Part 6 (2/2)

JAMES SIGNORELLI, Director of Commercial Parodies: By the autumn of the second year, I remember walking around with Gilda and not being able to go fifty feet down the street without people stopping us warmly and saying, ”Hi,” ”I love you,” and ”I love your stuff,” and so on. At first Gilda was pleased and delighted, and then later - much later - felt kind of put-upon.

TOM SCHILLER, Writer: There were all kinds of people like Mike Nichols who thought the show was hip, and Norman Mailer, and you'd see them at restaurants and they'd nod to you and stuff, and you thought you were so great. And then, some nights you would come out of the show and you would see these really strange geeky people with eight-by-tens and marking pens to have you sign your autograph, and they were like troglodytes, these people. They were strange people who were your fans. So it was hard to reconcile who really liked you.

ROBIN SHLIEN, Production a.s.sistant: You would look around and Jerome Robbins would be in the back of the control room one night, or Michael Bennett. It was this place where the toasts of the town would show up.

ALAN ZWEIBEL, Writer: To this day, I look back on those first five years with incredible fondness. I tend to romanticize the experience, because it was way more good than bad. But when it was bad, it was very painful. It was very, very painful.

JANE CURTIN, Cast Member: I loved doing the ninety minutes of the show, just loved it, but I couldn't do the other stuff. I couldn't be in the writers' meetings; it was too frustrating. I just didn't function well in that situation. I didn't know how to push my ideas. So I would come in for the read-through on Wednesday and then go right home. On Thursday, when I came to work, I came to work on time. In the second season I had ”Update,” so I had something to do on the show and didn't have to fight to be on the air.

”Update” was my anchor. Everything else was gravy. The Nerds - I loved those sketches. I loved working with Buck and Billy and Gilda, and we always laughed, because they were just so dumb. And sometimes things like the Widettes, because they would just make you hysterical. I loved the epics and the costume dramas, and some of the talk shows that we did were just yummy. There were a lot of other things, but the fact that I had ”Update” and didn't have to plead for material kept me sane. I had the luxury of being able to leave and come in when I needed to. I didn't hang around. And so I approached it from a totally different point of view than I think anybody else.

ROSIE SHUSTER, Writer: Those first five years, only Jane amongst the cast really was able to have a total personal life. I think a few of the guys maybe could have someone back home. Of the girls, you lived and slept and breathed the show. You stayed there. I remember Danny and I, after sleeping over at the office, would walk each other like dogs around 30 Rock just to get a little fresh air. In those first years it was just pure gonzo, total commitment. There was this phenomenon that was exploding and we all threw ourselves into it 200 percent.

The whole thing sort of marked the beginning of comics being thought of the way rock stars had been. The rock stars had that real pulsing energy and immediacy, and this particular show, because of its live, New York danger vibe, gave you that same kind of raw immediacy. It was just raggedy-a.s.s a lot of times.

PAUL SIMON, Host: I don't think they necessarily changed for the worse with that metamorphosis into success. They became more confident. And they were still young so that they hadn't burned out and weren't cynical yet. They were, you know, excited. Maybe they had more offers and distraction; that might have been a negative, I don't know. But they weren't jaded. They were just in the first, early years of great success. And when you look back on a career, the first year isn't the beginning; the first couple of years are the beginning. Three, four, five years of success are - if a career spans twenty-five or thirty years - the early days.

BILL MURRAY, Cast Member: I remember my very first show. I had a sketch that was a little tricky to do, a telephone sketch. They were making me up for the first time and they were trying to make me look old and - well, you don't feel really comfortable the first time they make you look old. I was twenty-five or twenty-six, and they're trying to make you look like you're seventy-five, and it plays a little on your confidence. There was like a committee of people going, ”Maybe if you put some gray in his temples,” and you're thinking, ”Oh my G.o.d, we're going to be in trouble out here.” But that's one that I sort of pulled together on the air. I read it well the first time in the read-through, but you're not thinking about what it looks like, and even in rehearsals it's like you're still Bill, you know. My confidence sort of dropped, because I thought, ”This isn't really helping me.”

So I had to do it two times that day, the run-through and the dress rehearsal in that makeup, then for the air there was still that ”put some gray in his temples” business, and at a certain point about forty seconds before I had to do it, I just said, ”That's enough. Stop.” And I just walked away and it was just on me to make it work. So I made that one work. That was pretty successful.

I did three shows and they were on a look-see basis. I think they hired me for three shows. And I remember just walking out onto the street after the first show and Lorne said, ”I guess you're going to be moving to New York.” And it felt great, you know. It felt really good. And so I thought, ”This is great, I did it.” But then I didn't get any sketches for weeks after that. That's when I became the second cop. Most of the rest of the year I played the ”second cop” in sketches.

That speech I did to the audience - the one where I said, ”I don't think I'm making it on the show” - that was during my ”second cop” period. I'd really been there a pretty long time, and they were sort of stuck with me. I was there, they'd sort of hired me, I was getting paid, but I was playing that second cop every week. You sort of have to break through, be noticed by the audience. They have to understand you a little bit, see a little bit of who you are, but as the second cop you don't really get those opportunities.

I'd actually had the idea to do something exactly like what it was, and that day when I went to work, Lorne said, ”You know, I think you should do a direct appeal.” He had the same idea too. So I did this thing, I wrote the thing, and it was kind of funny, and I wasn't too full of myself or anything. There was a couple tablespoons of humility in it, I got laughs in it, and I think the combination of the two broke some sort of ice, not just for me but for people watching, and they thought, ”Well, okay, he's going to be funny. He made us laugh with that sort of 'I'm dying here' thing” - which I've seen people do and die at. You know, I've seen people make that move before and fail, so the fact that I made that move and it was funny sort of took the pressure off. I felt pretty good about that. And it is sort of a funny water-shed. It's a moment.

ROBERT KLEIN, Host: I had hosted during the first season, but the next time I was on the show wasn't until the third season, in '77. And Lorne called me into the office that time and said, ”You know, a lot has changed since you hosted. The kids have become celebrities - stars, you know - and the host is just one of the gang now.” I said I understood that fully. But the real difference was Belus.h.i.+. He was a changed person. There was a lot of difficulty rehearsing with him.

JANE CURTIN:.

When John started making too much money, and started doing too many drugs, the sweet John was gone, and the ambitious John took over, and that's what was difficult to deal with. His ambition was just overwhelming, as was his need to self-medicate.

STEVE MARTIN, Host: Once when it was very late after the show and everybody was in their limos and we were on like Seventy-second Street or something, Belus.h.i.+ got out of the car in the middle of the night and stood in the street screaming and directing traffic and being funny. And I thought, ”Oh.” There was something about it that was forced. I remember feeling like John felt he had to do this stuff. It was what he wanted to be. He also did things that were unforced, but at that moment he was trying to fulfill an image.

CARRIE FISHER, Host: I was hanging around with Belus.h.i.+, though Lord knows how I got to him. Everybody kind of knew each other. These were people who were abusers, people who liked to drink and use and stay up all night. Once one got into that little society, you were well in.

Danny used to call John ”The Black Hole in s.p.a.ce,” because if anything got near him, it disappeared into it. And he was also ”America's Guest,” because he literally could go to anybody's apartment or house - and did - and say, ”Hi, can I use your kitchen or your bathroom or your bedroom?” Or your anything. John was always kind of a little bit of an emergency happening - but a fun emergency. At that time, I don't think anyone had said to me yet, ”If John keeps this up, he will die.” That was like two years away. It wasn't that dark.

HERB SARGENT, Writer: I happened to be the one who broke the news to Belus.h.i.+ that Elvis had died. He had wandered into my office, there were just the two of us, and I told him I'd just heard it on the news. And he just froze for ten minutes. He didn't move. He couldn't talk. Nothing.

JOHN LANDIS, Film Director: I've seen this attributed to John Lennon, but I know Michael O'Donoghue said it, because I was there when we heard Elvis died. My secretary came in and she said, ”Elvis is dead,” and Michael O'Donoghue said, ”Good career move.”

JUDITH BELUs.h.i.+, Writer: John apologized a lot. He knew when he was wrong. And I think that he always came back and made sure to do that. He had a childlike way of seeing things, which is what I think artists and comedians need. He'd see things fresh. He'd see the thing that everyone is looking at a little differently.

DAN AYKROYD, Cast Member: John would watch tape on whoever he was impersonating. He was meticulous in the preparation in terms of wardrobe, hair, makeup. He was always concerned with doing an accurate impression. He was very well read in English and history and theater. He counted among his friends Lauren Bacall and Judge Jim Garrison, and he was a student of American politics. John just astounded me with his references to English literature, American literature, history, politics - he was so well versed in things that you would never expect. He was a football star when he was a kid. An all-American guy - Albanian blood, and his father had an accent, his mother had an accent - but to me he was totally all-American.

He was extremely bright - really, really smart - a great administrator and executive. When we were doing our Blues Brothers thing, he was clearly in charge. He was the front man, he was the boss, he was the guy that was calling the shots, everything was brought to him for decisions, and ultimately his decisions were correct ones. He was very together as a businessman, understood the creative world and the business world and the marriage between the two. He was just one of the smartest people I have ever met.

MARILYN SUZANNE MILLER, Writer: If you look at the Samurai, if you look at the Beethoven piece he did, there's no plethora of words. A lot of times he's doing a lot of acting, he's just acting all over the place, but he's not using words to do it. I wrote a piece where he crossed over into using words - and he was brilliant! The piece is really a great piece - about this young couple who are having trouble with their s.e.x life and the guy can't get it up because he secretly believes she's thinking about somebody else. And John was so bound and determined to get every f.u.c.king word. That's what was so great about it, he was really acting and he was really using words. That was proof that John Belus.h.i.+ was meant to live to be a great actor.

I cried at the end of it, because it was so thrilling.

AL FRANKEN, Writer: On one of the shows where Belus.h.i.+ played Fred Silverman, he was like totally out of it, almost unable to perform. I remember it very, very well because I was one of the writers of the sketch. Between dress and air, I went with another writer, Jim Downey, to John's dressing room. I had the script in my hand and I knocked on the door, and when I went in, I saw that John was kind of out of it, sitting in a chair. And I said, ”John, I want to read the script to you so that when you say the lines on the air, it sounds familiar.” And then he threatened to hit me. At which point Downey started to back out the door.

But I knew John would never hit me; he just wouldn't do it. So he held his fist up, and I just read him the sketch. And then I left. And it was marginally better on-air.

JUDITH BELUs.h.i.+:.

I don't remember John ever hitting anybody. I tried to punch him once, though. It was very aggravating. Because he was like a fellow that you really cared about and you could see him hurting himself. You'd see him sinking. And it made you want to say, ”Stop it now! Or I'll stop you!”

LORNE MICHAELS, Executive Producer: One of the things you realize after a while is you can be having a talk about whatever you're thinking is important or matters with a comedian, and more likely than not he's just getting an impression of you down. You think it's about the content of what you're saying, but they're just sort of seeing your lips move and going, ”Oh, he holds his head like that.” It's like people caricaturing you but you don't see the drawing. So John Belus.h.i.+ used to have heart-to-heart talks with people, particularly when they were talking about drugs, and they'd say, ”I had a really, really good talk with John.” And - no. John was using his time in another way. He'd already heard the content of that message.

AL FRANKEN:.

Yes, there were some people on the show doing c.o.ke. I don't like to get into this. John died of it. He had a problem, he got addicted. We didn't know about that, we didn't know at the time. When I say ”we,” I mean Americans didn't know what cocaine did, and about addiction, and that kind of thing.

DAN AYKROYD:.

The powders and the pills were never attractive to me. It was just John. One of the nights when he played Silverman - that was pure blow. Pure blow, yeah. It made me angry. G.o.d knows I poured a lot of it down the toilet. But there were times when he was clean, and then of course there were times when he was at his peak - you know, the Joe c.o.c.ker stuff. And he really took the work seriously. It's just that he had an addiction.

He would also get screwed-up on pain killers. We were doing a lecture in Rhode Island once and he jumped off the stage and shattered his s.h.i.+n. It was a Catherine the Great sketch, and he had a long, long wig. He was really f.u.c.ked-up that day.

RICHARD DREYFUSS, Host: I remember that during the final dress rehearsal, John Belus.h.i.+ couldn't stand up. He'd been like falling around and mumbling and forgetting everything. I thought, ”Whoa boy, this won't be great. He'll never make it through this show.” Then the show came around and he was perfect, he was incredible, and I remember being astounded by that, because at the time I was very admiring of anyone who could take drugs better than I could.

BILL MURRAY:.

John was great. John was very good to all of us. He was tough on the hosts, though. The better an actor the host was, the sicker Belus.h.i.+ would be. He would be at death's door. He would be hours late and at death's door, and he would come in in a robe, unable to speak. He'd have doctors in his dressing room. It would be just incredible. And the host would be thinking, ”Belus.h.i.+ isn't even going to show up, he's too sick even to work” - and then John would come out on the show and just blast them away. He would sucker-punch guys that just didn't see it coming. And the more actorish they were, the worse they got it.

If it had been someone who'd won an Academy Award or something, they didn't have a chance and you knew it. Somebody would write a great sketch for them, and Belus.h.i.+ would be in it, and he'd rehea.r.s.e it at sort of like 40 percent, too sick to really work, coughing into Kleenexes and pockets full of Kleenex. They'd be out there on the set waiting to rehea.r.s.e and he'd come in a.s.sisted, and in a robe and looking like h.e.l.l, barely speaking and coughing the whole time, and just completely distracted. Just like barely alive. And he'd be that way pretty much through dress. The doctors would be there. You'd be waiting for him during the run-through and the dress rehearsal. You'd smell vaporizers from his room. He had the smell of Vicks VapoRub and salves and creams and all sorts of medicines - and he would come out and just kill. Just kill.

I think he did it to Richard Dreyfuss. He did a Dreyfuss impression the week before Dreyfuss hosted. He did Dreyfuss in The Goodbye Girl: ”I don't like the panties hanging on the rod.” He just hated the performance in the movie, and he did it the week before the guy got there and murdered it, just murdered it.

There was no point in warning the host. They had too much anxiety anyway. They'd run to the next sketch going, ”What happened? What happened to my sketch?” He would come out of nowhere, off his deathbed - and he was on his deathbed a couple times a year. And, you know, it was, ”He's been doing the Blues Brothers all week and he just came back from rehearsal last night and he hasn't slept.” He had things with names - bronchitis and all that - and he had the Dr. Feelgood guys there giving him shots and stuff. It was delightful.

LARAINE NEWMAN:.

We did this one sketch about fis.h.i.+ng in Alaska, and right before we went onstage I was in back of the set with John and he was green. Just green. I knew he would go on - I just didn't know how long he was going to live.

TOM SCHILLER:.

When I started making films for the show, the third one I made was Don't Look Back in Anger, the Belus.h.i.+-in-the-cemetery one. It was based on the idea that I can look at people and I can ”see” how they are going to look when they get old. Of course, I didn't know John wasn't going to get old, but I was intrigued with the idea. When he shot it, he did every line perfectly and went to every spot perfectly without even blocking it beforehand. It was shot at some cemetery in Brooklyn. It was creepy.

ROBERT KLEIN:.

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