Here’s another scary but true story. A lot of times, instead of driving back to Boston, I’d finish up at the Improv and sack out in the backseat of whatever car I was driving, which I usually parked in the alley of Dykes’, adjacent to the back of the club. On this particular night, I was exhausted and I remember being just about to drift off to sleep when suddenly this prostitute brought one of her clients into the alley and they started doing whatever they were going to do. Suffice it to say that there was a lot of moaning and groaning going on, and it was one of the grossest conversations I’ve ever heard. I can still picture it like it was yesterday. I remember thinking to myself, “Is this what show business is all about?” It was pretty depressing.
So was being refused a room by two hotels on the same night. I don’t recall the exact year, but it wasn’t long after I started at the Improv, and this will give you an idea of how different things were back then. On this particular evening, I had a late set and it was too late to drive back to Boston, so I went over to the Plaza on Fifth Avenue, where they wanted twenty-eight dollars for a room. Then I went next door to the Hotel Navarro, which is long gone, where they charged twenty-three dollars. But I only had eighteen dollars and when I asked if I could stay for just two hours, they still said no and I wound up sleeping in my car again.
Before I became friendly with the other comics and we sort of developed a trade-off where they’d stay at my place in Boston and I’d crash with them in New York, I slept in my car a lot. I also got into the habit of letting comics I didn’t know, like Billy Crystal and Freddie Prinze, crash at my apartment in Boston. When word got out that I was doing this, people used to call it “Leno Arms.”
MIKE PREMINGER:
When I first met Jay, I was living a half a block from Central Park on West 70th Street and sometimes he’d stay with me. I’d also stay with him in Boston and it was great, because I’m a few years older and he was like a kid brother to me.
We each had our own keys to one another’s apartments, and one of the things I remember most was the time Jay was staying at my place while I was out of town on a road gig someplace. Trying to be a hospitable host, I’d gone grocery shopping the day before I left and bought a few things for him to have. When I got back a day or so later, I opened up my refrigerator only to find that Jay had literally eaten me out of house and home. I was like, “Couldn’t you at least leave me a soda?”
But then, the next day I opened up the refrigerator and Jay had stocked it with every kind of soft drink imaginable. I’m not talking about a few cans here, I’m talking cases—Coke, Pepsi, Sprite, root beer, ginger ale—you name it.
It was just incredible and so was his appetite. I don’t know how he did it without ever gaining a pound, but let me tell you this boy could eat. Once we were having Sunday dinner at my parents’ house in the Bronx, and when my mom brought out the roast beef, Jay tried to eat the whole thing.
Not only could Jay eat, he ate fast, too. I remember another time when we went to McDonald’s and Jay ordered three hamburgers. Then I placed my order and Jay went to find a table for us. By the time I sat down a couple of minutes later, he’d already eaten everything. When it came to food, Jay didn’t chew. He inhaled. I swear, I don’t think his teeth worked for chewing.
Jay was definitely one of the ones I never had any qualms about in terms of raw talent and his ability to always deliver. But the most interesting part of all of this—and there’s a direct correlation here between cars and comedy—is that by the time I finally put him on that night in 1971, he’d already driven back and forth from Boston three nights in a row.
When he told me this, I couldn’t believe it. I said, “Wait, you’re telling me that you drive all the way down here, four hours, don’t get on, drive all the way back, and then turn around and come back the next day?” As soon as Jay said yes, that was all it took. I immediately said, “You’re on next.” And after a quick five-minute set, I told him he could come back anytime.
JAY LENO:
Even when I didn’t have a place to stay, I never really minded it too much because I was getting great spots at the Improv. Budd treated me well. He was a character, but he always had a good heart.
SHELLEY ACKERMAN:
I was working the night that Jay auditioned for Budd, and besides the fact that he’d come down from Boston three nights in a row, maybe one of the other reasons Budd put him on immediately was because he needed an act. It’s very possible that it served Budd at that point to say, “Okay, here he is. I need someone now.”
Regardless, Jay was always a very nice, hardworking guy from day one. This never changed even after he began making it. He always had his eye on the prize and he never got involved in meaningless shit. He would do these hysterical bits where he’d say things like, “There was another senseless killing on the Upper West Side today.” And you’d be sitting there saying to yourself, “As opposed to what—a very sensible killing on the Upper East Side?”
SILVER SAUNDORS FRIEDMAN:
I’m not sure where Jay stayed when he was in New York, but I had a lot of fun with him once or twice. One blizzardy New York night in the early seventies, I went home at about two in the morning so I could get some sleep and be up in time to take our kids to school. Budd was still at the club and asked Jay to drive me back to our apartment, which was on West 76th Street and Broadway.
At first, I hesitated because it was pouring snow and I knew that Jay’s car was one of the Rolls-Royces he’d driven down from the dealership he worked for in Boston. But Jay, being the consummate gentleman he always was, didn’t mind. We got in, and when he started the motor, of course it didn’t move because there were eight-inch drifts and we were stuck. So Jay said to me, “I’ll tell you what, Silver. If you go out and sit on the back of the car, I’ll gun it and it will move.”
I looked at him puzzled and said, “You mean I’m going to be the leverage that makes it jump out of the snow?”
When he told me yes, I somehow made my way through the snow, which was all the way up to my knees, and began pushing the car. Sure enough, it did the trick and while we were driving up Broadway I asked him why he didn’t do any material about cars in his act. He didn’t have an answer and then we dropped it, but I always sort of found it ironic since cars are one of his trademarks.
ZOE LANE FRIEDMAN, comedy producer and Budd and Silver’s daughter:
My parents didn’t bring the comics into our home a lot, but they both adored Jay and he was one of the ones who sometimes used to sleep on our couch. Even though he’s a well-known carnivore, when we were growing up, my parents used to tell my sister and me that we’d wind up with a chin like Jay’s if we didn’t eat our vegetables.
Obviously, I never regretted my decision to put Jay on that first time for one minute. But beyond the fact that I’d been so impressed when he’d told me that he’d driven round-trip from Boston three nights in a row, the other thing that bowled me over was his uncanny ability to take the most mundane subjects and make them hilarious by putting his own spin on things. Of course, I’d seen Robert Klein do it before, and later there’d be guys like Seinfeld, Paul Reiser, and others who are all brilliant. However, Jay was always in a class by himself.
One of my favorite early routines he did was this thing about McDonald’s, where he said, “You can eat there and then you can take three showers and someone would still be able to tell three days later.” While he always killed at the Improv, one of the most transcendent incidences in my early association with him occurred when I went to see him open for the legendary drummer Buddy Rich at Lennie’s on the Turnpike.
At the time, I was considering managing him and I wanted to see how he could do outside of the Improv where the audiences were usually a lot different than ours. So I drove up to see him, and because Buddy Rich was there, Lennie’s was packed. I ended up standing in the back at the bar when the first thing I noticed was Jay onstage. In between his act, he was dancing and literally hopping from one foot to the o
ther. It was one of the craziest things I’d ever seen, and at first I couldn’t figure out what was going on.
JAY LENO:
It was my first paid gig ever. When they said, “Please welcome Mr. Jay Leno,” some guy in the audience yelled out, “We hate him.”
I remember saying to myself, “How can they hate me? I haven’t been anywhere. Do they know my parents?” I was a kid and the audience was a bunch of men with cigars. It was the most intimidating environment you could possibly imagine.
Even so, Jay held his own, true to form. What I learned afterwards was that there was a guy seated next to the stage who manufactured cymbals for Buddy Rich. And for some unknown reason, he was either trying to work the audience up for Buddy or deflect attention from Jay by pounding on Jay’s toes. Nevertheless, he handled it masterfully and that’s when I decided to become his manager, which I was for the next two years.
Not long after, I also crossed paths with Murray Becker, a former navy buddy of comedian Lenny Bruce’s, who later went on to a prominent career managing such acts as George Carlin and Jack Burns in addition to being the road manager for Dick Rowan and Dan Martin, the hosts of NBC’s late-1960s sketch-comedy-variety series Laugh-In. At the time I met Murray, he was the booker at the Hollywood Playboy Club. He was also moonlighting for another manager who handled country music singer Eddie Arnold when he came up to me one day and said, “Why don’t we go into business, Budd? You discover them, I’ll develop them, and when we need it, I’ll go to Mr. Bigshot and he’ll help us get them to the next level.”
As much as I liked and respected Murray, I must admit that I wasn’t all that keen on the idea at first. While I would go on to manage a number of other singers and comedians over the years besides Jay and Bette Midler, being a personal talent manager was never something that I was ever particularly comfortable with, mainly because I quickly found myself assuming more of father figure role at a time when I already had two young daughters of my own. However, this realization didn’t really occur until a number of years later, so Murray and I briefly worked together.
There were parts of being a manager that I found very fulfilling, particularly with clients like Jay. Even after that aspect of our relationship ended, Jay, needless to say, has never ceased to amaze any of us at the Improv. He was—and still is—the consummate comic’s comic.
ROBERT KLEIN:
By the time Jay came along, I wasn’t really an Improv regular anymore, but I still used to drop in from time to time to do a set and he’d be there. He had long hair that hung down to his shoulders, and with the round glasses he wore, he kind of reminded me of Thomas Jefferson. On my wall at home, I still have a terrific black-and-white picture of me with Budd and Jay, and Jay is literally looking up at me, which is very flattering. A couple of years before the picture was taken, I had bought a Mercedes at a place called Foreign Motors in Boston, which Jay had prepped for me, although I didn’t know it at the time because the salesman had driven it down.
From the moment I first saw Jay at the Improv, I liked him. What resonated most was that he was intelligent and we both sort of spoke the same language humor-wise. Like mine, his wasn’t borscht belt and so I always considered him to be a cut above everyone else.
JERRY SEINFELD:
Robert Klein and Jay Leno were my two biggest influences. They were always guys I looked up to and wanted to be just like because they were so strong and sharp. They had a crispness to their comedy, which I just loved.
AL FRANKEN:
We were sort of kindred spirits because Jay was coming down from Boston and my comedy partner Tom Davis and I were, too, so we had that in common. I remember that Jay used to do this hysterical routine about a bee getting caught inside a screen door. It was just this very funny sound effect that only Jay could do that became a staple of his act for a while. Of course, it wasn’t anything remotely like he ended up doing, but it was something he did really well.
RICHARD LEWIS:
Budd’s told the story a million times about how Jay used to commute back and forth from Boston just to do sets at the Improv. I don’t think I was there the first night he did it, but after I found out about it, I remember it impressed me because we both shared a similar work ethic when it came to stand-up. And he was also a great stand-up—just an amazing thinker. He was definitely one of the brainier guys from our group. When I say great and brainy, what I mean by that is that he was always a terrific observational comic in between the Robert Klein and Jerry Seinfeld years.
Also, he had long hair and wore glasses and he had a pipe, which made him this kind of hip hippie. The other thing was that his material was a lot more intellectual than the typical observational comic in those days. None of his bits ever started off with, “Hey, did you ever notice?”
ALAN ZWEIBEL:
The Improv was Jay’s place. Case closed. Even on the menu, Budd had something called the Leno Burger, whatever the hell that was. When I was there, he used to come down from Boston on a motorcycle. He’d get up onstage and just rock the place.
BOB ZMUDA, writer, comedian, producer, and creator of Comic Relief USA:
Back in New York, Leno had this broken-down motorcycle that he would drive down from Boston in the winter. The thing was a piece a shit and the chain would always come off. Every time Jay came into the club, his hands would be filthy and Budd would say, “Here, I’ve got a jar of Lava soap for you. Clean your hands before you go on.”
PAT BUCKLES, talent executive and former New York Improv waitress and manager:
During the famous New York blackout in the summer of 1977, Jay’s motorcycle really saved us when he drove it into the club and parked it up onstage with the lights on so we could see while the show was going on. Practically everyone got drunk that night.
JACK KNIGHT:
I don’t know how he managed to pull it off, but Jay actually drove into the LA Improv, through the show room, and up onto the stage with his motorcycle one night. It was right during the middle of another comic’s set when all of the sudden there was this tremendous roar followed by the stench and cloud of exhaust smoke everywhere. Needless to say, the audience absolutely went nuts and afterwards he turned the bike around, left the club, and sped off down Melrose Avenue.
WILLIAM KNOEDELSEDER, former comedy reporter for the Los Angeles Times and author of I’m Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High Times in Stand-Up Comedy’s Golden Era:
Beginning in late 1977, I started covering the local comedy scene for the Los Angeles Times’ Calendar section. It was the best gig in the world because we were the first newspaper in the country that ever had a comedy beat and I was the only guy covering it. I can remember that when I first saw Jay at the Hollywood Improv around 1978, he could literally get up and go on for an hour.
The other amazing thing about Jay, in contrast to guys like Robin Williams, was that he didn’t go on flights of fancy. Robin sort of took it to a whole other stream of consciousness, as did Richard Lewis. But Jay was more of a traditional comic and the others admired that. He could play off the headlines and he could play off something that happened that morning. He was all over the place and he really hustled. It was like he did one thing and this was it.
HOWIE MANDEL:
I didn’t start doing stand-up until the early 1980s, which was a good decade after Jay. I was also strictly an LA guy when it came to the Improv and these other clubs, and my perspective then was the same as it is now. We were all kids who were just trying to have fun and hone our craft, which Budd basically identified and said, “Hey, spend fifteen minutes, or ten minutes, or six minutes, and do it on my stage.”
We did and then we saw so-and-so’s voice, so-and-so’s sensibility, and so-and-so’s sense of humor becoming internationally known right before our eyes. Maybe if we were lucky enough, we’d be one of them. Then it got to the point where the ones who became stars became synonymous—like it was Jay Leno before and now it’s just Leno. People like him were the ones filling the room each and ev
ery night back then. I mean, it wasn’t like you had to run and go see them even though you knew how great they were. You had no idea the kind of impact they’d make or how lasting their talent would be.
BOB SAGET:
Like in every profession, there are certain minefields to be avoided in comedy—one of them being that you never wanted to go up after Jay Leno had just killed.
PAUL REISER:
Yes, but the truth was that Jay needed the Improv and the Improv needed Jay. When I first arrived in LA in 1983, Jay wasn’t Jay yet, but he was probably the number-one touring act in the country and he would just knock it out of the park.
RITCH SHYDNER:
He didn’t do this with everybody, but if you were a new comic in LA and you had some heat, Jay was like the one-man welcoming committee. He’d help you buy a car and he’d have you over to his house. He was really terrific that way.
PAULA POUNDSTONE, comedian, actor, and writer:
One of my greatest, greatest nights at the Hollywood Improv was with Jay back in the mideighties. Although we weren’t what I’d call buddy-buddy yet, we’d met a couple of times before, plus Jay is a Massachusetts boy and I’m a Massachusetts girl so we had that in common.
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