The Improv

by Budd Friedman

  Without saying a word, Dreesen reached into his wallet and gave him the money. Then, after performing at the Sunset Strip Store about two weeks later, Dreesen and another group of comics, including Jay Leno, were back at Canters, when Jay said this, according to author Bill Knoedelseder’s 2009 book, I’m Dying Up Here: “Does anyone think this system is fair anymore? I mean, that place was fuckin’ packed tonight. It took five of us to do it, but it was still packed, at fifteen dollars a head with a two-drink minimum. Shouldn’t we get something for that? When Rodney [Dangerfield] and Richard [Pryor] play the room, Mitzi gives them the door. Shouldn’t we get, like, I don’t know, half the door?”

  TOM DREESEN:

  I think it was mid-January or early February that we first started talking about it. The night the first discussion happened was the same night I went to The Comedy Store thinking that I was going to be in the Original Room and they put me in the Main Room. But it definitely wasn’t New Year’s Eve because I worked different places in those days and I wasn’t at the Store that night.

  The story I’ve always told was that when I later went to Mitzi, I said, “I was just at Canter’s where one of the comics informed me that when he worked for you on New Year’s Eve, you had a full house in Westwood and on Sunset. He said, ‘I just worked in front of a packed house. It was wonderful. I’d never worked in front of that many people and I killed them. Tommy, can I borrow five dollars from you? I want to get something to eat.’”

  When I recounted this to Mitzi, her response was, “Well, he should get a goddamn job.”

  “Mitzi,” I said, “he has a job. He works for you.”

  That’s where the story came from, but it started after that, the night the five of us—me, David Letterman, Elayne Boosler, Jay Leno, and Robin Williams—had all just worked the Main Room at the Store and we went to Canter’s afterwards. That’s when Jay said, “This is fucking bullshit that she pays the other comics like Shecky Greene and Jackie Mason, but we pack the room, too.”

  Within days, they had formed a group led by Dreesen called Comedians for Compensation. However, even after attending the first meeting, some people still thought it might be part of an elaborate joke.

  WILLIAM KNOEDELSEDER:

  I knew that the comics weren’t getting paid, but that never struck me as weird because this was Hollywood and I figured this was how the system worked. So I never questioned it, and none of the other comics ever complained in front of me and said, “This is fucked.”

  Looking back, I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that I was a representative of the Los Angeles Times and nobody wanted to open up to me because they were afraid it might hurt their careers. So when I went to the first Comedians for Compensation meeting at The Comedy Store, I was surprised to see all of this anger they hadn’t hinted to me before.

  It even seemed kind of funny. When I met Tom Dreesen there for the first time, I’ll never forget that he had a green-plaid three-piece suit on and the comics were standing in this big picket line. From my vantage point, it was actually a lot of fun. My first article wound up being about having fun with the idea of stand-up comics being on strike and how funny it was.

  But of course, it wasn’t, and as the days wore on, it became increasingly apparent that a Norma Rae–sized labor movement was rapidly gaining a full head of steam.

  WILLIAM KNOEDELSEDER:

  It was comedian Elayne Boosler who first made me aware of how serious they were. The way she did it was just as serious because she already had an ax to grind stemming from an article I’d written about a year or so before about four comics who were about to break and she didn’t like the way she came off.

  The four that I chose—and I’m very proud of it to this day—were David Letterman, Jay Leno, Richard Lewis, and Elayne. But of those four, Elayne wasn’t breaking quite as fast probably because she was a woman at a time when comedy was still very much a boys’ club, which I didn’t mention because I hadn’t looked into it at that point. It hadn’t even occurred to me, honestly.

  Elayne was still pissed at me about that. And when she read my first story making light of the strike, she literally poked me in the chest during the second meeting and said, “You should be ashamed of yourself. You shouldn’t be making fun of these people.” Then she said something to the effect of, “This is a really serious issue and you ought to look into it.” When I did, it was actually a big turn in my career in terms of how I started looking at things.

  My perspective quickly began evolving, too. While ostensibly I couldn’t afford to pay them either, I knew that I couldn’t withstand the bad publicity if they went on strike against the Improv and so I decided to negotiate. In good faith, I told them I would match any agreement they made with Mitzi, if they were able to, which they weren’t. But once the dust finally settled and I was able to, I began paying five dollars per set during the week and ten dollars on the weekends to the regular comics, with the headliners getting twenty-five to fifty dollars a show, and sometimes more depending on who they were.

  Before any of this transpired, however, Mitzi basically told them all to go fuck themselves. Meanwhile, reinforcement for the comedians’ cause became almost unanimous as Connie Chung began covering it, Bob Hope wrote a letter of support, Johnny Carson’s attorney got involved, and established comedians like Jay Leno, Robin Williams, Richard Pryor, and Richard Lewis all agreed not to cross the picket line if it came to that, which it did, beginning in mid-March for eight weeks.

  JAY LENO:

  I was paying attention to it in the sense that I had a foot in both camps. It wasn’t something that had to happen if Mitzi had only been willing to negotiate and pay the comics something, which she was in a much stronger position to do than Budd was then. But she was so adamant about controlling them, it got to a point where she was trying to tell people how they should dress and do their acts.

  DOTTIE ARCHIBALD, television producer, former comedian, and longtime Hollywood Improv stockholder:

  I was one of the lucky ones who worked at both clubs. I didn’t really have a sense of how bad things were with Mitzi until after the strike started and Budd immediately began to pay, although it really didn’t make much difference to me financially because I was married and I wasn’t in dire straits the way that a lot of the other comics were.

  So I really didn’t think about it a lot in the beginning, although once I realized how much money Mitzi was making, I immediately became involved as I had been in the Civil Rights Movement because I knew they were right.

  TOM DREESEN:

  At the very core of things, it brought together a group of comics who weren’t getting paid, which Mitzi didn’t deem necessary because she was giving them stage time and a chance to be discovered by the industry. Meanwhile, she was making a fortune off their talent and she was paying everyone else at The Comedy Store from the waitresses and bartenders on down to the parking lot attendant and the guy who cleaned the toilets. Unless you were directly involved, you’ll never understand the ramifications of that strike because it forced every comedy club in the world to start paying their acts. I’m still very proud of what we did to this day even though many never got on at The Comedy Store again.

  The one who most catastrophically didn’t get on was an insecure and emotionally fragile comedian few people remember named Steve Lubetkin, whom I never particularly cared for the handful of times he performed at the Improv in New York. Maybe I might have been overlooking something and he would have eventually gotten better, but back then I just didn’t think he was very funny.

  Nor had he improved that much during the two or three times after that when he performed on Melrose Avenue. As a result, he never became a regular. When Mitzi permanently banned him for crossing the picket line and begrudgingly agreed to a sliding-scale compensation arrangement that May, Lubetkin committed suicide in the most heinous, if not appallingly symbolic, way a month later.

  On June 1, 1979, at around 6:40 PM, he jumped off the roof of the
Continental Hyatt House hotel across the street from The Comedy Store, plunging approximately 105 feet and landing directly in front of it. Finding him with a gaping forehead wound and blood flowing from his ears and nose, police investigators later pulled a handwritten note from the stained left hip pocket of his blue jeans. It said: “My name is Steve Lubetkin. I used to work at The Comedy Store. Maybe this will help bring about fairness.”

  Although I didn’t know it yet, the Improv was also about to receive a major blow that would be no less near catastrophic—albeit in a much different way—when the club went up in flames several nights later.

  Despite all my recent troubles, I had been feeling on top of the world until the fire that evening. I had even taken a rare night off and gone on a double date with my friends Dottie and Tom Archibald to hear cabaret singer Bobby Short perform in Century City. The plan was to be back at the Improv by midnight so I could close up.

  DOTTIE ARCHIBALD:

  Tom and I picked Budd and his date up at the club around seven-thirty. I had a new Chrysler convertible that I was showing off, which he loved, and he was in a great mood that night.

  Bobby Short was always the consummate showman and tonight was no exception. Back at the Improv meanwhile, a young singer named Barbara McGraw was onstage, bantering with the midweek audience and about to go into her next song, when Cliff Grisham, the piano player, whispered to her that he smelled smoke.

  BARBARA MCGRAW:

  It was like the third or fourth song when Cliff said, “I think I smell smoke.”

  I stopped for a second and said, “What?”

  “I think I’m smelling smoke,” he repeated. “We’d better move people out of here.”

  We stopped the song and I said, “We are smelling smoke here. Everyone should leave the room in an orderly fashion.” But as we said this, we got the impression that none of the customers smelled anything yet because they seemed surprised. So we said, “Really, we’re serious. You need to leave the room right away. Don’t run. Just move out right away.” It took them a second, but then they started to leave very quickly.

  KEVIN NEALON:

  I was working the bar that night and so I was up front when another comic named Jack Graiman came running out of the show room. He said, “Kevin, I’m not kidding around. There’s a fire back there. We’ve got to call the fire department.” I’m not sure if there was even 911 then. I may have just called them directly.

  MICHAEL RICHARDS:

  I was either in the bar, the show room, or somewhere in the vicinity when Jack Graiman yelled out, “FIRE!” at the top of his lungs. I hadn’t smelled smoke yet, so I started pretending I was a fireman. I told the audience they couldn’t leave the room. I said something to the effect that the doors had to remain locked because of a fire code and that we were most likely all going to go up in flames.

  I was making up all this crazy improv shit, just basically saying whatever came to mind, until Jack said, “There really is a fucking fire.” Then I walked outside and saw flames up near the top of the roof. At first, it didn’t look too bad, but then it started to spread fast and we all thought it was going to be the end of the Improv. The whole place looked like it was going to burn down.

  BARBARA MCGRAW:

  I know that Cliff and I were the last ones out. Budd had just spent a bunch of money on new sound equipment. It may have been the second or third night it was used and we were all happy to have it. As we were leaving, I remember thinking to myself, “I wish we could grab it before we go.” But the smoke was so bad by this point that I decided it was better not to stop. Then, as we all moved outside, it got worse and it took the fire department forever to show up. When they finally did, they had everybody move away from the building, although we were still standing pretty close as we watched it go up in flames.

  One person, however, has a slightly different version of these events.

  JACK KNIGHT:

  Barbara wasn’t even onstage when the fire happened. I was performing with the Improv’s resident improv troupe and actress Betty Thomas, who would later go on to star in Hill Street Blues, was also with us.

  We were all onstage when the assistant manager of the club came across the show room floor and got my attention. He said, “There’s a fire out back.”

  Barbara may have performed that evening, but it wasn’t during the time of the fire starting and I have no recollection of that at all. I don’t think I’d even know her if I bumped into her today. Anyway, the assistant manager got my attention when he said there was a fire. He told me to empty the room, which I did, after which I went to the back of the stage where there was a door facing on to the alley where the fire started. When I saw how bad it was, I tried to get the garden hose that was outside to work, but I wasn’t having much luck, and it took quite some time after that for the fire department to get there.

  As either of these scenarios was unfolding, my date and I were sitting in the backseat of Dottie and Tom Archibald’s car on our way back to the Improv as it inched along in unusually heavy traffic, when out of nowhere, I began smelling smoke, too. I remember saying out loud, “What the hell is this?” as the acrid smell grew thicker. Then my heart began pounding against my chest as I suddenly realized it was coming from the Improv.

  DOTTIE ARCHIBALD:

  One of the firemen stopped us about a block away before we even got to the Improv. That’s when Budd hurled himself out of the car and began running. He was out of the car before he even realized that the club was on fire.

  The first thing I encountered as I stood outside the entrance a few minutes later was a group of performers and customers huddled together in disbelief. As the firefighters struggled to put out the blaze, a number of the comics were crying.

  BARBARA MCGRAW:

  When the word got out, it seemed like everybody was showing up even if they hadn’t been there when the fire started.

  Perhaps most random was the appearance of Robert Schimmel, a stereo salesman suddenly turned comic from Scottsdale, Arizona, who had performed at the Improv for the first time in his life on an open mic night two weeks earlier on a dare from his sister. It had been completely unplanned, but he was so good that I told him afterwards he could come back anytime he wanted to.

  What I didn’t know at the time, though, was that he immediately took my invitation to mean that he should quit his job, sell his house, and move to Los Angeles with his wife. That same night when Robert pulled off the freeway, he drove straight to the club to show her a glimpse of their new future when he noticed the fire.

  But instead of turning back, he parked their car a few blocks away and came straight to the scene where he found me pacing back and forth out in front. He said, “Jesus, Budd. I can’t believe this.”

  I was dumbfounded—not so much by the words, but by the superficially insensitive way they seemed to come out—so I just looked at him blankly and said, “Who are you?”

  Then I just completely lost it and began sobbing uncontrollably. But what good would that do, I quickly reasoned. I also suddenly realized that since I couldn’t do anything, the best thing was to try to remain calm even though I was in a state of sheer panic as the firefighters refused to let me inside.

  That was when I suddenly had another impulse that may seem odd. In an effort to lift our collective spirits, I invited everybody who was still there over to the French restaurant Moustache across the street and ordered champagne as if it were a wake. Whether or not any of us really believed it or not, we all still tried to hold on to some glimmer of hope as we got shitfaced for the next three hours.

  Though it didn’t take nearly that long to put the fire out, it wasn’t until around 1 AM that we were allowed back inside, at which point the tingly buzz I was feeling from the booze quickly turned to despair as I walked through the badly charred show room. The only way I can describe how I felt is to say that it was a picture of black despair made even worse by my dark mood.

  The first thing that occurred to me was
that I was out of business. Without insurance, which I didn’t have and couldn’t afford, I knew there was no way I’d ever be able to rebuild, and so in another strange attempt to console myself, I invited everyone who was still there into the front bar, which hadn’t been touched, and we continued to drink until we’d depleted my champagne supply.

  I returned to my home in the Hollywood Hills at about 4 AM. I was now living alone. I can’t remember what I did first, but I was angry, hurt, scared, sad, and disgruntled. Worst of all, my most overriding emotion was a niggling suspicion I had that Mitzi might have somehow been involved, especially since one of my waitresses had secretly been at a Comedy Store staff meeting several days earlier when she overheard someone say, “What if there were no Improv?”

  But I was exhausted and I tried to repress it as I got undressed, climbed into bed, and drifted off into a restless, uneasy sleep. When I arrived back at the club several hours later, news about the fire had already ricocheted across the comedy community even though it hadn’t made any of the local newspapers yet. Whirling around, too, were the growing rumors that Mitzi had started the blaze, which I was becoming increasingly convinced of after several people had already told me she’d been ecstatic when she first heard the news, presuming that, with me now out of business, she’d have a monopoly again to do whatever she pleased.

  However, even after the fire marshal ruled later that day that the cause had been arson—and that the blaze had originated in the rear of the building, where our alley’s easy access and quick escape was practically an open invitation for anyone to strike a match—none of us, the more we all thought about it, believed that Mitzi could be that vindictive when it came right down to it.