Back at work, David’s suicide was a very divisive issue for the cast. I completely understand now why married couples get divorced after losing a kid. I used to think, Wouldn’t that make a couple closer? But how you grieve is a really touchy thing. Barbara Barrie was like a second mom to me, but she was angry with David, almost flippant about his death, and for some reason I couldn’t handle that, and it irreparably fractured my friendship with her. When Brooke did interviews about his suicide, there were those in the cast who resented her. She, on the other hand, saw it as a chance to communicate with people about this issue. I make no judgment calls, but I can say it’s a weird thing to reconcile the way others grieve. We shot a good-bye–David episode, which at the time I didn’t like at all and thought was tacky—we were going back to work too soon, I believed—but recently I caught a rerun of it late at night and it’s actually a well-done, tasteful episode. I was sobbing. Although I remember the producers wanted to end the show with five minutes of David clips, and somehow via the network or studio it got negotiated down to a lot less. All I could think was, That’s fucking cold.
I was with David nearly every day for four years. I really loved that guy. Although I’ve got a big enough family that I’ve had various older relatives pass away, I consider David my first loss. I still keep a picture of him in my room, and I miss him every single day.
From my June 2009 Letterman appearance, and what’s in my head is “Don’t curse, don’t curse, don’t curse …” (Photo: John Paul Filo/CBS. © 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Among the many perks Suddenly Susan provided, getting to be on talk shows was a big one. Let’s face it, if I could be a professional talk show guest, I’d do it. By entering that world, I was allowed a chance to meet people I never dreamed I’d get to, and then during the commercial break, hear all the crazy things celebrities sitting in your vicinity would say. I would soon learn who was cool, who wasn’t, who got me, who didn’t, and—of course—how easy it was to get on someone’s shit list.
When I started going on talk shows, it was a dream of mine to eventually be sitting next to somebody I’d idolized. But sometimes your heroes turn out to be something completely different when you meet them. I found this out the hard way, and with hundreds of thousands of viewers watching.
Back in the late ’90s, Martin Short had a late night-talk show, and I got to be a guest on the second night it aired. Marty wasn’t the problem, though. I love him, and think he’s hysterical. The honor of being the biggest asshole would go to lead guest Steve Martin. I’d heard he was kind of cold, and not someone who was naturally, off-the-cuff funny. But I was still excited to meet the best host Saturday Night Live has ever had, and a guy whose longevity in comedy—from albums to TV to movies—I always admired. I mean, come on, this guy is a legend in the comedy world.
Well, let me tell you, he was a douche bag. He was such a douche bag it was like he was a caricature of a douche bag.
It always rubs me the wrong way when comedians are serious all the time. It just seems disingenuous to me. I understand that not everybody wants to be “on” all the time, but when you’re suddenly an art expert, or writing plays like that piece of shit Picasso at the Lapin Agile, it seems you’re making a conscious choice to be anything other than what made you a success. Martin Short, on the other hand, is so brilliant and quick and funny. I’m a big fan, and he’s obviously completely comfortable as an entertainer.
It started with Steve Martin doing his bit, and all the while Marty talked to him like he was a head of state, taking every opportunity to defer to him. Then I came out. Steve wouldn’t look at me or talk to me directly. Marty would say, “How’s it going?” I’d say, “Oh, this funny thing happened the other day …” and then I’d just be chatting with him. But then Marty would lean over my lap and say to Steve, “Kathy is a stand-up comedian.” Steve in his fucking Armani suit and crossed legs would nod, and add an “Ah” in an achingly bored tone.
I’d continue talking to Marty, and then Marty would lean over again, and say, “She does this really great thing where she doesn’t really tell jokes, she kind of just gets up there and is free form. You feel like you’re just having conversation.”
Steve: “Ah.”
I thought, You’re shitting me.
I even turned to The Right Honorable Steve Martin and, doing my best not to gush, told him I was a fan and thought he was great. But he literally did not say a word to me or look at me, and the whole thing was just uncomfortable. For me, for Marty, and for everyone watching the show. Every time Marty did the lean-over to say something quietly to Steve, I wanted to say, “Why are you translating for him like he doesn’t speak English?” The whole exchange felt like Marty was essentially saying, “What this horrible wild animal really means, Steve, is that she went onstage last night at eight-thirty.” He was working overtime to placate Steve. I know they’re old friends, but Steve’s “do I really have to be here?” act was just weird. I should have said, “I’m sorry you’re not in your gallery wondering where Picasso went next, asshole.” He is simply not pleasant. You would be hard-pressed to find five people who’d say, “He is a PISTOL at a party! Fun, warm, sweet, and just HILARIOUS!” I’m telling you, it can be tough to meet your idols.
The Reverend Al Sharpton, on the other hand, whom I met while taping Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect television show, was just the opposite. I’d heard a lot of rumors about what a publicity seeker he was, and I’ll admit I only knew him from the pink sponge curlers and the Tawana Brawley scandal, but when I sat next to him on PI, he was so friendly. Out of the blue, he said, “Where do you do stand-up?”
“When I’m in New York I usually do Caroline’s.”
“I’d really like to come see you sometime,” he said. I thought that was pretty cool. It seemed really open-minded of him to acknowledge what I do and offer to check out my act sometime. He’s somebody I admire because, like Ted Kennedy, he’s spent his time working his way back from a negative image to try to turn himself into somebody respectable and influential. I wouldn’t see him again until several years later when he graciously agreed to be a guest on season five of My Life on the D-List. When I decided to do a stand-up set at the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem, Reverend Al said he’d introduce me onstage. I spent the day with him, went to one of his speaking engagements at Medgar Evers College, and was a guest on his radio show. That night at the Apollo he rocked my introduction, warning the audience that I sometimes went too far, but that I was funny. It was the ultimate stamp of approval for me, and I think he is a man among men. I’ve been keeping an eye on you, Reverend Al. I take extra special notice of people who make controversial statements and take a stand. (And, of course, get called out for publicity garnering.)
As for the host of that show, I’m pretty sure Bill Maher is of that boys’ club mentality that doesn’t think chicks are funny, aside from maybe Sarah Silverman, but he’s been supportive of me to a degree. He’s kind of a prick—if I run into Bill at a party, even though I’ve known him all these years, it’s no guarantee he’ll stop and chat with me—but I like him, and I love his shows, Politically Incorrect being one of my favorite experiences. I was on half a dozen times at least. One time rock singer and ex–Van Halen frontman Sammy Hagar was on with me, and during the commercial break, he started to talk to Bill about how aliens had downloaded material into his head. Oh yes. Watching Bill try to have a semiserious conversation about this—“Oh really? What was that like?”—was priceless. I don’t think that kind of shit happens in conference rooms in corporate America.
Bill Maher and me backstage at the Larry King anniversary special.
Bill’s show was solid training ground for how to act with celebrities I’m nervous around. My m.o. was, I’ll try to get things rolling by making a ballsy joke, because instead of small talk, I think these celebrity situations demand an icebreaker, and Hollywood has a pretty thick sheet of ice. Like Bill O’Reilly, America, I’m always look
ing out for you. Besides, I usually want information from that celebrity: it could go into the act, right? Of course, 90 percent of the time saying something ballsy doesn’t go my way. But I’m sticking to my plan! When I was on PI with Michael Bolton, for instance, I turned to him and blurted out, “Bolton, you’ve got to lose that ridiculous hair, seriously. What are you thinking with that hair?”
Every time I say something like that, the pause afterward can seem excruciating, even if it’s only a nanosecond: Are they going to laugh? Flee? Threaten me? Or ban me from their own future talk show? Well, thankfully, Bolton laughed. I ran with it. “I can get a clipper here in ten seconds. Do you want to make a commitment to me right now? You’re talented and wealthy, but you can’t pay someone to cut that?”
Really, in a situation like that, that’s all I can do. God love him for laughing, but was I going to have a serious conversation with Michael Bolton? What the fuck am I going to talk with that guy about? Time, love, and tenderness? So I try to make the celebrities I encounter laugh. That time it went my way.
Then there are the times laughter can mislead. When HBO gave me an hour-long special during my time on Suddenly Susan, I got to promote it on David Letterman’s show. That was a major get for me. In the world of comedians, Letterman’s show is worshipped because he’s had the ultimate career, from his stand-up days to his great Tonight Show guest-hosting, to his brief, ill-fated, but brilliant morning talk show and obviously his groundbreaking late-night show on NBC. But even though appearing on his show was a major get, it’s not like I had anyone telling me how to do it. No makeup or hair people. No stylist. No publicist. Just me in New York the day before going to a mall store and buying an outfit thinking, This will look good on Letterman! It was the most preposterous outfit you’ve ever seen: black midriff top, and black matching pants, made out of stretch polyester, with flares. It was awful. I’m thirty-six and sporting a midriff top like Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island. Someone should have had me arrested.
In terms of the actual appearance, there were a lot of rules. The segment producers said, “Whatever you do, don’t talk to Dave during the commercial break, and don’t hug him when you make your entrance because he’s tall and has a bad back so he can’t bend over to hug you. And whatever you do, don’t go off the cards.” The cards are what the host has that include all the things you said in the preinterview, so all the host has to do to facilitate a good story on air is reference the card in front of him. Well, my main story was about meeting Jerry Springer, and as I’m telling it on camera with Dave I swore. I said “shit” and got a rim shot from the drummer. Dave turned his attention from me to the audience. Uh-oh. I turned to him trying to act all innocent and said, “What did I say?”
He said, “Well, I thought you were gonna say ‘damn’ or ‘hell’ and what you said is really a whole other category.”
“I said ‘shit’?” The audience laughed.
He said, “Yes.” More daggers.
“Well, you know, Dave, you can’t shit a shitter.” More audience laughter.
When it was all over, I went back to my hotel, and then the next day I got flowers from the show, with a card from the segment producer that said, “You were so funny, it was so effortless. Consider yourself a friend of the show!”
I have never been asked to be on again. I mean, I thought I nailed it! I thought I’d made it so easy on Dave, me being a potty mouth and him just sitting there and mugging at the camera. Looking back now, that swearing episode probably led to my downfall. Dave doesn’t like swearing, which means I’m obviously not his cup of tea. It was my first banning. Of course, you don’t know that kind of thing initially. For the longest time they just kept telling my publicist, “Oh, we’re just booked, we don’t have the slot.” But after ten years? Two Emmys? Finally executive producer Rob Burnett denied/confirmed it to Entertainment Weekly when the magazine did a story trying to fact-check my claims of banishment. He told EW, “She is not banned. We simply don’t feel she warrants a booking at this time.”
Gotcha! You thought perhaps this book had gone to press before my magical return to Dave’s show in the summer of 2009? Well, here’s the deal. I may pride myself on the street cred that comes with getting banned from so many shows and pissing people off. But look, when these shows call me to dangle a reappearance carrot—and you know me, I hate vegetables—no matter how D-list, I’m more than happy to eat shit (my term for vegetables) and grovel back on my hands and knees. So you can imagine my thrill and surprise when after twelve years of being banned from The Late Show with David Letterman, on Monday, June 8, 2009—after season five of My Life on the D-List debuted to its highest ratings ever—I got a call in my hotel room in New York asking if I would do the show that Wednesday as one of their guests had dropped out at the last minute.
It was a dream come true. Dave was in the middle of his Sarah Palin joke scandal, where the Alaska governor felt he’d made inappropriate remarks about her daughter, so it was heaven for me to be there that day and feel a special shitstorm kinship with him. I remembered not to curse, too. I never said “cunt” or referenced anal leakage, or invited any deities to suck it, and at the end of the interview Dave gave me the Letterman hand kiss! I don’t know if I’m back in for good, but as life on the D-list goes, I was back in for a day.
I don’t feel as good about the situation with Regis Philbin’s morning show, though. Back when Kathie Lee Gifford was co-host, I had been a guest on the show. All had gone well, and they even asked me if I wanted to guest host for a couple days while Kathie Lee was away. Suddenly Susan and being on the road was really knocking me out, so I remember balking at the fact that they weren’t going to pay anything. But the folks at Warner Bros. said “No, no, this is a good thing. You should do this with Regis.” So I agreed. They gave me Kathie Lee’s dressing room while she was gone, which I thought was strange. I mean, I wouldn’t want my dressing room being handed out to anyone else in my absence. So there I was surrounded by all the Kathie Lee-ness, the shoes and the wacky neon lime green suits and a few Bibles.
Well, it was pretty fun. I love Regis. He’s an absolute gem. You won’t find a guy who’s funnier, more low maintenance, and easygoing. I ended up speaking gay (I’m bilingual) to his executive producer, Michael Gelman, until I met his female fiancée, so that was awkward. But Gelman and the fiancée came to see me at Caroline’s, which I thought was cool. So on one of my guest-host days I made a joke on air that Gelman was Regis’s bitch. Regis laughed. The audience laughed. You know the rest. I was never asked on again. To this day. For a while I entertained the thought that it was maybe coming from Kathie Lee. But after Kelly Ripa came on, still no booking.
It was Joy Behar who nailed the episode. She asked me in the makeup room at The View once, “Did you ever get asked back to Regis after you said Gelman was Regis’s bitch?”
“No, but I don’t think it’s a problem,” I said. “I’m sure I’ll be on again!”
“Really?” she answered, with one eyebrow raised. Hmmm.
One time I ran into Regis at Carson Daly’s talk show, and we had a great conversation. He was being so nice, saying, “KATH-y GRIFFIN! You’re on FYE-UH! You’re on FYE-UH!”
I told him how glad I was that things were going so well for him, and that nobody deserved it more than he did, because he’d worked so hard. Then I brought it back to me. “Rege, I feel bad about my ban for life from Gelman. Really? Gelman’s the all-powerful?”
“Well, you know, he holds grudges,” he said.
Then Regis suggested I make a surprise appearance the next time I was planning on being in New York. Just walk out onto the set during the show—“Don’t even plan it! Be a surprise guest!”
It was sweet that he thought I was A-list enough to pull off a stunt like that. But I’m no Don Rickles and this wasn’t The Tonight Show. I doubt I’d make it past security. And if I did, I told him, “Then I’m just Sean Young trying to get the role of Catwoman.” Meow.
If you’
re wondering whether I watch a show that I’ve been banned from, I do. Why wouldn’t I?
Here’s the lowdown on banning: it’s not like anybody makes a declaration outright that you’ve been banned. You find out by not getting booked on the show anymore. The reasoning can sometimes be elusive. I appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien a few times during Suddenly Susan and then I went ten years, ten years—until early in 2009—before being asked back. Even though Conan and I go way back.
When I was in the Groundlings, one of the girls there said to me one day, “Hey, there’s this guy named Conan who writes for The Simpsons, and I think you should go out with him. He’s really funny and smart.” He was taking classes at the time, and I was actually in the main company, so I’d be “marrying down,” as the phrase goes, but I figured, why not? We met, but he didn’t ask me out. So I came up with a scheme to get him to date me. I suggested we go for a pizza and write a sketch together. He said yes. I really thought I could turn this writing session into a legitimate date.
We went to this old-school place on Fairfax called Damiano’s, ordered a pizza, and though I was being all flirty, I think we actually did write a sketch. At the end of the night, the check came, and we split it. Well, that’s a bad sign, I thought. I don’t think it’s a date when the guy says, “Okay, you had two diet Cokes, so it’s an extra dollar for you.” Ouch.
Conan and I were both attending the wedding a couple of weeks later of a mutual friend who was also an old boyfriend. More date potential. So I said to him that night, “I can’t bear to go to that wedding without a date. Will you go with me? I’m not saying this has to be some boyfriend/girlfriend situation,” I said, clearly trying to manipulate him into thinking of it as a romantic and sexual date. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Sure.”
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