Life Itself: A Memoir

by Roger Ebert

  Gene and I were on with Oprah many times, starting at the studio Channel 7 built for her at 190 North State, and later at the Harpo Studios she built for herself on Washington. There was a reason for her popularity. She was gifted and had good producers. She warmed up the show beforehand and stayed afterward for photos and autographs. She wasn’t phony. She was generous with her money. Both of us have had weight problems over the years, mine worse than hers, but we never discussed them. There was one moment in particular when for once I had the good sense to keep my mouth shut. Dennis Swanson had teamed us up to co-host the Chicago Emmy Awards, which would be carried by Channel 7. On cue we entered from opposite sides of the stage and met at the lectern. Great applause. “I feel like Diana Ross,” Oprah said. It was a straight line. The next line jumped into my mind: “… and the Supremes!” I’m gifted at blurting out the wrong things at the wrong times, but some instinct stopped me in time.

  I never thought Oprah was really all that fat. I thought she was sexy. I did ask her out one other time, when the Count Basie Orchestra was at the Park West, but it wasn’t precisely a date. She had to leave early to be at work before dawn and left in her own car. Did I have some half-formed romantic notion in mind? Oprah tactfully and subtly communicated that whatever I had in mind, it wasn’t happening. What’s important to this day, I think, is that she must have sensed what I was wordlessly thinking. We tend to like people when they like us. She liked me too, but never remotely in that way. When Chaz and I were married, she was one of the guests, and I was moved by how happy she was for us.

  Chicago was a hub for syndicated talk shows in those days. Oprah was queen of the genre. Phil Donahue, unfailingly intelligent, had a long run. Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones. Jerry was nothing if not honest. Every time we saw him, he said, “I’m going to hell for doing this show.” There was one thing to be said for his show: When I was surfing and came across it, I invariably watched. Overweight married transsexuals cheating with their genders of destination. How can you beat that?

  Joan Rivers got Gene and me into late night TV. She was the regular guest host when Johnny Carson was on vacation. She invited us onto the Tonight Show, perhaps as a tryout for Johnny. I have a memory of backstage chaos, and of her husband, Edgar, nervously trying to keep the lid on a disorganized staff. Joan came up with a stunt where Gene and I wore soundproofing earphones and could hear her but not each other. It was sort of the Dating Game, tweaked to exploit our rivalry. We both spoke very seriously, ever mindful that we were Serious Film Critics and not bozos. We could see people laughing a lot, but we didn’t know what they were laughing about.

  In the fullness of time, Johnny Carson himself invited us on. We’d done some TV by this time, but we were both terrified. I’d been watching Johnny since his first night on the program. He was an idol. Gene and I were given separate dressing rooms, but we sat in the same one for moral support. The door opened and it was… Johnny Carson. Alive. In the same room. We bolted to our feet. He wanted to welcome us on the show. He disappeared. On the TV monitor, the Doc Severinsen orchestra began the famous Tonight Show theme. “Roger,” said Gene. “You and I do not belong here. We belong at home in Chicago, watching this on TV.” The door opened, and it was one of Johnny’s writers: “Johnny may ask you for some of your favorite movies so far this year,” he said. He left. Gene and I looked at each other and an unspoken fact hung in the air between us. Our minds were blank. “Name a movie you like,” Gene said. “Gone With the Wind,” I said. Gene telephoned Nancy De Los Santos, our producer. “Name some movies we like,” he said.

  When Johnny retired and Leno famously won the late night war between himself and David Letterman, there was speculation that Dave would jump networks rather than follow Jay on NBC. It happened that Gene and I were guests on the Letterman show the very evening that was scheduled to be announced. There was much talk backstage, among writers, assistant producers, makeup artists, and stagehands (including the friendly Biff), but no solid information. After the show Gene and I headed for the scheduled press conference, where Letterman appeared with CBS president Howard Stringer to announce his move. But we didn’t discuss it with him.

  Indeed, we never discussed anything with him, apart from two occasions. Leno routinely circulated among dressing rooms, chatting with all his guests before a show, but Letterman never did. That wasn’t because he didn’t like us. Before Gene’s death, we briefly held the record for most appearances on his show. My guess is, Dave coiled in wait for the starting gun at the beginning of every show and didn’t believe in dissipating his energy before the red light went on. We understood that. Gene and I never discussed a movie before taping a show; you can only discuss something for the first time once. Dave enjoyed a certain tension, which perhaps built excitement, and one of the veteran members of Paul Shaffer’s band told me the band members didn’t really know Dave either. I suppose Paul did, but I can’t say.

  Leno, on the other hand, liked to be everybody’s friend. He genuinely did like the movies—was obsessed by them, in fact, and in the dressing room before the show he would debate our latest reviews and very often find fault with them. It’s well known that talk show guests are pre-interviewed by a writer, and the host is armed with note cards suggesting questions and the expected answers. “You guys are the ideal guests,” Leno’s writer Steve Ridgeway told Richard Roeper and me once. That wasn’t because we were so great. It was because Leno always knew what he wanted to ask us and always knew what the right answer was, whether or not we agreed. “Your segments always run long,” he said, “because Jay won’t shut up about the movies.”

  That was our advantage. We always had a topic: the summer movies, the fall movies, the Christmas movies, the Oscar nominations. “We have enormous studios spending millions of dollars every week to supply us with subject matter,” Gene said. Only occasionally was a host surprised.

  Gene and I were on the Carson show once, following Chevy Chase, who had just promoted his Christmas release, ¡Three Amigos! We chatted a little, and then Johnny said, “Roger, what’s your least favorite Christmas picture?” We were looking directly at each other when he said that, and I noticed an almost invisible expression flash across his face. I knew what the answer was, and I believe in that second Johnny did, too. I paused. “¡Three Amigos!” I said.

  There was an uneasy audience reaction. Audiences expect guests on talk shows to always be nice. Chevy saved the moment by cracking, “Looking forward to your next picture.” Carson did one of his double takes and said, “Gee, I wished I hadn’t said that.” “Me too,” I said. After the show, Chevy appeared in the door of my dressing room with a poker face. I was at a loss for words. “I don’t think it’s so hot either,” he said.

  One of the reasons for the success of our show, and our interest as talk show guests, is that like the victims of some curse in a fairy tale, Gene and I were compelled to tell the truth. We were critics. We couldn’t tell diplomatic lies. We had each other to keep us honest. There might be a temptation to say something diplomatic, but the other guy would call you on it. If I’d tried to talk around Johnny’s question, Gene would have jumped like a wolf: “Gee, Rog, you were saying just the other day how much you hated Chevy’s movie.” Neither one of us could pass up an opening. If Johnny had asked Gene the question, he would also certainly have said, “¡Three Amigos!”

  I mentioned that against all odds we had two private conversations with David Letterman. One of them was spread across a balmy autumn day when we went with a Late Show camera crew to shoot a video piece in New Jersey. A residential block had been chosen. The gag was, David would knock on a door, and when it was opened, would say, “Good afternoon. I’m Dave Letterman. I have Siskel and Ebert here in case you want to ask them any questions about the movies.”

  It was a good idea, but in reality it transcended any possible expectation, because there is no telling whom you’ll meet when you knock on a door. As the people we met grew more and more curious, a certain bond formed
among us, because the experience was becoming surreal. One man introduced his wife, whom he’d had a crush on since high school. They had both married others, but now their first spouses had passed on, and they were together at last. The living room was a shrine to this woman when she had been a high school beauty queen. Big photo blow-ups of her prom night, her senior picture, her decorating a float, her at a sock hop, bordering on idolatry. What we talked about I have no idea.

  At another house, a man and his adult son came to the door, both wearing flamboyant mustaches. They said they never went to the movies. What was the last movie they had seen? They couldn’t think of one. How about on TV? No, they watched sports. The camera was rolling. Dave took a beat, and spoke to the son: “I’ll give you a hundred dollars if you shave off the mustache.”

  “Who’s gonna do it? You?”

  “Oh no. We have a makeup artist.”

  We taped the mustache being shaved.

  At another house our visit turned into a basketball game, two on two, in a driveway. Then there was the woman who said she couldn’t talk now because she was going to a funeral.

  “Oh, I’m terribly sorry to hear that, ma’am,” Dave said. “Roger can tap the William Tell Overture with his fingernails, and Gene can name all twenty-two of the helping adverbs.”

  “Well, all right,” the woman said. I tapped the William Tell Overture on her aluminum storm door, and Gene named the helping adverbs.

  The woman regarded us patiently.

  “All right,” she said. “Now I have to be going.”

  “Is there anything the boys can do for you while you’re gone?”

  “The gutters need cleaning.”

  Dave and his crew found a ladder in the garage and Gene and I climbed up and cleaned her gutters.

  This resulted in a very funny video, but it also led to some downtime with Letterman, as we stood in the shade and waited for the crew to set up shots. Our only previous interaction with him had been during those moments when a segment is ending and the host leans over to say something private to the guest. On that afternoon Dave said nothing much of consequence. He and Gene exchanged detailed analysis of the play of Michael Jordan and the Bulls, a subject on which Gene was not afraid to give advice at length to Phil Jackson. Dave and I discussed the genius of Bob and Ray. My impression was that when he winds down, Letterman is a nice guy from the Midwest, and that the Letterman people see on show days is in hyperdrive. I think he regards the show with great seriousness and aims himself at the opening monologue with a lasered intensity.

  Leno, on the other hand, likes to be seen as a regular guy. When I had to leave Ebert & Roeper for surgery in 2006, never to return, he sat in as Roeper’s co-host on the first show afterward. That seems like an extraordinary kindness unless you realize he’d been watching since the early days with Siskel, and telling himself during every show, “I could do that better than those guys.” There might have been a little to that. Sometimes I watch him glancing at his cards in desperation as a guest seems mired in redundancy and inarticulate truisms. What he should do is ask the guests what they think about a new movie, and then answer his own question.

  The other time Gene and I talked privately with Letterman broke all precedent. “Dave would like to talk to you in his office after the show,” a producer told us. Gene got all wound up. “Roger,” he said, “this can only mean one thing! He wants us to do a talk show for his company Worldwide Pants.”

  As it happened, that was the night when I experienced the biggest genuine, spontaneous laugh I’ve ever witnessed on a talk show. Gene was telling his story about the time he and John Wayne went into a greasy spoon at three a.m. and the waitress came over, saw him, and crossed herself.

  “What was the name of the movie he was making?” Dave asked.

  “Chisum,” Gene said, pronouncing it “jism.”

  There was a moment of silence. I was sitting in the chair next to Letterman. My head swiveled. Our eyes met. Ba-boom. He, and I, and the audience, and after a while Gene, broke into uncontrolled laughter.

  This was a good omen for our new talk show. “They’ll probably want us to move to New York,” Gene was fretting. After the show a producer took us upstairs to Dave’s surprisingly modest office in Worldwide Pants. We sat in two chairs facing him.

  “I’ve got a problem, and I think you boys might be able to help me.”

  Gene smiled confidently.

  “You guys were both on the show we did from the Chicago theater,” Dave said. “Oprah was on the same show. Remember that night?”

  We did.

  “Something happened that night. I don’t know what it was, but Oprah has never come back on the show again, and she won’t even talk to me. You know Oprah. Has she ever said anything?”

  She never said a word to us, we said. People often seemed to assume that since we were from Chicago, we all hung out together. The truth is, if you have access to Oprah, you respect it. You don’t ask for a lot of favors. You don’t assume. If you are my grandchild, I might be able to call one of her producers and get you a ticket to a taping of her show on your birthday, but that’s about it.

  “Okay, that doesn’t surprise me,” Dave said. “But now Michael Jordan also won’t come on my show. I have no idea why. Is it because Oprah said something to him?”

  Gene and I looked at each other. Gene was actually close to Michael, in the way a journalist can be close to a superstar. You wouldn’t call them confidants. The question of whether Oprah had said something to Michael about Dave would be unlikely to come up. We didn’t have a clue.

  “Right,” said Dave, cracking his knuckles. “That’s what I expected. Well, thanks for your time. Great show tonight.”

  When people asked Letterman why he had two interview chairs, his stock answer was, “Siskel and Ebert.” After Gene’s death in 1999, he had me as a guest one more time, to promote my first Great Movies book, and then never again. He didn’t get mad at me or anything. Gene and I were a double act. As Joe Antelo had assured us long ago, “Individually, you’re nothing. Together, you’re stars.”

  Leno continued to invite me back, and when Richard Roeper joined me on the show, he was invited, and is still a guest on a regular basis, because Jay loves to talk about movies. It’s not often you see Letterman needing the second chair. I thought of it as Gene’s chair. He thought of it as mine. We kept meticulous track of whose turn it was to sit next to Dave.

  44 WHEN I LAUGHED IN STUDY HALL

  I AM AN American who was born before the schools were integrated in the South. I am a midwesterner who went with his mother on a trip to Washington, D.C., and my cousin’s company driver showed us the sights, but when we stopped for lunch at Howard Johnson’s he explained he couldn’t go inside because they didn’t serve colored people. “But you’re with us!” I said. “I know,” he said, smiling over my head at my mother, “but they don’t know who you are.” Inside, I asked my mother why they wouldn’t serve him. “They have their own nice places to eat,” she said. I don’t believe she was particularly upset on his behalf.

  The first time I noticed that people had different colors of skin I was a very small boy. Our family laundry was done by a colored woman on Champaign’s north side. She was our “warsherwoman.” Downstate you pronounced an invisible “r,” so we lived on Warshington Street. I sat down on the floor to play with her son, who was about my age, and he showed me his palm and said it was as white as my palm. I noticed for the first time that the rest of him wasn’t.

  In Catholic grade school, there was a colored boy named Donald in my class—that was the word we used, “colored,” although “Negro” was more formal. I remember the class being informed by a nun that he was “just as precious as the rest of you in the eyes of God.” I believed most of what the nuns told us, and I believed that. It made sense. Some years later it occurred to me to wonder how he felt when he was singled out. He lived in a house across the street from our playground and got to go home for lunch. Donald stud
ied with us, played with us, and I gave him rides on the handlebars of my bike. Only slowly did his color become more—important? is that the word?—to me.

  There were Negro students at Urbana High School, and I knew the athletes because I covered sports for the local newspaper. I didn’t know them, you understand, in the sense of going to their homes or hanging out at the Steak ’n Shake, and I don’t recall any of them at the Tigers’ Den, the city’s teen hangout in downtown Urbana. They did attend our school dances. There was a kid who wasn’t an athlete, whom I liked, and we talked and kidded around, but in those days, well, that was about that.

  Strangely, during this time the “idea” of Negroes was on a wholly different track in my mind. I read incessantly during high school, and I met them in the novels of Thomas Wolfe and William Faulkner. I read Richard Wright’s Black Boy and Native Son and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. So I had this concept shaping in my mind that bore no relationship to what was going on in my life. It was theoretical.

  This is not a record of my reading but of my understanding. Racism was ingrained in daily life in those days. It wasn’t the overt racism of the South, but more like the pervading background against which we lived. We were here and they were there and, well, we wished them well, but that was how it was. At this time it was becoming clear to me that I was not merely a Democrat, as I had been raised, but a liberal. When Eisenhower sent the National Guard to Arkansas, I defended him against some who said the federal government had no right interfering. So that was my political position. But where were my feelings centered? Theory will only take you so far.

  In college, my understanding shifted. I attended the National Student Congress every summer, and during one held at Ohio State, two things happened. I gave a dollar to Tom Hayden and he handed me my membership card in Students for a Democratic Society. And one night during a party at Rosa Luxemburg House, I met a Negro girl and we went outside and sat in the backseat of a car and we talked and kissed and she was sweet and gentle and she smelled of Ivory soap. We fell asleep in each other’s arms. We met again maybe ten years later in New York City, recognizing each other on the street, and had a drink and talked about how young we had been. In my inner development, I had been younger than she knew.