I was so grateful and relieved because I could hear it each week in the show and it made me cringe. I returned to my natural Texas/Valley Girl blended accent.
For the first season, the scripts always included physical comedy bits for Laverne, but not for Shirley. I spoke up saying I could do physical comedy, and pleaded with the writers and producers to give me the chance. My pleas fell on deaf ears and the scripts kept being written in the same manner. I had had such fun in the pilot episode where Shirley was more physical in nature; like accidentally punching Richie. But that physicality seemed lost as we went on into the first season. I longed for Shirley to have physical things to do so I continued my lobbying. Finally one day Garry came down to the set and told me he was writing a physical bit for me to see how I did. When the script came in, I was so happy! Laverne has a vacuum cleaner hose stuck to her mouth and can’t get it off by herself. Shirley helps her. I had a lot of fun inventing ways to pull and twist that hose off of her mouth. The powers that be liked it because from then on, they wrote physical comedy for both of us.
Penny and I had a simple litmus test for comedy. If it didn’t make us laugh, it probably wouldn’t make the audience laugh; both in the studio and at home. So whatever it was, we had to laugh at it or we’d try something else until we did! And if it was a line or a part in the show that just “laid there,” we did our best to pep it up. Usually all this doctoring up occurred during rehearsals. We’d give our notes after the table read each week, but didn’t really know what was funny and what wasn’t until we were on our feet and started putting movement with the lines.
Many times we’d take it upon ourselves to change lines. You can imagine how this ticked off the producers and writing staff. Sometimes Penny and I ticked each other off as well when we didn’t agree on something. But I truly believe if we hadn’t gone through what could be termed as chaos, we never would have had the show we had. Any time we stepped out on that stage together we were 100 percent in-sync. Whatever was going on off-stage evaporated when we got in front of our audience because we were of one mind and that was to entertain and make people laugh out loud.
Our premier show had an audience of almost thirty-six million viewers and we became an overnight hit! Garry came down to the stage with the news. Once again, just as with the talk of a spinoff, Penny and I did not immediately understand what this meant. We kept on working. We worked so hard there was no time for anything social. It was work and home, work and home. There was no time for the outside world. Any function related to show business was usually something that took place on the Paramount lot.
One time they asked us to present at the People’s Choice Awards. We said we were sorry but we were working and couldn’t leave the set, get dressed, and into hair and makeup in time. The producers of the show told us not to worry, we could come straight from work with no need to get dressed up. Penny and I mulled it over. We would have to arrive at five thirty for the presentation. No way could we dress up. We turned it down. We were in the middle of putting together a huge physical scene and couldn’t leave the rehearsal. They begged, and word came from Paramount that it would be good PR for the show if there were any way we could make it. In our rehearsal clothes (usually jeans, sweatshirts, and tennis shoes) we dutifully went. Standing backstage we saw that everyone was dressed to the nines, except us of course. We didn’t let it get to us as we went out and presented. In the car on our way back to the studio, Penny made the observation that it was the People’s Choice Awards and we were supposed to be a number-one show. Why hadn’t we won a People’s Choice Award? I couldn’t answer. Maybe we were popular but not that popular, or maybe the people we were popular with didn’t bother to vote. It wasn’t a case of sour grapes. It was more of a curiosity.
One day toward the end of the first season I noticed a headline in the Wall Street Journal that someone had left on the stage. It read something like, “Laverne & Shirley Help Send ABC Stocks through the Roof!” I called Penny over. We both stood there taking in the words, reading them over and over.
Both Penny and I still thought in “cartoon” terms when it came to comedy. For instance, we would come up with “bits” to try during rehearsal and then stage them. We learned early on that life in the cartoon world doesn’t always play out the way you imagine when it comes to life on earth.
In one of our first episodes, Laverne and Shirley are hosting a lingerie party in their living room. Shirley gives the description of the garment Laverne is supposed to model, it’s a leopard teddy. The script called for her to swing in on a rope. During rehearsals, and thinking like a cartoon, we decided Penny would swing all the way across the room and then slam into the living room wall and slowly slide down (like Daffy Duck). We only “marked it” in rehearsal, which means she didn’t actually climb onto the rope and swing across the room. We just said, OK, I say this, you do that and you hit the wall and slide down.
We used this format often to save our energy for the live show with the evening audience. When we actually performed it and Penny swung on the rope across the room, modeling her leopard ensemble, she hit the wall with “real-world force.” And instead of sliding down the wall slowly, like Daffy Duck as we had imagined, she fell to the floor in a heap like Newton’s apple! We had to stop filming. She had her ankle bandaged and we continued with the show.
In these days of TV, the networks were assigning censors for their “family hour” primetime shows. Their censors would attend the read-through as well as the run-through each week to ensure “moral content.” Our censor was a born-again Christian. He was a great guy, but very strict, which turned out to work in our favor. The writers and the cast were forced to be more creative. An example is vo-de-oh-doh, which said it all. When Shirley had to talk about sex in any way, she would use the term vo-de-oh-doh and that became universally recognizable, and forever associated with the show. Having a censor didn’t stop us, we were even more inventive and creative. Penny and I didn’t kid ourselves. We knew we weren’t the greatest show in the history of television. But every now and then, as a cast and as a show, we’d have a moment that was worthy of greatness.
On one show we had a scene where we were spring cleaning. It was an afternoon run-through for the writers and producers. I was supposed to be cleaning under my bed and yell to Laverne, “We’ve got dust bunnies the size of grapefruit under here!” I forgot the line and improvised, pulling out a stuffed black cat that our prop man, Rennie, had been keeping under there among other props. I looked it over and said, “Oh, look who I found, Laverne. It’s Boo Boo Kitty!”
The scene continued and I didn’t think about it until Boo Boo Kitty turned up in the next week’s show and then became a mainstay character. The reason I had called this precious stuffed animal Boo Boo Kitty was because my mother had a cat we called Boo Boo Kitty, and we all loved her so much. She, unlike Shirley’s Boo Boo Kitty, was black and white with beautiful green eyes. Shirley’s Boo Boo was all black with one plastic diamond-shaped red eye and I always thought of it as a “he.” My mother had two other cats that my sister and I had “given” her because she had a yard. They were named Charlotte and Simone. One day she received a notice from Animal Control that anyone having more than two cats would be fined. She called me to tell me this, but said not to worry because Boo Boo lived mostly across the street in the neighbor’s tree.
There was one problem with Boo Boo Kitty, the actor. Rennie, the prop master, couldn’t find a double. And since the writers were coming up with shows that included him, we needed a second one just in case anything was to happen to our original. He searched high and low and never found a match, and Boo Boo Kitty was ceremoniously locked away each night after the show. Rennie sweated bullets protecting the precious commodity like a mother bear would her cub. Over the years the search continued with no luck.
Then one day, years after the show had ended, I was at an autograph convention when two ladies came sauntering up to me, each h
olding a Boo Boo Kitty. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I told them the story of the search and asked them where on earth they got them. They told me that they were attached to pajama bags that were sold at JC Penney in the 1960s. I asked if I could buy one from them and their answer was a polite but definite “no.”
They loved their Boo Boo Kitties just like I did.
Eight
The Mirthful Mouse
The audience at the L.A. Improv had grown more than restless. They were actually trying to stop me from going on stage. Someone even reached out and tried to grab my arm, to hold me back, but I kept going.
A girl shouted at me, “Sit down, this guy’s dangerous!”
She was referring to the ever-obnoxious Tony Clifton who was on stage challenging me: “Come on, lady. Be a man! Come up here and let’s settle this face-to-face!”
Truth be known, I wanted to make a hasty retreat and hightail it back to my apartment and hide under the coffee table, but it was too late for that. I had to stay committed. I shouted back in a horrible French accent (as we had rehearsed): “You are a repulsive and eedious leetle man!”
“Shut up and sit down,” another person from the audience barked at me.
But I soldiered on, inching my way onto the stage against massive audience protest. Obviously they weren’t getting it. I started wondering how I had let Andy Kaufman talk me into this. Did I really believe it would be funny and make people laugh? At this moment in time all we were accomplishing was agitating the ten o’clock audience at the Improv.
It all started about a year earlier, on practically the very same spot; it was the second season of Laverne & Shirley. Penny and I had been asked by the Improv if we would come to the club and have our picture taken for Budd Friedman, the club’s owner. Penny and I considered it a great compliment to have our picture taken with him. The photo would hang on the celebrity wall of the club. We posed for the picture and mingled for a while. I was tired and wanted to get home. I said my good-byes and as I was going out the front door onto Melrose Avenue, I saw a lone figure standing on the sidewalk. I recognized him immediately—it was Andy Kauffman. It would have been pretty hard for me not to recognize him. I was a huge fan. And he was wearing the same ill-fitting sports jacket he wore on Saturday Night Live! I went up to him to introduce myself.
“Hi!” I said. “I’m Cindy!”
“Hi, I’m Andy!”
“I know, I love you!” I blurted out impulsively.
“I mean I love how you think, your timing. You make me laugh out loud! And I have a greater appreciation of Elvis Presley because of you!”
He looked at me, puzzled, blinked his sparkly brown eyes, and said, “Thank you,” and asked me for a ride home. So began my friendship and adventures with Andy Kauffman!
Andy lived in an apartment in Hollywood. He was a Buddhist, a strict vegetarian, and didn’t drive. On occasion we would go to my mother’s house in Reseda for dinner. Even though her health doctrine included the belief that everybody needed red meat at least once a week, she was more than happy to cook him a vegetarian dinner.
Carol lived with my mother at this time and she was also a big fan of Andy’s. She was especially fond of his “Mighty Mouse” because when she was a little girl she was in love with Mighty Mouse and determined to marry him! I was to be her maid of honor.
Andy meditated on the twenty-five-minute drive to Reseda. If he wasn’t done with his meditation by the time we arrived, I would simply leave him in the car and go inside. When he was finished he would come inside and join my mother, my sister, and me. The first time this occurred my mother asked where he was. I told her he was in the car finishing his meditation. My mother, my sister, and I went to the front window that looked out over the driveway and watched him for a minute. The front porch light cast an almost angelic glow on him as he sat there eyes closed, floating in some other world.
“I hope he hurries,” my mother lamented. “I can’t keep his brown rice and tofu warm forever!”
We always had great fun when Andy came over. He taught us parlor games, we’d have sing-alongs, and he even tried to get my mother to participate. He was like a great camp counselor, leading us in song, games, and festivities. I wish my father would have been alive. He would have enjoyed him so much.
We spent a Christmas at my mother’s. I gave everybody hoodies as Christmas presents. Andy really liked his hoodie; at times he substituted it for his ill-fitting sports jacket! He even wore it on Saturday Night Live.
Rehearsals and shooting on Laverne & Shirley were consuming all of my time. My free time was very limited. Andy didn’t understand the grueling schedule and pressure I was under. This was before he started playing Latka on Taxi. One time he had caught a cold and asked me to grocery shop for him, which I did. On my way to the studio, I dropped off the bag of groceries at his apartment. Standing at his door, he asked me if I would come back later to drive him to pick up his prescription. I told him I couldn’t because rehearsal was going to run late. He pitched a little fit telling me he didn’t understand why I had to be at work so much. I tried my best to explain, but it fell on deaf ears. I was going to be late! I had to rush, leaving him there, wearing his hoodie over his pajamas, Kleenex up to his nose in one hand, the grocery bag filled with bananas, vegetable soup, crackers, and juice in the other. He was not a happy camper when I left. Later when he was doing Taxi at Paramount, he came over to the Laverne & Shirley soundstage where I was rehearsing. He asked if he could speak to me for a minute.
I said, “Sure.”
We stepped off to the side and he said, “Cindy, I want to apologize to you for that time I got upset with you for having to rush off to rehearsal. I understand now why you had to go, and how difficult it all is.”
Laverne & Shirley was on hiatus and I found myself in New York. Andy was there as well taping Saturday Night Live. He called to say he was booked for the 10:00 p.m. set at Catch a Rising Star, a popular comedy club in Manhattan. He asked me if I would help him.
I didn’t hesitate, I simply responded, “I would love to. What do you need me to do?”
He asked me if I could go-go dance. I said, “Yeah, sure, I can go-go dance. What do you need? The hitchhike? The jerk? The swim?”
He said, “All of them! And when it’s our turn to go on stage, you go as far up-stage as you can, keep your back to the audience, and your head down. And when I say to the audience, ‘I suppose you want me to sing,’ that’ll be your cue to cross down-stage and stand to my left, slightly behind me. And when I start to sing, you start to go-go dance. OK?”
“OK!” Oh, this is gonna be fun, I thought! He didn’t tell me anything else and I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know. I wanted to be surprised! I was thrilled to perform with him.
We arrived at the club, which had about thirty people in the audience, all down front. Andy’s popularity was not quite at a high point; he wasn’t exactly a household name yet. When Andy was introduced and we went on stage, I noticed he had a book in his hand. There was only a smattering of applause. I could see this audience had been drinking—a lot! Their faces were red and shiny! I thought, hmm, this could go south, fast.
I took my place up-stage, back to the audience, head bowed. There’s silence for a beat. Andy clears his throat. And then he begins to read. He begins reading The Great Gatsby. He reads in quiet tones with subdued passion. I’m thinking, He’s a very good actor! He reads on, emphasizing the drama of the text. I start to hear grumbling from the audience. But Andy is not fazed. He continues. More grumbling. They’re getting agitated and I’m sweating through my outfit! He is pokin’ the beehive now, I thought!
A mantra of shouting begins.
“Get off the stage! Get off the stage!”
Undaunted, Andy reads on.
“Come on, man, really, get off the stage! Get off the stage!” Booing ensues.
Andy shouts back at
them, “You people don’t like literature?”
“No!”
He slams the book closed. “OK,” Andy says. “I suppose you want entertainment!”
“Yeah!”
“I suppose you want jokes!”
“Yeah!”
“I suppose you want me to sing!”
“Yeah!”
This is my cue. I cross downstage and stand behind Andy, slightly to his left. I get a look at the crowd that has settled down somewhat. I can’t say they were ugly, but they weren’t pretty! And yes, they were drunk! I’m thinking, Here it comes, he’s gonna sing, I’m gonna dance, and then let’s get outta here.
Andy begins to sing. He begins to sing the title song from the musical Oklahoma! What? I have no time to process this. I immediately start doing the jerk and move onto the twist, the hitchhike, and then the swim. Andy takes a stance with his chest puffed out, hands on hips and performs the song with the verve I’m certain Rodgers and Hammerstein had intended! The crowd is stymied! Silenced! Sort of like you would imagine a courtroom to be if someone shouts, I did it, I did it! Ramon is innocent!
Andy sang the entire song, and I used up all my best go-go moves. At one point I even did the backstroke. When it was over he bowed, I bowed. There was another smattering of applause, but mostly the audience was stunned. They didn’t know what to make of it! And you know what, even though it was a thrill to perform with Andy, it would have been equally as thrilling for me to sit in that audience and be entertained by him.
Andy and his friend and writing partner, Bob Zmuda, were working on a new character, a nightclub entertainer named Tony Clifton. Tony Clifton involved makeup, a phony nose, costuming, and a hideous chauvinistic attitude. Simply put, he was a rotten character all the way around. Andy loved playing him and could not be dissuaded, no matter who protested. One weekend Andy was performing a Sunday night set at the Improv in L.A. And he was going to have “Tony” perform. He was coming over to my house Friday night, and we were going to spend the weekend together just having fun. I’ve described this experience the best way I can.
Shirley, I Jest!: A Storied Life Page 10