by Paul Shaffer
The Godspell and Second City crowds merged into one. Eventually Brian and Joe wisely raided our cast and hired Gilda and Eugene Levy. The merger became more intricate when Brian started going with Gilda.
Meanwhile, my stint at Godspell continued. When my rock guitarist quit, I immediately thought of Munoz as a replacement. Tisziji was unorthodox, but I thought he could cover it. I went to his house, where his wife told me that he was living in the Hare Krishna temple. To see him I must arrive at 7 a.m. because at 7:15 their all-day chanting and praying began.
Next morning I got myself out of bed and knocked at the temple door at 7 a.m. sharp. The man who opened the door had a fully shaven head, a white appliqué on his face, and a flowing orange-and-white gown covering his body.
“I’m here to see Tisziji Munoz,” I said.
“Paul,” he said. “It’s me, Tisziji.”
I took another look and yes, it was my man Munoz. I was shocked. It was too late. I had lost him to Krishna consciousness.
“I had wanted you to take over the guitar chair in the show for a while,” I said, “but now I don’t think it’ll work.”
“Of course it’ll work,” he said. “When should I start? Tonight?”
“Are you sure, Tisziji?”
“Believe me, Paul, it’ll be beautiful.”
And it was. For four months Munoz was brilliant in Godspell. Tisziji’s music flowed just as freely as his flowing white-and-orange robes. It was that time in the history of entertainment when the rock musical allowed and even encouraged expansive freedom. Tisziji was all about freedom—later he’d call it “God Fire”—and though he was playing a suite of songs designed around a Christian narrative, he took the story further. All of us—musicians, singers, and audience alike—went along on his mystical merry-go-round.
At the same time, the arrival of Second City in our fair metropolis was anything but mystical. It was biting, satirical, sometimes sarcastic, but always hysterical. There was a formula. The first two acts of the evening were sketches molded in this Second City style and always ending with a musical number. That way the music would mask the sound of the waitresses collecting the tabs. The third act was a series of improvs based on a formulaic technique. The thing worked like gangbusters.
Before Brian Doyle-Murray started going with Gilda, Marty and Gilda had been an item. One night, Mary Ann and I double-dated with Marty and Gilda to see Frank Sinatra Jr. at the Hook and Ladder Club. I tell you this to demonstrate our devotion to the Sinatras. We loved the kids as well as the father. In fact, I have a clear memory of Junior appearing on Hullabaloo sometime during my Thunder Bay childhood. He sang his bid for a rock hit, “Shadows on a Foggy Day.” Marty, knowledgeable in all things Sinatra, knew the tune as well. So sometime toward the end of his act at the Hook and Ladder, when it didn’t look like Junior was going to do the song, Marty and I yelled out, “Sing ‘Shadows on a Foggy Day!’”
Junior turned to our table and gave us a demonic glare.
“Shadows up your foggy day,” he said.
Allow me to advance the calendar and set the scene for when Junior appeared on Letterman:
It was the late eighties. Was (Not Was) had a hot new album, What Up, Dog? The big singles off the record were “Walk the Dinosaur” and “Spy in the House of Love.” True to the Was (Not Was) tradition of including a Vegas-y song on every album, they recorded Frank Jr. doing “Wedding Bells in Vegas” on What Up, Dog? After Junior gave a note-perfect performance of “Wedding Bells” on Letterman, I approached him in the dressing room to tell him how much I liked his “Shadows on a Foggy Day.” “Make no mistake about it, Mr. Sinatra,” I said. “Seeing you sing it on Hullabaloo is a most cherished memory from my Canadian childhood.”
Junior was as stern as he had been at the Hook and Ladder Club in Toronto.
“That song nearly ruined my career,” he said.
“How so?” I asked.
“I didn’t want to sing it because it was about LSD. I did it anyway. But when they wanted me to do a follow-up—still another drug song—I flat-out refused. So they dropped me from the label.”
Frank Sinatra Jr.—he just said no.
Back in the Toronto of the seventies, the original Second City club, in spite of its wealth of comedic talent, failed. Not to be deterred, the group opened again in a new and better location, the Old Firehall on Adelaide Street. Upstairs was a cabaret room where Marty Short performed in a revue called “What’s a Nice Country Like You Doing in a State Like This?” Downstairs the Second City troupe included a wildly talented guy from Hull, Quebec, Dan Aykroyd, who shared my love for deep-dish rhythm and blues. Dan had a distinct genius for spoofing those lovingly ridiculous characters we had all seen on Canadian and American TV as kids.
The second Second City location did brisk business, and the producers offered me the job of musical director. I loved the comedy but hated the pay, which was half of what I was making at Godspell. I turned it down, but made the scene incessantly.
Meanwhile, Brian Doyle-Murray had moved to New York. By then, he and Gilda were splitsville and Brian was carrying a torch.
“The only thing that’s keeping me from killing myself,” he said, “is Belushi. If I swallow the bottle of sleeping pills, I’ll never get to see his Joe Cocker again.”
“Enough already,” I told Brian. “I’m coming down to see him for myself.”
I flew in. On my very first night in the city Brian took me to the off-Broadway Lemmings show. Act 1 consisted of Second City—style sketches. Act 2 was a full-on parody of Woodstock. Chris Guest did a spot-on James Taylor. Chevy Chase was hysterical as a stoned-out drummer. But Brian was right; it was Belushi’s Joe Cocker that brought the house down. He was the whirling swirling groveling growling English soul singer, showering the audience with beer, falling on his face, delivering a career-making caricature that’s going to be remembered as long as our memories hold out. That same night Brian took me over to Belushi’s place, where I met John and his wife, Judy. Doug Kenney was also there.
Doug had begun the National Lampoon magazine and The National Lampoon Radio Hour. He’d used his years at Harvard to develop a devastating wit and earned himself a place of high honor among the generation that was about to reshape comedy. Later, Brian got me a little work on the Radio Hour and I got to know Doug. You couldn’t help but like the guy, even though you saw he had a dark side. When he died in the mountains of Hawaii in 1980, his demise was shrouded in mystery. Had he jumped to his death or merely slipped and fallen? His friends, who loved him dearly, said that he was looking for a place to jump, and slipped. They felt that the twist honored Doug, whose brilliant sense of humor was rooted in the morbid. I agreed when they said that Doug would have appreciated a joke about his own demise.
Meanwhile, back in the happier days of the seventies, Belushi and Doug were thick as thieves. And when Brian told John I was a piano player, John said, “I got a gig as Cocker in Jersey tomorrow. You can do Leon Russell. We’ll do the whole ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ routine.”
“I wouldn’t know what to do,” I said.
“Bullshit,” said John. “You put on one of those crazy top hats, stick your finger in the air, and you’re Leon Russell.”
I thought about it. I had Russell’s piano style down. But I was intimidated by Belushi’s bravado. Without even hearing me, John had more confidence in me than I had in myself.
“Sorry,” I said, “I gotta get back to Toronto.”
Eventually I’d hook up with Belushi. Before doing so, though, I needed a few more notches on my belt.
Shakespeare’s, Marty Short’s favorite eating spot in Hamilton, had opened in Toronto, and Marty was thrilled. He just had to take me there.
Sure, we hadn’t made it in New York, but in our minds we had made it in Toronto. We were in our early twenties; we were in show business; we could pay the rent; life had never been more glamorous.
Shakespeare’s represented such glamour. What other restaurant in to
wn had telephones at every booth? If only we had someone to call.
When the waiter came to take our order, he spoke in a European accent reminiscent of Sid Caesar in a skit from Your Show of Shows. He was hard to understand. When Marty pressed him to repeat himself, the waiter got angry.
“You are making fun of me,” he said.
“I assure you, my good man, that we are not.”
Marty’s “good man” tone did not go over well with the waiter.
I tried to explain to the waiter that we were sympathetic to those who had come to Canada from foreign shores and would never dream of belittling them. My explanation fell flat. The waiter got even more incensed. To prove his literacy in our language, he burst out with a line that, to this day, Marty, Eugene, and I often repeat to each other when we want to get a laugh.
“If you … come to my house,” declared the waiter in a state of high indignation, “I will show you books!”
At our still-going-strong “Friday Night Services,” Marty told a story about meeting Richard Burton after a performance of Camelot.
“I was young and nervous,” Marty said, “and somehow found myself backstage after one of Burton’s more brilliant interpretations. I was in line to shake the great man’s hand. It was a long line, and the wait made me that much more apprehensive. When I finally stood there face to face, I managed to say, ‘Sir, I’ve always admired your work.’ I figured he’d smile and I’d move on. But for some unknown reason, he engaged me in conversation. In that elegant English accent of his, he said, ‘Young man, didn’t you think that the reverb in the back of the hall was distracting?’ I was so overwhelmed by the power of his celebrity that all I could reply was ‘Thank you.’”
When Marty was through telling the story, Eugene said, “Marty, it wasn’t Burton you went to see. It wasn’t Burton who told you that stuff, it was Shirley MacLaine.”
“Yes,” said Marty, “but I don’t do Shirley MacLaine.”
We all still wanted to do New York.
After Godspell closed, I learned that a show at Manhattan’s Public Theater was looking for a rehearsal pianist. Naturally I jumped at the chance. I was told that if rehearsals went well, I’d have a shot at being the musical director. The production was called More Than You Deserve.
And it was.
It began with Marty rushing me to the Toronto airport in his VW Beetle. I had managed to book the last plane out for New York. If I missed this flight, I’d miss the first rehearsal and be out of the running. I’d seen that every New York rehearsal was full-on; miss the first one and you’re dead. Marty put on his John Lennon cap and played the part of a harried taxi driver who spoke in an Indian/British accent. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” he kept saying. “I get you there in plenty time.”
But unfortunately Marty hadn’t cared for his Beetle the way he had cared for the woman who would turn out to be the love of his life, the wonderful Nancy Dolman, a talented actress and another member of the Godspell company. His relationship with Nancy was in superb shape. His car was not. On the way to the airport the accelerator pedal snapped free of its connecting cable, and, just like that, the Beetle stopped.
“Get on the floor, Paul,” Marty urged, “and pull that cable out with your fingers. That’s the only way we’re going to get going. You’ll have to be my accelerator pedal.”
For the next half hour, as we wove in and out of traffic, I was crouched on the floor, responding to Marty’s exhortations. “More gas, Paul!” “Less gas, Paul!” “Lay off it, Paul!” “Lay on it, Paul!”
Miraculously, I arrived in time to catch the flight, with my fingers bleeding all the way to New York City.
Joseph Papp, who ran the Public Theater, had hired Jim Steinman to write a rock score for More Than You Deserve. It was an unsettling parody of South Pacific set in the troubled times of the Vietnam War.
I gave it my all, but halfway through the rehearsals, Steinman fired me. He didn’t think I had the right feel for the music. I was bummed, but what could I do? It was back to Toronto, back to Marty’s beat-up Beetle, back to the occasional gig with Tisziji Munoz. Part of me just wanted to up and move to New York, but that would require a union card, and I couldn’t get a union card without having worked in the United States for at least six months. And I couldn’t work in the United States without a union card. Catch-22.
I settled in and helped Marty’s Nancy and my Mary Ann put together a show band called Synergy. They were both extremely lovely and talented women, but the Synergy didn’t last.
I wasn’t encouraged about my prospects. How could I be? I’d just been fired as a lowly rehearsal pianist. I didn’t have the right papers to get to New York. All I had to look forward to were the “Friday Night Services” at Marty and Eugene’s house. It was during one such service that the phone rang. It was Jim Steinman from More Than You Deserve.
“I was wrong to let you go,” he said. “We need you.”
I was in New York the next day.
Chapter 17
Jilly Loves You More Than You Will Know
STARRING…
MARTY SHORT AS FRANK SINATRA
EUGENE LEVY AS DEAN MARTIN
GILDA RADNER AS SHIRLEY MACLAINE
DAVE THOMAS AS CAESAR ROMERO
PAUL SHAFFER AS SAMMY DAVIS JR.
I was back in New York conducting More Than You Deserve. My loyal friends came to town to see me in my august role as musical director. For some of them, this was their first time in the big city. The gang included my dear buddy Dave Thomas, who took over Eugene’s role in Godspell when Eugene became Jesus.
To celebrate my sweet success at going from rehearsal pianist to musical director, we planned an after-show dinner at Jilly’s.
At this point, we had all learned from Marty that life should be lived out in comedic bits. According to Shortian philosophy, life could be nothing more or less than a series of hilarious sketches. Marty was our Chairman. So when we decided to dine at Jilly’s, the watering hole owned by Jilly Rizzo, Sinatra’s best friend, we tried to take on the aura of the place and go in character.
“Marty is our Chairman,” said Gilda. “There can be no doubt. Marty’s Frank.”
Agreement all around.
“And you, my dear,” I said, “you must be Shirley MacLaine.”
“If I’m Shirley,” said Gilda, “Eugene is Dean.”
“And if I’m Dean,” said Eugene, “you must be …”
“Mr. Sammy Davis Jr.,” I said.
“But what about me?” asked Dave Thomas.
A pause. Then our response in unison: “Caesar Romero.”
“Do I have to be Caesar Romero?” Dave protested.
“Yes,” ordered the Chairman. “You have no choice.”
Thus the casting was set.
When we walked in, our first instinct was to look around to see if Frank himself might be there. After all, he did drop in from time to time. But there was no Frank in sight. In fact, the place was practically empty. Yet despite the dearth of patrons, an eight-piece band was onstage swinging.
“Groovy, man,” I said in Sammy-ese. “If Frank shows, the cats are warmed up and ready to wail.”
We stayed in character during dinner, zinging one-liners associated with each of our roles.
Marty kept saying, “Jilly’s is my bistro,” only because it was the caption under Frank’s caricature on the cocktail napkins.
Then when Marty, as Sinatra, ordered Sinatra’s drink, a Jack Daniel’s, the waiter asked, “On the rocks?”
“Yes,” Marty said, “… relaxed.”
The waiter had no idea what Marty meant. In truth, we were completely unfamiliar with New York and its sophisticated ways. We weren’t hipsters after all; we were Canadian squares. But that didn’t stop us.
We rewrote the names of the dishes on the menu to coincide with Sinatra associations. Dave Thomas, in recognition of Frank’s collaboration with Antonio Carlos Jobim, called his dish “Lobster Jobim.”
Li
ke all of us, Gilda was fascinated by how Sinatra had yelled out “Six!” in the middle of one of his live Vegas shows. No one knew why. Nonetheless, we picked it up and mindlessly shouted it out at any opportunity. “Six!” we loved to scream. Therefore, when it came time to write the name of her dish, Gilda, with a watch-this attitude, printed “Oysters (6).”
Another menu story: This time it was Harry Shearer, Tom Leopold, and me heading down from Hollywood to Orange County to see the Righteous Brothers. Here’s the menu we came up with, as we kept in mind the producer of the group’s biggest hits:
The Phil Spector Wall of Onion Rings
River Deep Dish Pizza
Unchained Medley of Wild Mushrooms
You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Filet Mignon
Be My Baby Asparagus
Back at Jilly’s in New York City, we kept hoping. So what if Frank hadn’t walked through the front door? He was probably in the back room at a table charming some wild doll. In one way or the other, the Chairman had to be present; we felt his spirit.
When the waiter brought the check and we reached into our pockets for money, Marty’s Canadian change spilled all over the floor. Marty on all fours, picking up his Loonies, was hardly Sinatra suave. But it didn’t matter. By then we were loaded. We walked out humming “The Tender Trap.”
Out on the street, I looked up and there, right there across from me, were the blazing lights of the Roseland Ballroom, a blast from the ten-cents-a-dance swing-band past. New York continued to be a dream.
