And yet despite our origins, I stand before you as the mother of a young woman who’s about to graduate from a fine college. I am so proud that my daughter has come here and has had the privilege of spending four years on this campus. I see her out there now, smiling despite the fact that her history professor almost didn’t accept her thesis, “Oliver North: Guys Just Want to Have Fun.” And I wonder if she realizes, or if any of you graduating seniors realize, what it means to get a degree that says it’s from the University of Pennsylvania? It means a lot and will for the rest of your lives.
Because Melissa’s father and I knew that a good education was important, we were very picky as to where she went. So we came east and took the college tour. First, we toured Bennington, and I was shocked at the tuition. Believe me, you could run South Korea for a year for what it costs at that place. We went to look over Williams, where the most popular course was How to Speak to the Servants Without Using Your Facial Muscles. And last of all, we visited Brown and sat through a philosophy class, where they discussed “If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it fall, does anyone give a damn?” Luckily, Melissa wanted, and was accepted at, Penn.
And now it’s four years later, and this campus holds so many memories for me, as it does all the parents. Remember the first day we brought our children here? We unpacked them, helped put their new books away, and then left so that they could sneak out to sell those books to buy ripped jeans and compact discs. I have so many memories. The memory of the coed bathrooms, the memory of the bookstore with the condom machine, the memory of my first nervous breakdown, when I realized I was putting my daughter into this environment. And then there are the other memories. The first football game Melissa and I went to here: Penn versus Harvard. I climbed up, up, up, up to sit in those god-awful bleachers. Just when you think the game is over, the clock stops again. Melissa bet on Penn. I bet on which of the cheerleaders didn’t have a nose job.
In these four years, I think my happiest moment came in the middle of Melissa’s sophomore year, when I realized that my daughter, my baby, was becoming an academic. We were waiting for a table at the Garden, talking about American literature, and in the two and a half hours it took to get the maitre d’s eye, Melissa spoke about Willa Cather. She talked about Willa Cather’s tone, her use of alliteration, her ideas, her primary philosophy, and never once did she mention that Willa Cather was gay. That’s when I knew my daughter was getting a great education. Boring but great.
And now that these four years are drawing to a close, they have asked me, out of desperation, to provide a lofty message for you graduates that can help you be happy in real life. Well, I would love to say, “You are our hope for the future and you are going to go forth and make everything bright and right in a wonderful world,” but I think I’ll pass on those chestnuts. Instead, I’d like to tell you the truth as I see it. Look to your left, look to your right, look all around you. Because, seniors, this is as good as it’s going to get for a long, long time. Whether you know it or not, you’ve all had it easy up to now.
You’ve been pampered, you’ve been supported, and you actually knew where you were going to be the next day and what would happen to you there. Now it’s time to go out into a world where not everyone is a 3.5, where not everyone has a twenty-one-inch waist, and a lot of people think the National Rifleman’s [sic] Association is a swell bunch of guys, into the real world, where people lie, cheat, and steal. A world so terrifying that stoves come with bars on their windows and where some think that Washington, DC, stands for “District of Crack.”
On the bright side, you’re entering a world of choices. I’ve decided to give you some tips on how to make the right ones. Now, a lot of you are probably thinking, “Who is she, that old tramp, to give advice?” Well, who am I? I’m a mother, a television personality, and a woman who believes if you eat standing up over the sink, those calories don’t count. But more than that, I like to think of myself as a survivor in a business that’s tough to survive in, and because of that, I have plenty of advice to give you. Plus, as I’ve got the microphone and you don’t, here it is.
If this were a movie, there would now be a big crack of thunder, a bolt of lightning, and I would be standing here as a blonde Charlton Heston, holding two heavy stone tablets, that would hold the “Ten Commandments for Graduating Seniors.” I don’t want to be didactic. Let’s call these the “Ten Suggestions,” and as we all want to get out and have fun, with no disrespect to Moses, let’s not make them ten, let’s make them seven. I picked that number in honor of the age of Cher’s new boyfriend.
My first suggestion would be: Plan to fail. If you’re lucky, you’ll fail early. Failure was the best thing that ever happened to me. It will be for you, too. Not only did each failure in my life teach me something, it made me stronger and moved me one step closer to success.
During the first two years I was in the business, I was fired from every job I got. What did this teach me? To believe in myself when no one else does.
A few years later, I was the only member of the Second City comedy group not to be signed by an agency. What did I learn from that? Maybe I was meant to work alone.
My latest failure was being publicly fired from a national television show. What did I learn from that? That even at my age, I was still able to call on energies and strengths I had long thought had vanished with easy living. The point is, look at failure as something positive. Jane Fonda doesn’t have a lock on “No pain, no gain.” You deal with it, you make a joke, and you put it in perspective, and move on.
The second suggestion is don’t be proud. If you think the world is waiting for you now that you’ve graduated, you’re wrong. To quote Kermit, “It ain’t easy being green.” And you’re green. No one is waiting for you. So don’t sit around and figure “I’m from Wharton, I’m from Penn. I’m going to get that dream job or else wait for the perfect opportunity.” Remember, “Pride goeth before a fall.” Just ask me.
Try any path you can, go through any door that opens. Don’t wait for the right moment, because right moments usually come out of wrong ones. Let me give you an example. Barbra Streisand and I started out together. She is such an individual, one of a kind. She could not get arrested. She tried everything to get jobs, but nothing happened for months and months. Finally, in desperation, she sneaked into an audition for The Sound of Music, where they were casting the role of the sixteen-year-old blonde ingénue. You know, an impossibly sweet blonde, nomadic, Aryan, blue-eyed … How can I describe her? A Nazi. Streisand didn’t get the job, but somebody in the back of the auditorium heard her audition. He suggested she try singing in nightclubs—any nightclub, for starters. When she did, she was offered the role in the Broadway play I Can Get It for You Wholesale, which led to the lead in Funny Girl. She wasn’t too proud, and as a result she became a star. And from that day on, that bitch has not returned my calls, but you get the idea: Start in anywhere. Just remember that a lot of people who are out getting coffee today will be Ivan Boesky tomorrow.
Suggestions three and four on how to get along in real life are about love and money, and if you don’t think the two are tied together, try spending three weeks in Hollywood.
First of all, money. Jean Paul Getty once said, “If you know how much money you have, you don’t have enough.” I agree with him. Get out there, work hard, and thank God we’re living in a country where the sky is still the limit and the stores are open late. Now, I come from the Flower Power generation. And yes, you can be happy without money. But, believe me, it helps. Money is wonderful. That’s why Abbie Hoffman, at the end of his life, was getting a lecture fee of $8,000 to tell college kids how money meant nothing. Now, how to get it. Don’t go looking for it. Find the work you’d pay to do and eventually people will pay you for it. Handsomely. If you’re in a job where you’re just hanging around for a paycheck or gazing at the clock all afternoon, you’re in the wrong place and nothing good is going to happen there. Trust me. I don’t th
ink the Pope ever asked for a job description.
Now, love, money’s first cousin. Look for love and when you find it, grab it with both hands. And if it isn’t there at the moment, don’t be discouraged; it comes to everybody. Look at Princess Anne of England: a husband and a boyfriend and a face that is a real twelve-bagger.
But when love comes, should you buy a real sofa, or a sectional, so you can split it up if it doesn’t work out? Get the sofa and go for the gold. Don’t just live together; get married. Marriage is just like living together, but better, because you get a lot of presents. And marriage will give you a haven and stability. You create a unit. When the music stops, you’ll find it’s an “us versus them” world, and your only true ally will be your spouse.
My fifth suggestion is about success, which is the thing you most crave. I hope you all get it. Let me tell you what success means. It doesn’t mean that everyone will love you. I believe it was Thoreau who said, “There is no success without envy until you’re dead.” So the more successful you become, the fewer people will encourage you and cheer you on, and the more successful you become, the fewer people you’ll trust. Success isolates you. But that’s not bad, because if you’ve made it on your own, it gives you the chance to say, “I did it. No one helped me.” That’s only two sentences, and that’s good because success is a short-lived phenomenon that’s never to be trusted. Enjoy it for the moment and then get back to work. Never forget that work is the reason you became successful.
Suggestion six is grammatical. Use your education. Remember always: It’s not who you know; it’s whom.
Last suggestion—and I think I can say this for all the parents here. Don’t think just because you’ve gotten your degree, your childhood is over. As long as you’ve got a parent left, you can always be a child to someone. The light is in the window.
You can always come home. For two days or two weeks or two years—although, I think that would be pushing it.
Wow! I don’t think I’ve ever spoken so long without breaking for a commercial. So here’s mine.
This is an incredible day for all of you. And, kidding aside, it has cost each of you something to be here. I want to close by acknowledging one graduating senior, Melissa Rosenberg, who has, believe me, earned this degree. That she made it through at all with what has churned around her for the last four years is remarkable. That she made it through as a talented, sane, nice person is my greatest source of pride. I was asked to speak today because I’m funny, caustic, and cheap. That’s not the reason I accepted. I came because I wanted to pay tribute, in public, to my daughter, to her friends, and to the institution which supported them, nurtured them, and please, God, educated them. I think that means that Penn has taught you to see, to hear, to smell, taste, and touch. Do it, let it happen. One of my favorite lines from the theater is in Mame, when she says, “Life is a banquet, but most sons of bitches are starving to death.” Don’t let that be you. The best to all of you. Thank you.
P.S. She’s still pissed that the only one who didn’t receive an honorary degree is the Ivy Day speaker. Emmy-schmemmy, she never got past that. “I paid my own fucking way out here and I don’t get a degree? Melissa, whom do I talk to about this?”
Speaking of My Mother …
The first public appearance I made after my mother’s death was at The Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment Breakfast in December 2014. My mother was being honored at the event, and I was asked to say a few words. Here is the text of my remarks:
First of all, thank you all so much for inviting me to be here this morning. Before we start, I’d like to point out that it’s a little overwhelming being in a room with the most beautiful, successful, powerful women in Hollywood. But Angelina [Jolie], don’t be intimidated. I’m really quite easy and accessible.
For me, this has been an interesting three months and six days—not that I’m counting—to say the least.
When Janice [Min] asked if I would say a few words today, I was overwhelmed. Not just because it is the first time I’m speaking in tribute to my mother, but because every single person in this room could hire me, and a few have actually fired me. (You know who you are, and I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, although I am an orphan.) Also, let’s be honest, no one is actually listening to anything anyone is saying because we are all too busy looking at each other’s bags, shoes, and jewelry. At least I am—my mother taught me that cleanliness isn’t next to godliness; shallowness is.
A few weeks ago at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards, Amy Schumer spoke about my mother. She hit on something that actually applies to everyone in the room, and that was that my mother was brave. I had never thought of that, but when I look back at her life, I truly think that might be the best word to apply to her.
From the time she was a small child, my mom took risks. At eight years old, she went into her parents’ living room and took her picture off the piano and sent it to MGM. In her mind, clearly this little girl was a star. So, she sent the photo, frame and all. Needless to say, my grandmother, a formidable woman herself, was not pleased. It was a fifty-dollar frame.
At ten, my mom was sent home from Camp Kinnykaknick, for organizing a strike—she didn’t like the way the drama counselor cast Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. They had given her the part of Dopey, and she was pissed she had no lines. She said she “understood her character and that Dopey’s aggressive silence would be seen as an affront to Happy, Grumpy, and Doc.” My grandparents were called and told to come and get her and that they had raised, and I quote, “the next Hitler or Eleanor Roosevelt,” they weren’t sure which, but to come and get her. And this was a Jewish camp.
At seventy-eight she began hosting Fashion Police, the funniest, edgiest, possibly most controversial show on TV, and last week, at eighty-one, she was posthumously nominated for a Grammy1 for her book Diary of a Mad Diva, which had this disclaimer:
This diary was written to the best of Joan Rivers’s memory. As such, some of the events may not be 100 percent … or even 5 percent factually correct. Miss Rivers is, after all, 235 years old, and frequently mistakes her daughter, Melissa, for the actor Laurence Fishburne.
Miss Rivers wrote this diary as a comedic tome, not unlike Saving Private Ryan or The Bell Jar. While Miss Rivers doesn’t really like skinny models and actresses, she doesn’t actually believe that they’re all bulimics and they all carry buckets instead of purses. Similarly, she doesn’t really think that all Germans are anti-Semitic Nazi sympathizers, that all Mexican Americans tunneled in across the border, that all celebrities are drug addicts, shoplifters, or closet cases, or that Noah built his ark with non-union labor.
Miss Rivers does, however, believe that anyone who takes anything in this book seriously is an idiot. And she says if anyone has a problem with that they can feel free to call her lawyer, Clarence Darrow.
My mother was fearless. I don’t mean she didn’t have any fears. I mean that even though she was only five two, she stood tall and walked through them. That is what made her such a brilliant performer. She was willing to say what others were thinking and too frightened to admit. She made fun of herself first and foremost, which gave her the right to joke about others.
She never apologized for a joke, and no topic was taboo, which sometimes made men uncomfortable. And she was fine with that. She was working in a man’s world, and if men were offended or uncomfortable by some joke she told, she’d say, “Oh, grow up!”
Truth be told, my mother never thought of herself as a woman working in a man’s world. She just thought of herself as a comic and knew she just had to be funnier than everyone else, be it man, woman, child, straight, gay, single, married, or “bi-curious,” whatever the hell that is. She just wanted to do her job, and that was to make people laugh.
For the last few months, there has been tribute after tribute to my mom. She has been called everything from a legend to a trailblazer, to a bitch. It’s hard for me to really think of her as any of those things, because t
o me she was just my mother. I guess it is true that most of us women who all have a powerful voice in our respective fields wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for that brave little girl who sent her photo in.
If my mother were here this morning, she’d not only be grateful and proud; she’d be thrilled. She’d be sitting at the table beaming … while very discreetly shoving croissants and silverware into her purse.
On behalf of my mother, thank you so much for this wonderful honor.
1 Which she won.
“Melissa, into every life darkness must fall. None of us are spared from pain and suffering. But your blessings far outweigh your difficulties. You have a roof over your head, food on your table, a healthy body, a healthy mind, and a healthy child. But far more important than all of that—you have fabulous shoes.”
The End
September 3, 2014
Back to Mount Sinai Hospital. My mother has been in an irreversible coma for a week, and the time has come to say good-bye. I have invited the people she meant the most to, and who meant the most to her, to come for one last visit.
For hours, friends from all over the world came in to spend a little time at her bedside. Some laughed, some cried—it was like going to the Broadway show Cats—yet they all managed to hit the deli platters I had set up across the hall pretty hard. (Apparently, overwhelming grief creates blood sugar issues.)
I was focused on making sure that the people who were coming to say good-bye all had time with my mother. Keeping the line moving was a blessed distraction, and I went into work mode and felt useful, instead of helpless, as I had felt for the past seven days.
After everyone had said their good-byes and gone, Cooper went in to spend a few minutes with his grandmother. He held her hand and cried and just sat with her. They had put a cot in her room so I could lie next to her that last night, and Cooper lay down next to me until he was tired enough so he could fall asleep in the other room that the hospital had so generously provided for us.
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