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the WICKED STAGE |
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Gerald Nachman, center, found himself between two of his comic heroes: Mort Sahl, left, and Shelley Berman, right. Both shown at the height of their fame as America's revolutionary new stand-up comedians. |
Going onstage between
a pair of comic geniuses
By GERALD NACHMAN
of TheColumnists.com
Emboldened by a couple of successful on-stage discussions in New York and Los Angeles with comics from my new book “Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s,” I set about last spring to produce a similar event in San Francisco for City Arts & Lectures.
It seemed a sure thing, always a risky attitude.
I had known City Arts’ founder Sydney Goldstein since she began booking events at College of Marin in the 1970s before setting up her own agency in the city 22 years ago. It's now the biggest and most successful lecture bureau of its kind in the Bay Area --maybe anywhere, for all I know. Few famous authors, artists and politicos slip between her fingers. I decided it was time to strut my own moment upon her stage: The Herbst Theater.
It was a more daunting task than I imagined, not the piece of cake it seemed--a rule of life I re-learn daily. When I approached Sydney seven or eight months ago with the idea of my interviewing two or three comedians from my book, she was lukewarm to the idea. “My staff doesn’t think any of them will draw,” she said. I muttered under my breath that her staff probably wasn’t born when most of these comics were in their heyday, virtual comic rock stars. “These were huge names in the 1960s,” I argued, “and I’m sure much of your audience remembers them fondly.” She still wasn’t convinced.
After a little more whining by me, she said that if I could get Mort Sahl to appear that she would consider it. My heart sank. Sahl had not wanted to speak with me for the book, citing his own reasons of independence from the comedy establishment, so when he didn’t respond to various notes, faxes and phone calls, I figured it was a lost cause, my specialty here at "Lost Causes & Dead Horses."
All that changed once the book came out in April and Sahl found himself on the cover and featured in the lead chapter as the man who kicked off the comedy revolution 50 years ago last month at the hungry i.
A Los Angeles booker, Andrea Grossman, responding to positive reviews of the book, called me to say she would love to book Sahl and one or two other comics for her series called Writer’s Bloc at the Skirball Cultural Center. She suggested Sahl but I told her it was an impossible task. Somehow she managed to charm him and, with Tom Smothers, the event played to a sold-out crowd of 500 in L.A.
Even more amazing, Mort Sahl apologized profusely to me for not agreeing to an interview for the book. “If there’s anything I can do now to help, pal, just say so,” he said.
Not wanting to lose my momentary advantage, I said, “As a matter of fact, Mort, there is--could you come to San Francisco for a similar evening?” He said, “Sure, pal, anything you want.” I quickly got back to Sydney with the news and we began winnowing the list of possible comics to appear with Sahl. Some of her suggestions were unavailable or said they weren’t interested when we wrote them (Bob Newhart, Phyllis Diller), others were too quirky or risky or ailing (Dick Gregory, Sid Caesar) or simply didn’t do such events (Tom Lehrer, Bob Elliott). Many were dead and also unavailable.
We settled on Shelley Berman. I knew Mort and Shelley liked and respected each other, but I worried that Berman might be upset by some of the things in the book - quotes by others that cited his onetime--well, difficult temperament--and tell me to get lost. When I checked his website to see that he was promoting the book, I figured he couldn’t be too angry about it and called him. He said maybe.
Everyone in show business says maybe. Nobody will commit to anything until (a) the money is sufficently enticing to nudge them off Maybe; or until (b) other big stars are signed on already, so they’ll be in good company should it flop. There was no major money involved, so I needed to coerce the two men into appearing at an event the main purpose of which was to publicize my book. What was in it for them? Not much, except some nice, always needed exposure and a free trip to San Francisco. On the other hand, they’re not in huge demand anymore (though clearly they should be), so why not?
There were a few subtle factors working in my favor. Sahl broke into the comedy world in San Francisco and realizes all the residual affection there is for him there, and he’s always looking for a chance to work. Berman is perhaps less driven to perform his act, but, like any onetime star--or even non-star--enjoys a little adulation now and then.
Coaxing them called for sly negotiating skills that I’ve never possessed, but I must have a latent con artist lurking in my psyche for I managed to write letters to Sahl and Berman that made their appearance at the Herbst Theater sound like a command performance and a guaranteed sold-out event. I was slowly turning into Sol Hurok, or maybe P.T. Barnum.
I had wanted to add Stan Freberg to the mix, but after endless phone calls and unreturned messages and faxes, Freberg’s wife said the money (a $500 honorarium) was not enough to entice him. “Stan won’t even get on a plane for $500,” she said, pleasantly but firmly. So much for Freberg, who might have been one too many icons to handle.
Both comedians agreed, albeit tentatively, and, after a lot of backing and filling about dates when all of us, plus the theater, was available, we finally settled on Jan. 6, 2004. I had hoped to make it happen before Christmas, for my own grubby commercial reasons, but better Jan. 6 than not at all. This was August; January seemed years away.
Two weeks after the event was announced, it was sold out. When friends would say, casually, “I hope to get to your event,” I had to break the news that it was sold out. They were amazed while I secretly gloated, delighted to have proved that Sahl and Berman were indeed huge draws to 60--somethings. Maybe we could do a second show.
Suddenly, January was upon us. A week or so before the event, people began calling me and pleading for tickets. One prominent San Franciscan said he had called ticket brokers and offered $100 a ticket (they sold for a modest $18), but brokers don’t deal in anything so smalltime as a lecture series. My comp list was full and all I could advise friends was to show up early and buy one of the usual returned tickets.
Nothing sounds simpler to produce than three people talking on a stage, but even this requires all sorts of detailed logistics to make the stars and the trains run on time--or planes, in this case. Sahl and Berman were to fly in the day before, be put up at the classy Huntington Hotel on Nob Hill and taken to dinner the night of the event. I worried that someone might take ill and not be able to attend (Sahl is 76, Berman 78, and I’m a 65-year-old former spring chicken myself). Sydney called to say that both their flights had been delayed (I imagined their flights besieged by terrorists). but she was unworried and suggested I take them to dinner when they got in;
This threw me slightly as I imagined taking five people to dinner on Nob Hill, at a cost of several hundreds of dollars. I gulped and said sure, also worrying about playing host to two celebrities, not my usual position as objective reporter. But after mulling it over, I decided that it was a great opportunity to dine with two aging heroes of mine and suddenly the money didn’t matter at all.
Mort and his wife were too hungry to have dinner with us at 7, however, so they went out for a hamburger on their own, but I met the Bermans in the lobby and, after a drink in the swanky Huntington bar, we walked to the nearby Nob Hill Café for what turned out to be a superb dinner at a cozy place that didn’t require a second mortgage on my house.
Berman was in a jolly mood, although I kept looking for signs of trouble. It never happened. Shelley joshed with the waitress and bartender, and again with the maitre d’ at the Nob Hill Café. Even so, there is still something a little wary and intense about him, and I worried that I might say something that would set him off.
Over dinner, he proved himself the mellowest and sweetest of fellows, but sensitive about certain matters in my book, to which he took offense. He laid into me for quoting sources he felt were unfair to him and tainted, and he said that he never knew someone I identified as an agent friend of his who had died in a fire. I squirmed and wondered if everything was going to melt down in a barrage of accusations that I had treated him poorly, but when he saw how uncomfortable and apologetic I was, he graciously backed off and let it go.
Then he said, “You should know, however, that everyone told me I came off very well in your book,” which mended whatever rift might have been about to occur. I volunteered to go over the entire chapter with him before the paperback edition this fall, but he brushed it aside as inconsequential. Yet I intend to do just that, to clear up any misrepresentations or misquotes.
That out of the way, we chatted about the comedy class he teaches at USC, of the poetry he now writes, of our equally lousy sense of direction (“I’m the champ!”), of a movie he raved about and insisted I see (“Monster”), of the Bermans’ seders, which more gentiles than Jews attend, of his great ratatouie recipe, and of my suggestion that he turn his lectures into a book (“You do it--I’m a lazy slob.”). He teased me about being a nerd (“You have glasses, you have a part in your hair, you’re a nerd!”).
At one point, he retold the story of one of the most painful incidents in his career, when a 1963 documentary filmed him exploding backstage after a phone rang twice during his most famous vignette--a fateful tale I knew well and have chronicled in the book, but it still made him angry to recall it, because it nearly wrecked his career. “It was a set up!” he cried, “and the guy who did it is now the head of [a major talent agency]!”
Though I was unhappy that Sahl didn’t join us, it was a luxury to have Berman all to myself for two hours. I even made him guffaw a few times and we got on surprisingly well. On the stroll back to his hotel, he said he couldn’t recall having such a relaxing evening. Even I was by now relaxed, having survived his brief assault on me.
The little lecture I got at dinner was one of only two dicey moments during the two days Berman and Sahl were in town. The other was when Mort called me the day of the event to say that he didn’t realize the event was to be in a 950-seat theater. “I thought it was a bookstore,” he said, sounding slightly peeved. I had mentioned in several letters and faxes where the panel would be held, but maybe it just hadn’t registered.
Sahl asked, “Who is this woman [Sydney Goldstein]? Is she an agent?” I said no, that she just runs a lecture series. “What is she charging?” I told him tickets were only $18 and assured him nobody was making a lot of money or getting paid more than anyone else. He calmed down and said, “Listen, I’m all for the written word and helping you out, but…” Once I assuaged Mort’s reasonable suspicions, that was the end of it, but I had a moment of stark terror wondering if he might feel he’d been misled and pack up his jokes and go home. I really couldn’t blame him for being on guard, since comedians have for years been screwed over by agents, bookers and producers, but City Arts & Lectures has a reputation for treating people fairly.
That small crisis averted, we all met for a sound check at Herbst at 6:15, but Sydney called at 3 to say that Mort didn’t want to join us for dinner and would rather eat afterward and go back to his hotel to shave and change into his trademark sweater. Berman said he has to eat at a certain hour, because of his diabetes, so we went back to Plan A to eat before the show. I had looked forward to dining with Berman and Sahl and watching them interact in a social situation.
After the sound check, Sahl and his wife were driven back to the hotel as Sydney chauffeured the Bermans and me to dinner at the Hayes Street Grill, the traditional pre-event dining spot where Sydney said she had spent so much time over the past 20 years of wining and dining authors and artists that her daughter had virtually been raised there.
Through all the minor glitches--delayed planes, changed dinner plans, financial challenges--Sydney had remained incredibly calm while I, of course, kept expecting everything to explode. I told myself that she had been through such evenings hundreds of times, and indeed she choreographed everything that night with unflappable cool. I would have had several ulcers by now, but she has just the right take-charge but take-it-easy temperament to make everything play out to the second. A slightly fearless streak helps. The success of City Arts & Lectures is no accident.
After the sound check, we drove two blocks to dinner and she parked her car next to a hydrant a few steps from the restaurant door. “I never get a ticket,” she said quickly to my horrorstruck comment. We were joined at dinner by her husband, the courtly judge Chuck Breyer, younger brother of Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer, who slipped into his role of genial dinner companion with practiced ease--drawing Berman out and chatting him up.
Ever the time freak, meanwhile, I kept one eye on the clock from the moment we arrived at the restaurant. It was already 6:45 when we sat down and everyone leisurely scanned the menu and ordered drinks and appetizers, with just an hour to go to show time, just as if we had all night. I would have had everyone there an hour earlier, but I never saw Sydney once check her watch. At one point, she ordered French fries to go and called an aide to come over and pick up the fries to take back to the sound crew.
The grill was packed with natty, attractive, prosperous looking opera-goers on their way to opening night of “La Boheme” next door, where arc lights crisscrossed the skies a block away, allowing our milestone event to bask in reflected glory from the far more modest doings at the Opera House.
At 7:40, I mentioned the time to Sydney; she just smiled. Berman asked if there was time for coffee and she told him, “Oh, there’s time for two or three coffees!” I was now in semi-panic mode, but at 7:55 she paid the check and we strolled out of the grill into her nearby, ticket-free Volvo and ambled backstage at precisely 8 p.m. After five minutes of listening to the exciting but scary hum of 950 people settling into their seats, the stage went dark, Sydney briskly walked out, welcomed the throng and introduced me. It was 8:07 and I was on!
Doing my best not to stumble over the carpet or miss the seat when I sat down, I delivered my introduction and got laughs in all the right places, mainly by quoting from Sahl’s and Berman’s routines. Sydney later said my intro was a little long (only 3 or 4 minutes) but I had two people to introduce and I think it helped set up their much-anticipated entrance. When I brought them on as “The Sunshine Boys of the 1960s!,” they were greeted by a two-minute standing ovation. Not a bad start.
I had enough questions for two weeks but led off with one that was probably a bit too serious to start with--why was their era such a golden age of comedy?--when I should have begun on a lighter note. They are comedians, after all, and thus eager for a laugh early in the evening, to set the tone and reaffirm their place as iconic comics. I should have opened with more of a straight line and then segued into a more serious vein.
All went incredibly well, with no major gaffes, although Sahl’s mike kept booming and receding, pinned too close to his mouth. I was a little worried that Berman might ramble, because he has a lot of interesting theories of comedy (as a teacher), and stories to tell, and as our time was so short--about 80 minutes, audience questions included--I wanted to be sure we covered enough ground and not get bogged down in one or two areas. Later, I realized I’d stupidly neglected to mention the recent Lenny Bruce pardon.
Berman joked that I was throwing more questions at Sahl, though I had worked hard to make sure I didn’t favor either one, but I turned it into a laugh by pretending to ignore his comment and quickly asked Mort a new question. The audience ate it up and I was hooked, experiencing the high that comes from hearing 950 people laughing at something you’ve ad-libbed. Like much of what Berman says, he was only half-kidding. Just in case he did feel slighted, however, I tossed him a bonus query or two.
I couldn’t see anyone from the stage, but I felt a warm and enthusiastic embrace from the audience, which clearly was having a wonderful time. The crowd, I realized later, mainly had come just to see two comedians who, as I said in my intro, changed the tone, style and agenda of American comedy. The crowd was satisfied simply to pay them their regards. Everything else was gravy.
Sydney pronounced the event a “triumph” and wrote me a note thanking me “for being so persistent and right.” With my producing debut a success, I probably would be wise to retire now but I’ve had a taste of show biz and am pushing to present a similar panel in New York at the prestigious 92nd Street Y. After that, who knows - maybe a “Three Comics” world tour winding up with a PBS special from the Coliseum in Rome.
©2004 by Gerald Nachman. The Nachman caricature is ©2000 by Jim Hummel. The photos of Mort Sahl and Shelley Berman are from "Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s" by Gerald Nachman. The Sahl photo credit is to Robert Weide/Whyaduck Productions. The Berman photo credit is to Photofest.
GERALD
NACHMAN, one of the four founders of TheColumnists.com, is the
author of "Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s
and 1960s" (Pantheon, $29.95),
which includes major sections on both Shelley Berman and Mort
Sahl.
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