by Paul Shaffer
Instead I said, “Many people asked what went wrong with Chevy’s career. True, he’s burned lots of bridges. He was abusive to people. I think it was the acting. If you really want to know, though, what happened to Chevy’s career, I can explain it in three grams.”
Al Franken took over where I left off. Al was much rougher. He really ripped into Chevy. He talked about how he respected Chevy’s public revelation that he was hooked on pain pills for his back. That took character. That took courage. Al remembered how Chevy ground up those pills and applied them directly to his back. He talked about the time Chevy and Laraine went in on a kilo of back pills. The harder Al hit, the funnier he was.
Even I got hit. Lisa Lampanelli, an insult comic who makes Don Rickles look like Mary Poppins, got up and said, “Paul, I love you. Every time I look at you it reminds me I gotta clean my dildo.”
Another comic, Todd Barry, said, “I see Paul’s band is here but they’re not gonna play. They’re absolutely wiped. They had to learn four bars of a Blink-182 song.” The band fell out.
After the dinner, I found Todd.
“You nailed us with that Blink-182 line,” I said.
He replied, “I wanted to say Matchbox 20, but I thought Blink-182 was just a little more insulting.”
Back to boiling Chevy in hot water, Richard Belzer said,
“The only funny bone Chevy has in his body is when I’m fucking him in the ass.”
When it was time for Chevy to speak, we were rooting for a great rebuttal, but Chevy was genuinely hurt and could only say, “Wow, that was rough.” He turned to Franken and said, “Jesus, Al…my daughters will never see this.” Then he sat down.
I felt terrible. After the dinner, Tom Leopold, who had written many of my scathers, said, “Let’s make sure Chevy’s okay.” So Tom and I, along with Lew Soloff, went up to Chevy’s hotel room. Lew has a big heart and, like me, was hurting for Chevy. Lew is all about sincerity. He sincerely loves everybody. I’ll drop by Lew’s place, for instance, while he’s finishing up a phone call with “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
“Who was that, Lew?” I’ll ask.
“Wrong number,” he’ll say.
Up in Chevy’s room, we were sympathetic. “Sorry it was so hurtful, Chevy,” I said.
“You’re kind to come up here, Paul.”
“I feel terrible about that three-gram joke I told,” I said. “I’m going to tell the show to edit it out before it airs.”
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“It was funny.”
Another roast in which I participated was one I’d been waiting for my whole life. I’d get to roast Jerry Lewis.
In my personal equation, Jerry is to show-biz comedy what Phil Spector is to pop music production. As Cole Porter would put it, Jerry is the top. And in order to roast him, I was determined to top everyone who came before and after me.
I had a head start because Belzer was roastmaster. Richard was the one who had gotten Jerry to agree to fly to New York from Vegas for the affair. Jerry would do anything for Belzer, especially after Belzer had gotten Jerry on an episode of Law and Order: SVU, playing his uncle.
The roast was private—which made it that much more special for me—and Belzer gave me an extra-good spot. I had a monologue that led to a song with special lyrics. I hired the best comedy writers I knew, Tom Leopold and Bill Scheft, to help me develop material. I wasn’t going to be just good; I was going to be phenomenal. I had to do it for Jerry, just as Jerry did it for his kids.
I worked my tuchus off. I rewrote and rehearsed, I practiced until my timing was perfect. Not since my bar mitzvah had I approached a public performance with such a passion to please. And in this case, the one person I wanted to please more than anyone was Mr. Jerry Lewis.
The big day arrived. Jerry arrived. He was seated down the dais not far from me. When called to stand before the podium and do my thing, I took a deep breath, relished the moment, and went into it. The preamble to the song was long, too long. The account of my personal fondness for Jerry’s telethons was too detailed. The explanations of my love of Jerry’s talent were too complicated. The jokes were too hip for the room. In short, I died. Even worse, in the midst of my horrible death, even before I got to the song, Jerry got up from the dais and left!
I had to chase after the poor man and bring him back.
“Jerry,” I said, “you can’t leave now.”
“I thought you were finished,” he said.
“Please, Jerry, just listen to the song.”
He heard the song and tried to smile. But the smile didn’t work and neither did the song. The song died. And that very evening, on the plane back to Vegas, Jerry Lewis suffered a heart attack.
Thank God, Jerry survived the song and the attack. Our relationship survived as well. On Jerry’s next trip to New York, he brought his young daughter. Belzer suggested that Tom Leopold and I join them for lunch and bring our kids as well. We all met at Café Fiorello across from Lincoln Center—Jerry, Belzer, Tom, and me at one table, the kids at another.
This was when my daughter, Victoria, was twelve and my son, Will, was six. The occasion was merry and went without incident. Jerry was delighted to be surrounded by a group of devotees. We were delighted to hear his stories about the glory days of The Nutty Professor and The Bellboy. Toward the end of the lunch, Will came over to my table and said, “Daddy, can we get the check?”
“Sure, son,” I said.
Jerry looked over at Will, who has extremely attractive Asian facial features.
“Does he know any Chinese words?” asked Jerry, after Will had gone back to the children’s table. Before I could explain, Jerry went on: “Sometimes it’s valuable to teach a child a few words in his mother tongue to give him a connection with his past.”
“Actually, Jerry, my kids aren’t adopted. My wife, Cathy, is Italian-Korean. That’s why my children have that exotic look.”
Jerry tuned me out. Instead he leaned over to whisper in Belzer’s ear, “Well, I guess the kid does good laundry.”
In a perverse way, I loved the story and couldn’t wait to tell my friends that my child was the object of Jerry’s dated ethnic humor. That Jerry—what a nut!
Later that same year I took my family to see Harry Shearer’s annual Christmas show that he puts on with his lovely wife, Judith Owen. Cathy wanted Harry to meet our kids; he hadn’t seen Victoria since she was an infant and hadn’t met Will at all. This evening, though, Harry’s Christmas spirit was interminable. He never left the stage. The show went on for so long the kids couldn’t take any more holiday cheer.
“Let’s just bring them to the side of the stage,” said Cathy, “so Harry can at least get a glimpse of them.”
While playing bass, Harry sidled over to stage right.
“Harry,” I said, “we gotta split. You remember Victoria, of course.”
“Darling,” said Harry, “you’ve grown up.”
“And this is my son, Will.”
“Does he know any Chinese words?” Harry asked out of the side of his mouth. That Harry—what a nut!
I can’t conclude my examination of bad taste in humor without revisiting the memorial service for comic Sam Kinison. Poor Sam was killed in a car accident in 1992 at the tragically young age of thirty-eight. I liked his wild humor and admired his extreme antics. And though I had met Sam, I really didn’t know him and wouldn’t have attended the service were it not for Richard Belzer. Sam and the Belz were so close that Belzer had been asked to emcee Kinison’s memorial. Richard insisted I attend. “It’ll be hysterical,” he said.
I noticed that, driving to the church in L.A., Belzer seemed to be taking a strangely circuitous route through streets lined with strip clubs.
“Why are we going this way, Richard?” I asked.
“Just take a look at the signs. These are the people who loved Sam best.”
It was then I noticed one tribute after another:
“Totally Nu
de! Sam, we’ll miss you.”
“Naked from Top to Bottom! R.I.P. Sam Kinison.”
“Stripped from the Hip! Big, Busty and Topless! Sam, you were the best.”
“Split beaver! Shaved! Goodbye, Sam.”
Chapter 42
Family Is Everything
On April 8, 1993, my wife, Cathy, gave birth to our precious daughter, Victoria Lily. The day after the birth I was on the air, accepting Dave’s congratulations and commenting on his remark that “Victoria Lily is a lovely name.”
“Thank you, Dave,” I said. “‘Lily’ was my maternal grandmother’s name, and Victoria …well, she’s a stripper I once dated.”
Naturally I was jesting, but now I wonder whether, even as an infant, Victoria was ingesting her father’s humor just as I ingested my parents’ humor. Some fifteen years later, as a beautiful and bright teenager, Victoria was walking with me on Central Park South, when we happened upon an art gallery that seemed to call us inside. We focused on a small bronze sculpture of an elephant. We noticed that its surface had the texture of a hide.
“It was crafted in Africa,” explained the proprietor. “That coating is taken from the actual mud in which the elephant bathed. The artist used the mud as the final surface treatment.”
“How much is it?” I asked.
“Ten thousand,” was the answer.
I thought about it, but passed.
Once we were back on the street, the lovely Victoria asked, “Why would anyone pay ten thousand dollars for an elephant coated in its own shit?”
My beloved son Will was born January 21, 1999. He is a young chess master as well as a budding musical talent—on trumpet, on the shofar at High Holy Day services, and, along with sister Victoria, on the Rock Band video game. Will is our second exceptional child.
The other day, my children and I were discussing their first words.
“Mine were, ‘I want this,’” said Victoria.
Will looked up from his Game Boy and slyly quipped, “Mine was ‘photosynthesis.’”
One household, three comics, and all under the capable command of the sainted Cathy, who steers the Shaffer ship with frightening efficiency and undying love.
“Family is everything,” I once said to my daughter Victoria.
“Oh, Dad,” she said, “you’re such a bullshitter. You know you’d rather be laughing with Belzer, playing with John Mayer, or staying up late with Marty Short than driving me and Will to school.”
“No, Victoria,” I said, doing my best Tony Soprano imitation, “family is everything.”
Between the birth of Victoria and Will, I got a great gig—musical director of the closing ceremony of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. I look back on the event as a career highlight. The only problem was that during the opening segment of the evening’s program I was nearly crushed to death. Dig:
It happened when Gloria Estefan, Tito Puente, Sheila E., and I were on a float riding around the inside perimeter of the stadium. Gloria was wailing away, singing out her fabulous “Conga” hit. The crowd was going wild. I was relishing the moment, when suddenly hordes of people broke through the barricades, rushed our float, and tried to climb aboard, tilting the thing precariously to one side. I had no idea what was happening. My mind started racing: Could it be a gang of red-neck Southerners going after the Jew leading the Latin band? Whatever it was, I found myself throwing these strangers off the float, using my hands and feet to beat back the invaders. As the float started to tip over, I envisioned the end of my young life. I saw the obit in tomorrow’s New York Times: “Mob Kills Gloria Estefan, Tito Puente, Sheila E. and Accompanist.”
Thanks to a gracious God, though, the float stabilized and the eager assailants were beaten back. Turned out they were Olympic athletes who rushed the field too early and, overly excited, decided they needed to join us on the float. By pushing them off I averted the first of several near disasters.
The second involved the architect of rock and roll, Little Richard. One of the great aspects of this event was the free rein given me by the producers. I could book anyone. Richard was high on my list. We decided to prerecord his vocal the Friday afternoon before the ceremony.
“There’s only one thing, Paul,” Richard said. “I need to be out of here by 5 p.m. It’s Shabbos, and I’m an Orthodox Jew. Have been for years. After sundown, I do no work.”
As it turned out, the session went long. It took Richard a while to get into his normal manic mode. When he did find his groove and was ready to prerecord his vocal, it was already 5.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” he told me, “but I’m out of here.”
I was prepared. I had looked up the official sunset time in the Atlanta almanac. I brought out the book and pointed to that day’s date. “Sunset will occur at 5:21,” it read.
Richard couldn’t help but smile. “Baby, you’re a better Jew than me.”
In those next twenty-one minutes, we captured a brilliant Little Richard vocal.
The excitement built when the producers said that Stevie Wonder wanted to participate and would soon be calling. A little while later, I was called to the phone. On the other end I heard a voice that resembled a news anchor, in, say, Des Moines, Iowa. The intonation was white as rice. The voice started talking about special lyrics to Stevie’s birthday song written for Martin Luther King.
“Are you representing Stevie Wonder?” I asked the voice.
“Man, I am Stevie Wonder,” said Stevie Wonder.
The next day Stevie showed up with this new set of lyrics. He thought we should do it “We Are the World” style, with the full cast taking turns. I liked the idea.
“Steveland,” I said, using his real name, “there’s a line here that I’m not sure I understand.”
“Which one, Paul?” he wanted to know.
“The one where you wrote, ‘Before Olympiads become an illusion.’ I’m not sure I know what that means.”
“Give me a break, man,” said Steveland, “I just wrote the shit this afternoon.”
Ambiguous lyrics or not, Wonder was a huge success. The concert was tremendous—B.B. King, Richard, Gloria, Sheila, the Pointer Sisters, and Faith Hill. Faith wanted to do “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”
“Great idea,” I said, “but let’s do it with a white gospel group and go for a Jordanaires sound,” referencing the vocalists who often backed Elvis.
“I don’t care if they’re Martians,” said Faith, “as long as they sing their asses off.”
Everyone sang his or her respective ass off.
But how to conclude such an evening of spectacular singing?
Al Green testifying about “Love and Happiness.”
The post-concert was nearly as much fun as the concert itself. Stevie asked me to dinner, where, for our own entertainment, we played what he called the Song Game.
Stevie started a song, and I had to continue with another, thematically linked to the first one. It got tricky, but it also got funky. At one point I picked up a Melodica—a wind instrument that has a keyboard—and accompanied Steveland as he sang Ray Charles’s “What’d I Say.” At the conclusion, every diner in the establishment rose and gave us a thunderous reception.
If I might borrow Sammy Davis’s 1984 description of Late Night with David Letterman, the entire Olympics affair was “a gas and a giggle.”
Chapter 43
What Kind of Host Am I?
I’ve been given the opportunity to host Letterman a few times when Dave couldn’t make it. The most memorable was the first in 2003. The writers worked overtime to cook up material, and so did I. I put on my pinstriped suit and hit the ground running.
“This is fabulous,” I said. “What were the odds of me being available tonight? I usually spend this part of the show staring at Dave’s ass. But this is a new angle. Now I can cut myself off. Seriously though, did you see the Academy Awards last night? Joan Rivers showed up in a bulletproof face. Hey, I hear Monica Lewinsky is getting her own reality show. The twist is
that every week a guy is voted off her. It’s going to be called Joe Blow. As you know, I’m Dave’s sidekick or, as some prefer, Dave’s whipping boy. And even though I am a celebrity—whatever the hell that means—and even though I am treated royally, it really doesn’t matter how many people I hire to say that I’m terrific. Tonight I stand alone. Yes, it’s lonely in this spotlight. The pressure’s on and it’s time to dig down deep and ask myself the toughest of questions…”
At this moment, the band broke in with “What Kind of Fool Am I?” and I sang, Sinatra-style, a set of special lyrics:
What kind of host am I? Do I have what it takes?
Up till now all I’ve done is play songs during commercial
breaks What kind of host am I? Will I pass this test?
Or will the viewers flip to Leno during my first guest? Will I rock the Top Ten List Like David Letterman?
Stay tuned cause tonight I’ll boast of the kind of host I am!
Another treat that evening was the presence of the great Mike Smith, my substitute on keyboards. He had been lead singer and organist for the Dave Clark Five, the band that rivaled the Beatles during the British Invasion and a group I loved dearly. When they appeared on Sullivan—as they had dozens of times—and I saw Mike standing at the Vox Continental organ, I vowed to never sit again. To this day I play standing proud—all because of Mike Smith. That night Mike did a terrific version of “Because,” a ballad Cathy and I consider our song. It was a beautiful experience and may have even gotten Mike to reexamine the possibility of touring the United States. He saw that we, his true fans, had not forgotten him.
Then tragedy struck. Repairing a fence outside his home in Spain, Mike suffered a freak accident: he took a fall and landed on his head. His spinal cord was damaged. Mike was paralyzed from the waist down. He was flown to England and admitted to a hospital specializing in spinal injuries.
I knew I had to do something for Mike because musically Mike had done so much for me. When I learned that the Zombies were touring North America, an idea came to me: Why not a British Invasion tribute to Mike Smith? I booked B.B. King’s club on Forty-second Street and started pursuing other acts. Miraculously, Peter and Gordon, who hadn’t appeared together in thirty-seven years, agreed to perform. So did Denny Laine from the Moody Blues and Billy J. Kramer. Will Lee’s Fab Faux, the most spot-on Beatles band on either side of the Pond, signed on as the opening act. And then we were set.
