by Paul Shaffer
Then a problem: Don Scardino didn’t want to sign the contract. Don had done some serious acting, starting in childhood, and didn’t want to give Kirshner and Lear first call on his services. In Scardino’s view, that would hinder his acting career. Meanwhile, I hadn’t signed the contract either because I didn’t have a lawyer. When Kirshner heard about the hang-up, we were back in the bungalow.
“Today’s Friday,” he said. “Monday we start shooting the pilot. But we got a problem. The problem is that we can’t shoot the pilot till the contracts are signed, and they’re telling me, Scardino, that you won’t sign because you’re a serious actor. This I can understand. This I can respect. You wanna be Redford. It’s good to wanna be Redford. You wanna be Redford, I pick up a phone, Norman picks up a phone, you’re Redford. You wanna be Redford, you’re Redford. We don’t got a problem, Scardino. But how about you, Paul? Why haven’t you signed?”
“I don’t have a lawyer,” I said.
“That’s not a problem. I pick up a phone, I get ten lawyers on the phone. Who do they represent? You heard of Paul McCartney? You heard of Sammy Davis? And how ’bout an Olivia Newton John? You wanna talk big? I’ll give you big lawyers. Choose one of them. Choose four. Choose ten. I don’t care. It’s not a problem. The only problem is if we don’t get this contract signed we got a problem. We’re friends, but if you don’t sign, we got a problem. We’re friends, but Norman says, ‘Blow him off the deal,’ we gotta blow you off the deal.”
I picked a lawyer. He said a bunch of things that got me confused. I told him to call my father in Canada. Dad said, “I think it’s all right, son. I made certain that the contract does not prohibit you from doing studio work. You’ll be able to do as much extra work as you like.”
Dad saved the day.
Meanwhile, Scardino struck the clause that gave Kirshner first call on his services. Kirshner caved. Scardino was Redford.
All was set.
Back to the bungalow to sign.
“Now we’re friends,” said Don. “Friends for life. I’m picking up a phone and calling Norman. Here’s Norman Lear on the phone.”
“Congratulations,” Norman told us, not really knowing our names.
“Now Norman Lear is your friend,” said Don. “Anytime you want, you pick up a phone and call Norman. It’s a done deal.”
But was it?
Chapter 20
A Black Cashmere Coat with a Red Silk Lining
After the Hereafter pilot was shot, there was nothing to do in L.A. It would be months before we’d learn whether the show was picked up.
So back to New York.
Back to The Magic Show.
And, simultaneously, back to the beginnings of SNL. This was when Howard Shore was putting the band together and using me to rehearse the musical numbers.
Then came the strike by Broadway musicians.
Since age fifteen, I had been a loyal dues-paying member of the American Federation of Musicians. I accepted my duty and walked the picket lines with a sign outside the Cort Theater. I did so, however, with great reluctance, as did most of the other young working musicians. We wanted to keep working, but we had no choice. We also had no choice when it came to union meetings. They were mandatory.
The first meeting was called by our union leader, Lou “Russ” Russo. We were assembled in the union hall when Lou, who had wavy silver hair, made his entrance wearing a black cashmere overcoat. The coat resembled the luxuriously tailored overcoat worn by Lee J. Cobb in On the Waterfront when he played union boss Johnny Friendly. Lou Russo took off the coat and carefully folded it from the inside, neatly placing it on a chair so we all could see the red silk lining. As Lou “Russ” Russo spoke Brooklynese, also reminiscent of Cobb’s movie role, I kept staring at the coat.
“I wanna report to the membership that this here strike will be over in no time because we got Mr. Frank Sinatra on our side,” he said. “Mr. Sinatra, he comes from Hoboken. Mr. S, he loves musicians. He owes musicians his life and his livelihood. Now, he’s got this show coming up at the Uris Theater, a Broadway house, and the Old Man don’t like to cancel no shows.”
The very thought that Frank Sinatra himself would be involved in our union dispute—that his intervention would soon end the strike—was nothing short of thrilling. The Chairman was coming to my aid.
A week passed without news. Then a second meeting was called. I arrived early. Lou Russo arrived late. He wore the same black cashmere overcoat. He went through the same routine of folding the coat inside out and placing it on a chair so that the red silk lining screamed at us. It screamed prosperity; it screamed power.
“I got good news to report to the membership, fellas,” he said. “Two nights ago I went over to Jilly’s and left word that I need to talk to Frank Sinatra. As you know, Mr. S frequents Jilly’s on a regular basis, so I am most certain that I will be hearing back directly from Mr. Sinatra. Once I am able to sit down with him and explain what is happening with our union, I can guarantee you that we will have Frank Sinatra’s complete support.
That’s the kind of guy he is. He will bring this strike to a speedy conclusion.”
I thought to myself, In order to get in touch with Sinatra, Russ is leaving word at Jilly’s? Shouldn’t he have a better way of arranging a meeting? Or is that what you did when you wanted to see Sinatra—you went to Jilly’s?
A week later, our third meeting.
Russ was early. When we arrived, his overcoat was already folded and placed on the chair. The red silk lining was already screaming.
“All right, fellas,” said Russ, “I have news but it ain’t the news I wanted to give you. Mr. Sinatra went over our heads. He went to the Federation in Jersey. Out of respect to his legend-hood, they are giving him special dispensation. He can play the Uris Theater, and his union musicians will be allowed to work. It’s too bad, but the strike goes on.”
Luckily for me, the strike did not impact TV, and I could work on SNL unencumbered. When it was settled, though, and The Magic Show resumed, the two jobs proved too taxing. I opted for SNL.
The casting of SNL had been a fascinating process. The guy who was destined to be the show’s biggest star—John Belushi—almost didn’t make it.
Gilda and Aykroyd had already been cast. Meanwhile, Gilda was dating one of the musicians in the Magic Show band. Boy, did Gilda have a musical soul! She was a Detroit soul sister. We talked about our mutual love for the Supremes. We commiserated over the tragic story of Florence Ballard, the Supreme who wound up on welfare and died so young. Poor Flo. After a stirring Supremes skit in which Gilda starred, she passed by my piano and whispered in my ear, “That was for Flo.”
Gilda was also the first friend of mine to get into Studio 54.
“Who do you see in there?” I asked. “Halston and Liza?”
“The only people I see in there,” she said, “are my Aunt Zelda and Uncle Hymie. They come to town, I get them in, I leave, I go home to bed.”
Before all that, though, as SNL was being cast, she came to the Magic Show theater to see her boyfriend, and Belushi was with her.
“We’re sitting shiva,” she said. (Shiva is the period when we Jews mourn our dead.)
“Who died?” I asked.
“John’s career died,” Gilda explained.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“I don’t either,” Gilda continued. “I don’t see how you could have blown the interview, John.”
“It couldn’t have gone worse,” said John. “What happened?” I wanted to know.
“Lorne Michaels asked me what I thought of television, and I told him I hated it.”
“Why’d you say that?” I asked.
“Because I do,” said John. “I hate it like the fuckin’ plague. I told Michaels there’s nothing good on TV and chances are there never will be. I told him that if he came to my house, he’d see spit all over my television screen.”
“He must have loved hearing that,” I said.
; “I wasn’t feeling any love from him,” Belushi declared.
“We’ll talk him into using you,” said Gilda. “You gotta be in the cast.”
Later Lorne said that he felt like John would be trouble. Besides, Lorne was especially leery of people who put down television. Lorne loved television. But others—especially Chevy—campaigned for Belushi. Add to that the endorsement of Michael O’Donoghue, Lorne’s ace writer, and John was in.
As history has recorded, the other cast members were Laraine Newman, who’d worked for Lorne in Hollywood, Jane Curtin, Chevy, Garrett Morris, and, of course, Gilda and Dan.
The first host of the first show was George Carlin. The first musical guests of the first show were Janis Ian and one of my idols, Billy Preston. That same year, other hosts included Richard Pryor, Dick Cavett, Lily Tomlin, Robert Klein, and Buck Henry. Musical guests included Esther Phillips, Gil-Scott Heron, Carly Simon, Bill Withers, and Al Jarreau.
I collaborated on a song with one of the writers, Marilyn Miller, who spoke to Lorne about giving me a weekly credit. Because I was doing some composing, the traditional acknowledgment might have been “special musical material by…” But the word at SNL was always “That’s too Carol Burnett,” meaning something smacked of an old-school variety show. “Special musical material” smacked of old school. Instead, I thought of those lounge lizard pianists who liked to say, “You’ve been listening to the musical stylings of…” and, given SNL’s and my own fondness for kitsch, I suggested to Lorne that my credit read, “Musical stylings by Paul Shaffer.”
When it appeared on the screen, though, my mother called from Canada and said, “It sounds like you’re doing their hair.”
So my credit became “Special musical material by Paul Shaffer.”
Whatever the handle, it was all exhilarating stuff. And what could be more exhilarating than being present when the Rolling Stones came on? I was in their first skit, appearing as Don Kirshner, who wants to get backstage to see them. Belushi plays their bouncer and is determined to keep me out. “You’re cut,” he says. “You’re not on the list.” But the Kirshner character manages to sneak in and hang out with the bad boys of rock and roll. There I am, acting with Keith, Ronnie, and Charlie. Cool.
The problem, though, was that Lorne, overstimulated by the appearance of the Stones on his show, lost track of time. Something had to go.
I was in makeup, applying the final touches of the Palm Springs Kirshner tan, when Mick popped in and spoke to me—Paul Shaffer—for the first time in his life.
“You’re cut,” he said.
“Cut?” I asked.
“Lorne’s shit-canned Kirshner. You’re out.”
I didn’t care. Mick Jagger had spoken to me.
Outside of Studio 8H, New York night life was jumping. I was surrounded by funky stuff. The funkiest soul band since James Brown was called Stuff. They played four nights a week at Mikell’s, close to my little Upper West Side pad. I never missed a night. It was soul heaven. This was the group that consisted of pianist Richard Tee, guitarists Cornell Dupree and Eric Gale, and drummers Steve Gadd and Chris Parker. The leader was bassist Gordon Edwards. This was the same group that appeared on the second show of the second season of SNL backing up Joe Cocker. While doing “Feeling All Right,” Joe was joined onstage by Belushi doing Joe. The Cocker-off was a classic. You couldn’t tell if John was mocking Joe—or if it was Joe mocking John mocking Joe. Either way, it was a beautiful mockery and I was blessed to be there.
Who in their right minds would want to leave SNL?
“I think you should leave, Paul,” said Norman Lear. “You’d be making a mistake if you didn’t.”
Lear had been the host of the second show of SNL’s second season. After the show, he came up to me and gave his pitch.
“We sold the pilot of Hereafter to CBS,” he said. “We can’t do it without you, Paul. We don’t want to do it without you. What do you say?”
What does anyone say to Norman Lear?
Yes, Mr. Lear.
I had my doubts. I loved my New York life. I was playing dates in the studios with everyone from Barry Manilow to Burt Bacharach. I was in demand. I was developing special material with the kids on SNL, and I’d been put in some of the sketches. I was loving it.
But then I thought to myself: Wasn’t it cosmic synchronicity that Norman Lear was hosting SNL that very week? Wasn’t he there just to tell me that the time was right to tackle Hollywood? And when he said that I’d not only be in a hit TV sitcom, but I’d also be in a band destined to top the charts, who could resist that argument? Who could resist being bigger than the Monkees?
Scardino could; he was out. I couldn’t; I was in.
I met with Lorne and told him about Lear.
“Paul,” he said, “I think you should reconsider. We want you, we need you, we love you. We need to work something out. What will you be making in L.A.?”
“I start at fifteen hundred an episode.”
“We’re going to miss you.”
Chapter 21
Hollywood Swinging
L.A. was a part of my mythological image of the United States. The Beach Boys had painted a picture of surf and sex under the hot Malibu sun, even as I was shivering on the ski slopes of frozen Ontario. L.A. played into my imagination as a musical paradise that housed Shindig! and the Whisky a Go Go featuring Johnny Rivers three shows a night. L.A. was cool.
But unlike Las Vegas or New York, L.A. never became an obsession. I never dreamed of living in L.A. I went there because Norman Lear had beckoned me. I went there because my ego had been jacked up—a relatively common occurrence in my young life—and because I, like millions before me, bought into the notion of becoming a star.
L.A. is star central.
At the same time, I did not find L.A. especially alluring. I liked the weather and I liked the palm trees. I liked Fatburger on La Cienega and looking at the Walk of Stars on Hollywood Boulevard. I liked the nice ocean, and I liked the hills dotted with interesting houses. For the most part, though, to like L.A. you had to like driving. And I’m a lousy driver.
What I did like, of course, was listening to music in my car. “Hollywood Swinging” was the great L.A. anthem of the day. That was Kool and the Gang singing about wanting to get into a band and becoming a bad piano-playin’ man. Me in a nutshell. The other anthem was recorded by a Southern California backup band turned into soul stars by writer/producer Norman Whitfield. Rose Royce’s “Car Wash” provided the fuel that kept me tooling around in the smog, looking in vain for the center of a centerless city.
But how many car washes can you get in one week?
Shooting the show itself wasn’t as exciting as I had hoped. The scripts were lackluster, and the chemistry among cast members never really kicked in. Let’s face it: I’d gone from the hippest to the squarest. The highlight of my time in Hollywood was shopping for eyeglasses.
Lear’s costume gal said I needed a hip pair of glasses. She thought it went with my character as a musician in the Hereafter band. I’d never looked at glasses as a fashion item, but when in Rome, baby. The costume gal took me to Optique Boutique.
“Elton John buys his frames here,” said the optician, “and I have a pair we just made up for him.”
“I gotta see ’em,” I said.
The optician pulled out a pair of dramatic square frames done in pure-as-the-driven-snow white. I loved them. I also loved Elton’s music—Elton’s songs, Elton’s sound, and Elton’s soulful piano playing. Why not wear Elton’s glasses?
“Will I look like a copycat?” I asked the costume gal.
“These frames look like they were made for you,” she said.
“Even if they were made for Elton?”
“They were made for Elton with you in mind, Paul. Besides, Elton’s off touring Australia. By the time he gets back to the U.S.A., he’ll be sporting new frames.”
“I’ll take them,” I told the optician.
For better or worse, that�
��s how the Shaffer eyeglass frame obsession began: in blind tribute to Elton John. And I was fine with that.
The name Hereafter was changed to A Year at the Top, but it wasn’t a year at the top. It was a year in the middle. It wasn’t awful and it wasn’t great. After shooting four shows, though, it became clear that it wasn’t going to be the next I Love Lucy.
Nonetheless, I had to concentrate on the job at hand. A Year at the Top was shot on the KTTV lot where Lear’s famous productions, like All in the Family, Maude, One Day at a Time, and The Jeffersons, were all taped.
If our show became famous it was only famous as Lear’s first flop.
Flop or not, I’d wander over to the One Day at a Time set, where I met Valerie Bertinelli. She and I had a few fun dates. Enchanting personality. She was sixteen, I was twenty-seven, but, as R. Kelly would say, who’s counting? I also met Valerie’s friend and costar Mackenzie Phillips, whose dad was the Mamas and Papas’ John Phillips, a man of great wit and musical talent whose trademark vocal arrangements—think of “California Dreamin’”—were exquisite.
One evening, after Mackenzie and I had helped out at a charity event, we went to Roy’s on Sunset, an uber-hip hangout for Hollywood movers and shakers in the seventies. If you knew Mackenzie well, by the way, you called her “Laura,” her real name. Mackenzie, her middle name, was given to her in tribute to Scott Mackenzie, for whom Papa John wrote “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair).”
Anyway, we get to Roy’s, and Roy turns out to be a former music agent, Roy Silver. Given my fascination with fast-talking New York Jews, I’m pleased to meet Roy, and Roy is pleased to meet me because he knows about my connection to Lear and Kirshner. When I introduce Roy to Mackenzie, he’s ecstatic.
“I held your father in my arms,” he tells Mackenzie, “so people wouldn’t see that he was vomiting all over himself.”
Nice, Roy, I say to myself.
“Come to the bar, kid,” he continues, “and I’ll tell you more stories about your dad.”
