said Eric.
“So then,” said Claire, her smile stretching from one side of her mole-filled face to the other, “we got the great idea of producing a talk show! With you as host!”
The Crystal Room of Michael’s Restaurant was full of mirrors and chandeliers; it didn’t take much effort to see your own reflection. There’s no noun form for stun but there should be because mine reflected it. Stunningness. Stunnition. Stundom.
“Oh . . . my . . . God.” My skin seemed alive, prickling with excitement. “A late-night television talk show?”
“Oops,” said Claire as she and Eric exchanged looks. “I guess we should have been a little more clear. This would be a late-night talk show for the stage. I’d direct it in the theater Melanie owns. The Swan on Melrose.”
“Oh,” I said, the skin tingling fading.
“I saw Marty Robbins at the Swan Theater,” said Solange. “It’s a beautiful venue.”
Claire shot Solange a look of gratitude.
“It’d be the perfect showcase for you, Candy,” said Eric. “We’re setting up a meeting this week, okay?”
“Okay,” I said with a smile that probably could have been bigger.
42
DURING THE FIRST MEETING I had with Melanie Breyer, I confessed how I thought my childhood dream of hosting a television talk show was coming true, and how disappointed I’d felt upon learning the show was meant for the stage.
“But now that I’ve thought about it, I’m excited. I think it’ll be a blast.”
“Great,” said Melanie. “That’s what we want it to be.”
Sitting in her office at the Swan Theater, we batted around ideas.
“Certainly we want an element of improv in the show,” said Claire, “but we see it as a scripted show.”
“So it would basically be a play about a talk show?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Melanie. She templed her fingers in front of her chest. “We obviously haven’t exactly thought everything out, but, yes, it’s basically a TV talk show . . . onstage.”
“What we’re thinking,” said Claire, “is a really fun, loose production. We’ll work from a script, but we’ll hire actors who, like you, aren’t afraid to improvise.”
“Speaking of the script,” said Melanie, “I’m assuming you’d like to be a part of writing it?”
I nodded. “Definitely. But I’d need some help.”
“Eric represents lots of writers,” said Claire.
“And I know some,” said Melanie. “We’ll solicit material and then arrange a couple meetings so you can see who you click with and who you don’t. And if there’s a comic you think you might want to work with, bring him or her onboard. Remember, we’d like to open in late March, which gives us over four months. You think that’s enough time?”
“I’ll make sure it is,” I said, rubbing my hands together.
TWO DAYS LATER at the Comedy Store, I ran into the person I wanted to work with.
“Candy Ohi!” said Mike Trowbridge, approaching me as I was leaving out the side door. “Were you on tonight?”
I nodded.
“Did you kill?”
My shrug was modest. “Some maiming might have occurred.”
Mike laughed. “I’m on in ten minutes. Wanna watch?”
I did.
“I LOVED THAT BIT ABOUT YOUR GRANDPA showing you how to dress,” I said afterward, when we had walked next door to the bar at the Hyatt House. “Tell me that first part again.”
Comics are usually not shy about honoring requests.
“Mikey,” he said, making his voice warble with age, “Mikey, of course a man puts on his boxers first—you’ve got to protect your valuables, naturally—but after that, I like to put on my tie. It tells the day you believe it’s worth getting dressed up for.”
“And he really did that?” I asked, wanting to know how much was fact and how much was comic embellishment.
Mike held up his palm. “Honest to God. He’d be standing there in his underwear and a knotted tie—a loose knotted tie—around his neck.”
The waitress served our drinks.
“I liked that song you played for that couple when you found out they were on their honeymoon.”
Sipping his beer, Mike nodded.
“Thanks. Can’t go wrong playing ‘When I Fall in Love,’ to newlyweds.” He paused to slake his thirst again. “I saw you in La Jolla a couple months ago, and I think I just missed you in San Francisco—”
“—you were at the Holy City Zoo?”
“I was booked there the day after you left.” He took a long sip of beer. “So other than that, what have you been up to? What’s new?”
And so I told him.
“Are you kidding me?”
There are a lot of ways a fellow comic could deliver a line like that—with disbelief, with jealousy, with anger—but the only thing I heard in Mike Trowbridge’s delivery was glee.
He slapped the tabletop and laughed.
“Candy, that’s fantastic! An onstage talk show—what a great idea!”
“You mind turning down the volume, pal?” asked half of a hung-over rock and roll couple in the next booth.
Leaning across the table, Mike whispered, “Your own show!” and that was when I asked him if he’d like to write for it.
He sank back in his seat as if I’d pushed him.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes! You know how much I like to improvise, but we still haven’t quite figured out the premise and—”
“—of course, I will, Candy. It’ll be a blast!”
I beamed. My sentiments exactly.
A PAPER AIRPLANE SLID ALONG the makeshift runway of the conference table.
“Lunch?” was written on one of its wings and on the other I carefully wrote “Sure” and shot it back in the direction from whence it had come.
“Great,” said Mike, standing up at the opposite end of the table. “Let’s go.”
In front of divided piles of material, he and I had spent the morning reading through jokes, essays, monologues, and sketches. Claire and Melanie had given me and Mike carte blanche to select the writers, and it was a laborious task, interrupted occasionally with laughter or groans.
“I’m really not very hungry,” I said, studying the diner’s menu.
“Me neither,” said Mike, “I just thought I should eat something other than those Breyer Bricks.”
Heir to a candy fortune, Melanie stocked glass bowls throughout the small offices of the theater with the family product, including Breyer Bricks (gold-wrapped chocolate squares), Breyer Dazzles (fruit chews), and Breyer Moos (milk chocolate caramels).
“I know,” I said. “Growing up with all that candy, how can Melanie not be a four-hundred-pound diabetic?”
“And still have her own teeth.”
We both ordered chicken noodle soup and after it was served began to talk shop.
“I never knew there were so many bad writers out there,” said Mike.
“Ugh! All those mother-in-law jokes! I thought they went out with Henny Youngman.”
“Some guy once asked me if I was influenced by Henny Youngman.”
“Why? Your jokes aren’t that dumb.”
Mike smirked. “It was the music angle he was referring to. Although I like to think I play trumpet better than he played violin.”
I squeezed a cellophane packet of crackers and dusted my soup with its crumbs.
“So who would you say has influenced you?”
Helping himself to the cracker basket, Mike copied my crushing and dispersal technique.
“As a kid, I
loved Red Skelton. And Bob Hope in his movies and TV specials. Now I don’t think there’s anybody better than George Carlin and Richard Pryor. How about you?”
“I loved Red Skelton, too, and I loved Lucy and Carol Burnett . . . but more than anyone, Johnny Carson.”
“And now you’re doing your own talk show!”
As I returned Mike’s smile, a helium gas of happiness rose in my chest.
“I know.”
BY THE END OF THE AFTERNOON, we sat back, exhausted from the reams of jokes and anecdotes and stories we had read, discussed, and judged. Agreeing on the list of writers we wanted to interview, we called it a day, and as Mike made some final notes, I fashioned a paper airplane myself and wrote on it “Dinner . . . and?”
My aim was good and the airplane sailed across the room, landing in front of its target. My heart thumped as I watched Mike read its two-word invitation and then thudded when I saw his face. He looked a little seasick, which wasn’t promising, considering we weren’t on a boat.
“Uh, sorry, Candy,” he said, a flush coloring his face. He forced himself to look up at me. “It’s just that . . . well, Kirsten and I have something planned tonight.”
“No problem,” I said, the contagion of his flush spreading to my own face. “Just a suggestion.”
We busied ourselves straightening up already-straight piles of paper and gathering up our pens and notebooks, and the good-byes we said were stiff and awkward.
I called Kirsten all sorts of names on the way home but reserved the biggest name calling for myself: Dumb shit. Why couldn’t I just have written “Dinner?” Stupid jerk. Why did I have to write the rest? Loser.
LOWELL BALIN WAS A comic who didn’t believe humor, like testosterone, was manufactured mainly in the scrotum, and we hired him along with my friend PJ Rand.
Melanie didn’t pay us a huge amount of money to write a script, but for all of us, at this stage in our careers, getting paid at all was a bonus. Meeting around performance and work schedules (PJ waited tables and Lowell worked at a book store) we four writers met in the theater’s small conference room, hammering out ideas. We called the show The Sorta Late Show (an 8 p.m. curtain time didn’t exactly qualify as late) with Candy Ohi and decided that while we would have a cast of characters and several set scenes, it would ultimately be a different show every night. I would play the host as well as a few characters, à la Johnny Carson’s Carnac and Aunt Blabby.
Best to Laugh: A Novel Page 26