Another rather long biographical article, but interesting

http://dir.salon.com/people/bc/2001/03/13/steve_martin/index.html

Steve Martin
The one-time madcap comic deity has become the distinguished elder statesman of humor. Hey, that's not funny!
By Stephen Lemons

March 13, 2001 | When I was in junior high, circa 1977, Steve Martin was God. All of my geeky buddies had a copy of Martin's LP "Let's Get Small." Later, we added "A Wild and Crazy Guy" and his book "Cruel Shoes" to our growing Martin shrines. We set his skits to memory as dutifully as we had the lyrics to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" or Blue Öyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper." The really obsessed kids wore plastic arrows through their heads on the bus to school while mimicking the various catchphrases Martin had drummed into the collective consciousness of Carter-era America, such as "We're havin' some fun," "I've got happy feet" and the ever-popular "Well, excuuuuuse me!" We all wanted to be Steve Martin.

It was that gilded era of comedy known as the '70s -- a decade when the "National Lampoon Comedy Hour" graced the FM airwaves, the Not Ready for Prime Time Players of "Saturday Night Live" smoked pot on TV and Martin, a 32-year-old, banjo-playing, balloon-animal-twisting, prematurely gray comic performed before hysterical, rock concert-like crowds of 20,000 or more.


Martin's early LPs and stage performances were genuinely hilarious, but even the funniest bits, like the one in which he describes giving his cat a bath (with his tongue) or in which he has an entire audience repeat the "Non-Conformist Oath" ("I promise to be unique. I promise not to repeat things other people say!"), do not fully explain the late-'70s Martin mania. He also had the good fortune to be in step with his times. Following Vietnam, Watergate and the racial and civil unrest of the '60s and early '70s, folks needed a break from all the drama and heartache, and Martin's goofy, apolitical humor was a perfect match.

A lot of his comedy relied on irony and allowing his fans in on the fact that he was making fun of show business. He was like a magician revealing how certain standard, almost clichéd tricks are done, while parodying the idea that there is really any illusion involved. He just assumed you knew there was really no rabbit in the hat. When he put on that "Mr. Showbiz" demeanor along with the white suit and the bunny ears, it was as if he was saying, "See, I'm supposed to be funny." Martin's shtick was to take the oldest bits in the book and blow them up to outrageous proportions. You couldn't help laughing.

"Martin was playing with the stand-up format itself," writes Phil Berger in "The Last Laugh: The World of Stand-up Comics." "He was lampooning the postures comics take to get in good with the crowd -- the stroking they do to loosen up an audience. 'How much did it cost to get in?' Martin would ask. 'Eight-fifty? Ha ha ha. You idiots.'"

There were some "blue" bits in Martin's material, but not as many as in the work of, say, Rodney Dangerfield or a later comic like Sam Kinison. This also helps to explain Martin's wide appeal. Not only did all of my pencil-necked amigos in junior high dig him, so did high school and college students. And my parents adored him. As for Grandma, she thought he was cute, though she didn't get what all the fuss was about.

Now that same guy is doing voice-overs for Merrill Lynch commercials, a transformation that really struck me when I went to my local bookstore to get a copy of Martin's recent novella, the New York Times bestseller "Shopgirl." The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had recently announced that Martin will be the host of this year's Oscars, triumphing over gross-out-meister Jim Carrey. ("If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," quipped the as yet Oscar-less Martin in a press release.)

A young woman in her 20s rang up my purchase. "That's a great book," she offered. "Did you know he used to be on 'Saturday Night Live'?" I then realized how complete Martin's metamorphosis has been. He's gone from madcap comic deity, earning yuks by juggling cats and making fun of the French ("They have a different word for everything!") to distinguished elder statesman of humor, writing droll little shorts for the New Yorker.

As the '70s came to an end, Martin left stand-up for films. He knew instinctively that he was draining himself of all his psychic resources and had to get out. When Rolling Stone interviewed him in 1999, he compared performing before tens of thousands of screaming fans in the '70s to "conducting an orchestra" with "visual cues, verbal cues." Though he enjoyed a creative high during that period, he does nothing to hide his current distaste for that life. "I can't think of anything worse than being a stand-up comedian," he confessed. "Traveling around constantly, having people be drunk and talk during the show."

"The Jerk" was his farewell to all that. He wasn't giving up on comedy, just stand-up. It was all an act anyway, and it had taken him as far as it could. He didn't want to end up like Jerry Lewis, a prisoner to that Frankenstein monster of personified idiocy.

Directed by Carl Reiner and coming at the zenith of Martin's stand-up success in 1979, "The Jerk" transformed a $4.5 million investment into $100 million gross and made Martin a bona fide movie star. The move to film was a shrewd, calculated gamble that paid off handsomely. Martin had taken the next logical step at the right moment in his career, and could now leave the road behind forever.

"Stand-up comedy was just an accident," he told Rolling Stone in 1982. "I was figuring out a way to get onstage. I made up a magic act and that led to nightclubs. As I got into movies, I was reminded that this is really why I got into show business. With movies you've constantly got new material, new challenges."

Waco, Texas, is famous for three things: Dr Pepper, David Koresh and Steve Martin. Martin was born in Waco on Aug. 14, 1945, and he lived there until his family up and moved when he was 5, first to Inglewood, Calif., and, later, south to Garden Grove, a right-wing burg nestled deep in Orange County, that nexus of arch-conservatism known for nurturing a particularly nasty breed of Republicans. Martin's dad was a prosperous real-estate broker who never quite understood his son's ambition to be an entertainer.

As a teenager, Martin snagged a job hawking guidebooks at Disneyland in nearby Anaheim, and he found that he could sell more with a bit of shuck 'n' jive. A little banjo, a few jokes, some balloon animals and voilà, he had an act. At 18, he graduated to a gig as an entertainer at Knott's Berry Farm. There he honed the skills he'd later use to entertain millions.

In the '60s, he studied philosophy at Long Beach State University, the same school Steven Spielberg and the Carpenters attended. "I was either going to become a professor of philosophy or a comedian," he told Newsweek in 1977. "Then I realized the only logical thing was comedy because you don't have to justify it." A girlfriend helped him land a job writing for "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour," and he soon dropped out of college to write for TV full time. In 1969 he shared an Emmy in outstanding writing achievement for his work on "The Smothers Brothers."

Martin pursued stand-up while writing for various outlets. By 1975 he was packing them in at San Francisco's Boarding House club, among other places. Just then, a new TV show called "Saturday Night Live" was keeping everyone at home on Saturday evenings, and Martin soon began a string of popular appearances on that show and on Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show." Martin became an unstoppable force of comedy, a silver-haired zeitgeist wrapped in a double-breasted white suit.

He was comic gold. People laughed at every gesture, every utterance, no matter how mundane. In one skit from "SNL," he had the crowd in tears just from dancing around by himself onstage to some '40s big-band tune. And when necessary, he could always brandish his secret weapon -- the banjo. Play a little "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," blurt out a few quips and the crowd was his.

The awards piled up. "Let's Get Small" won a Grammy in 1977 for best comedy album. In 1978, he earned an Academy Award nomination for his short film "The Absent-Minded Waiter." He garnered another Grammy in 1979 for "A Wild and Crazy Guy," his album with the hit single "King Tut." Both LPs eventually went platinum.

There were more comedy records, more awards and nominations, but "The Jerk" cemented his status as a superstar. He could have easily dived into another comedic film right away, but Martin bucked the advice of his manager by pursuing the lead in Herbert Ross' 1981 film version of Dennis Potter's bleak BBC musical "Pennies From Heaven." The role of Arthur Parker, an ill-fated sheet music salesman in the '30s, had already been turned down by numerous A-list stars because it required so much work. Martin, however, relished the challenge of emulating the likes of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. Under Ross' intense tutelage, Martin became an expert hoofer, able to hold his own with Gregory Hines when they danced together on a comedy special after "Pennies" was released.

In "Pennies," teamed again with his "Jerk" costar and then girlfriend Bernadette Peters, Martin and she lip-sync and sway to Depression-era tunes, such as "Let's Face the Music and Dance" and "Love Is Good for Anything That Ails You." Both stars shine like screen giants of yesteryear. The result is the one true work of art Martin has helped create -- the one film with the depth and originality to be pegged as a masterpiece. The critics were divided on it, and audiences, perhaps expecting the Martin of "The Jerk," generally didn't get it. In hindsight, with Lars von Trier's black musical "Dancer in the Dark" under our belts, "Pennies From Heaven" seems way ahead of its time.

Martin was disappointed that "Pennies" was a commercial flop. "I loved that movie so much. The most heartfelt thing I've ever done was 'Pennies From Heaven,'" he told Penthouse in 1984. Still, Martin plowed ahead to make innovative flicks like the 1982 noir pastiche "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" and "The Man With Two Brains" (1983), wherein Martin's character attempts to implant the disembodied gray matter of a sweet, intelligent young woman into the skull of the brazen and bitchy Kathleen Turner.

In 1984, Martin received high marks from critics for another mind-body switcheroo flick, "All of Me," costarring Lily Tomlin. On the set, Martin met and became enamored of British actress Victoria Tennant. The pair wed at Rome's City Hall in 1986. Considering Martin's success, money and fame, he could pretty well have had his pick of Hollywood after he and Peters parted ways. But Martin longed for substance over eye candy -- and that's what he saw in Tennant. No doubt her brains, refined breeding and British accent appealed to him.

Martin revealed as much in his 1991 romantic comedy "L.A. Story," his love letter to Los Angeles and Tennant after the manner of Woody Allen's Gotham-based "Annie Hall." Martin plays a parody of himself, a wacky TV meteorologist named Harris Telemacher, dying of cerebral thirst in the arid intellectual climate of Los Angeles. Along comes Tennant as limey Sara McDowel, who sweeps him off his roller skates. The parallels to Martin's own life are too close to be coincidence.

Tennant divorced Martin in 1994, and since then he's been paired with more than one Hollywood beauty, including Anne Heche and Helena Bonham Carter, but he hasn't remarried.

Martin has remained enormously prolific, doing almost a film a year since 1981, and sometimes more. Of these, a good many have been tepid Middle American fare such as "Mixed Nuts" (1994), "Parenthood" (1989) and "Father of the Bride" (1991). But to Martin's credit, there have been some gems, like his cameo in Frank Oz's "Little Shop of Horrors" (1986) or his leads in "Roxanne" (1987), "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" (1988), "Planes, Trains & Automobiles" (1987) and "Bowfinger" (1999).

Nor has Martin been wary of redefining himself and taking risks: for example, his venture into playwriting with the 1993 stage comedy "Picasso at the Lapin Agile," which New York magazine called a "very funny riff on the birth of the modern century." Other reviews were less kind to the production, which featured Einstein and Picasso meeting for a drink in 1904 at a Parisian cocktail bar. The New York Times said Martin's play "captures the inevitable way art and celebrity have merged," but chastened its shallowness. Still, "Picasso" had successful runs in Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and it enhanced Martin's image as a thoughtful manipulator of ideas.

He is at heart an intellectual and an aesthete. He's a longtime trustee of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, with a gallery named after him. And he possesses a highly regarded art collection made up predominantly of 20th century American painters such as Edward Hopper, Willem de Kooning and Richard Diebenkorn.

In addition, Martin has penned a number of short essays for the New Yorker and other publications. In 1998, he collected them all in a slim volume titled "Pure Drivel." The anorexic tome had critics gushing with superlatives. Now there's "Shopgirl," which novelist John Lanchester, writing for the New York Times Book Review, called an "elegant, bleak, desolatingly sad first novella."

The plot deals with the oft-visited theme of May-December romances, and one suspects that Martin is drawing on life experience here. The affair in question is between a 28-year-old clerk at Neiman Marcus in Beverly Hills and a 50-ish Seattle computer magnate. There's nothing terribly original about the people or the story, but Martin crafts a convincing portrait of loneliness in his protagonist Mirabelle. Even Martin, now a wry, wise 55, seems to realize that his literary debut may never have occurred were it not for his name.

"There's nothing more embarrassing then being a celebrity novelist. You just don't want to hear that an actor has written a novel. It really smells," Martin admitted to the New York Times last October. Well, at least he's not coughing up "Steve Martin's Wild and Crazy Pasta Recipes," which probably would spend an equal amount of time on the bestseller list.

With Martin's Academy Awards gig this month and a dark comedy titled "Novocaine" due out later this year, featuring Martin as a dentist opposite Helena Bonham Carter, we can look forward to seeing more of him -- more of the mature, urbane version, that is. As long as he continues to take risks, at least some of what he produces will be exceptional. No one's perfect.

"I'll never run out of stuff," he told Penthouse in 1984. "Because there'll always be something to twist. As it's developed, my whole comedy personality is bent. It's tilted towards irony, like the bore at the party."

- posted by sookeyjane 8/27/2003 10:45:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



A long but mostly very good synoptic biography of Steve

Sounds to me like it's based on several unauthorized biographies that have been published in book form and on news accounts. My only quibble is that his chronology on the Heche split/ DeGeneris stuff is wrong.

---
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/film/biographies/steve_martin_biog.html

STEVE MARTIN BIOGRAPHY

Born: 14 August 1945
Where: Waco, Texas, USA
Awards: 5 Golden Globe nominations
Height: 5' 11"
Last Seen in: Novocaine
Filmography: The Complete List

It's near impossible to think of a more talented character in Hollywood than Steve Martin. He's excelled in so many disciplines it's almost absurd. He's won an Emmy as a comedy writer: as a stand-up he drew crowds of over 20,000: his comedy albums sold millions: he had a million-selling disco single: he's written best-selling books and successful plays: he's penned hit screenplays and starred in many of the most memorable comedies of the last twenty years. The Jerk, All Of Me, The Man With Two Brains, Parenthood, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Roxanne and Planes, Trains And Automobiles - just some of the fabulous films that relied near-entirely up his extraordinary abilities. It's been a long and fascinating journey.

He was born Stephen Glenn Martin on the 14th of August, 1945, in Waco, Texas. When he was 5, the family (of English/Irish/Scottish descent) moved to Inglewood, California, where his father, Glenn, an aspiring actor, performed at the local playhouse, and sold real estate. His mother, Mary Lee, looked after the kids. It was in Inglewood that young Steve became interested in magic, buying books, learning tricks and performing them for his parents. It would serve him very well later. So would his gift for comedy. Watching the likes of the Red Skelton Show, Steve would learn the skits, then perform them for the kids at school next day.

After another 5 years, the family moved on to Garden Grove, near Anaheim. It was 1955 and, vitally, the year Disneyland opened nearby. From the age of 10 till 18, Steve would work there after school, at weekends and during the summers. First he sold guide-books at the gate, dressed in a straw boater and bow-tie. He'd take 2 cents per book sold, with the norm being 50 books a day. But, quickly learning the relentless cheeriness necessary (something else that would serve him well later), Steve far outdid the norm. One day he sold 625.

Then there was Wally Boag. Wally was an old vaudevillian entertainer plying his trade at Disneyland, telling (clean) jokes and making balloon animals. Steve watched his act every day, committing it all to memory.

At 15, Steve's education in magic intensified. Promoted to Merlin's Magic Shop, he sold plastic vomit, shrunken heads, silly disguises, nails-through-heads, all the greats. Joshing around with the staff, he learned all the tricks, and collected all the jokes, writing down the best of everything said. Now ready to face the public, he began performing magic shows at Kiwanis clubs.


And there was Bernadette Peters. Aside from being supremely talented and stunningly attractive, she was also a hard-working star, and understood Steve's desire to focus on his career. After all, she had her own. They would see each other until 1981.

As it happened, this period would be one of the most important in Martin's life. Having pushed back the envelope in terms of comedy success, he'd had enough of the life he was leading. He no longer enjoyed stand-up because the huge crowds had turned his shows into "events" where everyone would wear bunny-ears and attempt to participate. "Wait a minute," he was thinking, "this is my little joke. Why are you waving balloons at me during my little joke?" He was also exhausted, occasionally collapsing onstage. In Tennessee they even had to call the paramedics. Beyond this, people were comparing him to Jerry Lewis, something the philosopher in him did not appreciate.

What he wanted was to step away from it all, and he did so in no uncertain terms. In the mid-Seventies, he'd seen Dennis Potter's 6-part, 9-hour imaginative feast Pennies From Heaven and considered it one of the greatest productions he'd ever seen. When Hollywood came to make the movie, he went for it.

Set in Chicago during the Depression, Pennies From Heaven concerned one Arthur Parker (Martin), a sheet-music salesman, married to dull Joan (Jessica Harper). While lying, cheating and double-dealing his way through life, he falls for school-teacher Eileen (Peters) and everyone - most of them terribly deluded - is dreaming of a better life, many of the dreams manifesting themselves in glitzy, old-school musical numbers. Steve danced, he sang, he did everything but comedy. And it was hard work. He spent months learning to tap-dance and received acting lessons from the director, Herbert Ross.

Pennies From Heaven, featuring a now-legendary bar-top dance by Christopher Walken (that's right, he didn't make his dancing debut in that Fatboy Slim video), did not do well. Indeed, like Heaven's Gate and One From The Heart it was a big-budget failure. But it was ambitious, and mad, impressive and beautiful and, like those other two flops, deserves rehabilitation. Steve moved on to Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, directed by Jerk-helmsman Carl Reiner (father of Rob). This was another ingenious effort, a comic tribute to film noir with Steve as private dick Rigby Reardon who, investigating the murder of the father of a mysterious femme fatale (Rachel Ward), gets into serious bother. Cutting techniques allowed slices of old movies to be spliced in, so Martin appeared beside the likes of Bette Davis, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake and James Cagney, with Humphrey Bogart appearing as Martin's assistant. Brilliant stuff.

And there was Bernadette Peters. Aside from being supremely talented and stunningly attractive, she was also a hard-working star, and understood Steve's desire to focus on his career. After all, she had her own. They would see each other until 1981.

As it happened, this period would be one of the most important in Martin's life. Having pushed back the envelope in terms of comedy success, he'd had enough of the life he was leading. He no longer enjoyed stand-up because the huge crowds had turned his shows into "events" where everyone would wear bunny-ears and attempt to participate. "Wait a minute," he was thinking, "this is my little joke. Why are you waving balloons at me during my little joke?" He was also exhausted, occasionally collapsing onstage. In Tennessee they even had to call the paramedics. Beyond this, people were comparing him to Jerry Lewis, something the philosopher in him did not appreciate.

What he wanted was to step away from it all, and he did so in no uncertain terms. In the mid-Seventies, he'd seen Dennis Potter's 6-part, 9-hour imaginative feast Pennies From Heaven and considered it one of the greatest productions he'd ever seen. When Hollywood came to make the movie, he went for it.

Set in Chicago during the Depression, Pennies From Heaven concerned one Arthur Parker (Martin), a sheet-music salesman, married to dull Joan (Jessica Harper). While lying, cheating and double-dealing his way through life, he falls for school-teacher Eileen (Peters) and everyone - most of them terribly deluded - is dreaming of a better life, many of the dreams manifesting themselves in glitzy, old-school musical numbers. Steve danced, he sang, he did everything but comedy. And it was hard work. He spent months learning to tap-dance and received acting lessons from the director, Herbert Ross.

Pennies From Heaven, featuring a now-legendary bar-top dance by Christopher Walken (that's right, he didn't make his dancing debut in that Fatboy Slim video), did not do well. Indeed, like Heaven's Gate and One From The Heart it was a big-budget failure. But it was ambitious, and mad, impressive and beautiful and, like those other two flops, deserves rehabilitation. Steve moved on to Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, directed by Jerk-helmsman Carl Reiner (father of Rob). This was another ingenious effort, a comic tribute to film noir with Steve as private dick Rigby Reardon who, investigating the murder of the father of a mysterious femme fatale (Rachel Ward), gets into serious bother. Cutting techniques allowed slices of old movies to be spliced in, so Martin appeared beside the likes of Bette Davis, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake and James Cagney, with Humphrey Bogart appearing as Martin's assistant. Brilliant stuff.



And there was Bernadette Peters. Aside from being supremely talented and stunningly attractive, she was also a hard-working star, and understood Steve's desire to focus on his career. After all, she had her own. They would see each other until 1981.

As it happened, this period would be one of the most important in Martin's life. Having pushed back the envelope in terms of comedy success, he'd had enough of the life he was leading. He no longer enjoyed stand-up because the huge crowds had turned his shows into "events" where everyone would wear bunny-ears and attempt to participate. "Wait a minute," he was thinking, "this is my little joke. Why are you waving balloons at me during my little joke?" He was also exhausted, occasionally collapsing onstage. In Tennessee they even had to call the paramedics. Beyond this, people were comparing him to Jerry Lewis, something the philosopher in him did not appreciate.

What he wanted was to step away from it all, and he did so in no uncertain terms. In the mid-Seventies, he'd seen Dennis Potter's 6-part, 9-hour imaginative feast Pennies From Heaven and considered it one of the greatest productions he'd ever seen. When Hollywood came to make the movie, he went for it.

Set in Chicago during the Depression, Pennies From Heaven concerned one Arthur Parker (Martin), a sheet-music salesman, married to dull Joan (Jessica Harper). While lying, cheating and double-dealing his way through life, he falls for school-teacher Eileen (Peters) and everyone - most of them terribly deluded - is dreaming of a better life, many of the dreams manifesting themselves in glitzy, old-school musical numbers. Steve danced, he sang, he did everything but comedy. And it was hard work. He spent months learning to tap-dance and received acting lessons from the director, Herbert Ross.

Pennies From Heaven, featuring a now-legendary bar-top dance by Christopher Walken (that's right, he didn't make his dancing debut in that Fatboy Slim video), did not do well. Indeed, like Heaven's Gate and One From The Heart it was a big-budget failure. But it was ambitious, and mad, impressive and beautiful and, like those other two flops, deserves rehabilitation. Steve moved on to Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, directed by Jerk-helmsman Carl Reiner (father of Rob). This was another ingenious effort, a comic tribute to film noir with Steve as private dick Rigby Reardon who, investigating the murder of the father of a mysterious femme fatale (Rachel Ward), gets into serious bother. Cutting techniques allowed slices of old movies to be spliced in, so Martin appeared beside the likes of Bette Davis, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake and James Cagney, with Humphrey Bogart appearing as Martin's assistant. Brilliant stuff.



Though they weren't huge hits, Steve's next run of movies was unbelievably fine. In The Man With Two Brains (like Dead Men co-written by Martin), he played Dr Michael Hfuhruhurr, a widower and brain surgeon who's invented the famous screw-top technique. After saving the life of Kathleen Turner, he marries her and she turns out to be a voracious gold-digger, out for his cash. Visiting mad scientist Dr Necessiter (David Warner), he falls for a talking brain named Ann Uumellmahaye (the voice of Sissy Spacek) and, well, suffice to say it's out-there and extremely funny.

Next came The Lonely Guy, a more morose piece where, having found his girlfriend in bed with someone else, he teams up with fellow dumpee Charles Grodin and comes up with various tactics for picking up women, all of which fail. Then came another classic, All Of Me, once more with Carl Reiner. Here Lily Tomlin played a dying millionairess who tries to have her spirit implanted in the body of a younger woman, Victoria Tennant. Unfortunately, it instead enters the body of her lawyer, Martin, who proceeds to give a stunning performance as a man and a woman battling for control of a man's body. He was rightly nominated for a Golden Globe, as he had been for Pennies From Heaven.

He also found love again, with Tennant. The star of Winds Of War, she came from a cultured English family, her godfather being Laurence Olivier, was well-travelled and spoke several languages. As well as being beautiful, she appealed to the highbrow cosmopolitan in him. In 1986, they eloped and were married in Rome.

That year brought more success onscreen. There was the comedy cowboy flick Three Amigos, directed by John Landis and co-starring SNL buddies Chevy Chase and Martin Short. Then came a classic star turn in Little Shop Of Horrors, directed by Steve's old Muppet-mate Frank Oz. Here he played a sadistic, motorbike-riding dentist, a crazed Elvis impersonator who worships his mama, abuses his girlfriend and ODs nitrous oxide. His grotesque surgical tools would later show up both in Batman and in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers.

Martin had often co-written his movies, adding his peculiar brand of comedy. But now he went for something more ambitious, adapting Cyrano de Bergerac for the screen in Roxanne. Here he played fire-chief CD Bales, a man with poetry in his heart and an enormous schnozz on his face. Falling for siren Daryl Hannah, he finds himself wooing her on behalf of dopey but hunky employee Rick Rossovich. It was a great success, and that continued. In John Hughes' Planes, Trains And Automobiles, he was Neal Page, a nice guy just trying to get home to spend Thanksgiving with his wife and child. His misfortune begins with a superb sequence where he races a sublimely smug Kevin Bacon for the only taxi in town. And then he meets shower-ring salesman John Candy and is forced to travel with him, even sharing a bed (remember the early morning shriek of "Those aren't PILLOWS!"?). It just gets worse.


After this came two more brilliant movies. First Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, once more with Frank Oz. Here he was Freddy Benson, a small-time con-man who, plying his trade on the Riviera, comes into competition with high-grade rip-off merchant Michael Caine. Working together, double-crossing each other constantly, they cause extra-merry hell. The same year, 1988, Steve made his Broadway debut in Mike Nichols' production of Waiting For Godot. His co-star was another highly intelligent clown with a penchant for philosophy - Robin Williams.

Next came Ron Howard's Parenthood. This saw Steve as Gil Buckman, married to the wonderful Mary Steenburgen and trying to make the best of a dysfunctional family, including a fear-paralysed son, a dominating father (Jason Robards), a wastrel brother (Tom Hulce), an education-obsessed brother (Rick Moranis) and a sister (Dianne Wiest) who can't stop her daughter seeing Keanu Reeves. One of the finest feel-good movies of all time, it allowed Martin to once more play many of his party tricks, and included a fantastic scene where Steenburgen, wanting to relax a ludicrously stressed Martin, does something she perhaps shouldn't. At least not while he's driving.

The hits kept coming. In My Blue Heaven, written by Nora "Sleepless In Seattle" Ephron, he played a Mob informer protected by FBI agent Moranis but unable to keep a low profile. Next he returned to writing with LA Story, where he played weatherman Harris K Telemacher. Cuckolded by girlfriend Marilu Henner, he takes up with Valley Girl sexpot Sarah Jessica Parker, then falls for Brit journalist Victoria Tennant. Not unakin to the work of Jacques Tati, it, like The Lonely Guy, was all about the pursuit of happiness in a cold, modern world.

1991 was an odd year for Martin. Aside from LA Story, there was the roustabout hit Father Of The Bride, a remake of the Spencer Tracy classic, where Steve played George Stanley Parks, a man unable to cope with his daughter's impending nuptials or her extravagant reception. Martin Short provided the overblown cameo here, as the event co-ordinator. And then there was the angsty, reflective Grand Canyon. Directed by Laurence "Big Chill" Kasdan, this dealt with the social and spiritual emptiness of Los Angeles. Hardly a barrel of laughs.

1992 was interesting, too. First there was Housesitter, yet again with Frank Oz, where he played a rich guy who proposes to Dana Delany but is turned down - a shame as he's built a house for her. And it gets worse when, having had a one-nighter with Goldie Hawn, she finds the house, moves in and tells his friends, neighbours and family that they're married. He wants her out, but everyone likes her so much he has a very hard time doing so.


Now came a dark period. Steve was fine as Sgt Bilko in the movie adaptation, but the film was a big flop. On top of the Heche experience, this was a bad blow. He lost confidence and took an extended time-out. He made a low-budget return as mysterious stranger Jimmy Dell in David Mamet's slow, convoluted The Spanish Prisoner. Then came The Out-Of-Towners, a reunion with Goldie Hawn, and a remake of Neil Simon's earlier effort, starring Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis. Here Steve and Goldie played a couple who've fallen out of love over 25 years, and suffer every possible tourist-nightmare on their way to a job interview in New York. Planes, Trains and Goldie Hawn, really.

Those in the know reckoned Steve Martin, without a big hit for nearly a decade, was finished. Then up popped Eddie Murphy, old mucker Frank Oz and Bowfinger, the first script Steve had written in years. Here Steve played a producer desperate to get his sci-fi picture made. Big star Murphy won't get involved, so they rope in Murphy's poor brother (also played by Murphy), a super ambitious Heather Graham and a drama queen of a stage actress, secretly film the star Murphy going about his everyday business, and attempt to splice a feature together from the dodgy footage. It was funny, clever and a big hit. Steve was back.

For a while, Steve concentrated on writing. He released a novel, Shopgirl, concerning the sweet but wallflowerish Mirabelle, who charms a wealthy businessman twice her age, the pair of them struggling to come to terms with this odd relationship. It was tender, thoughtful and wise - Steve did, after all, have experience.

After this, there was a cameo in Stanley Tucci's Joe Gould's Secret, and an appearance as host of the 2001 Oscars, for which he was Emmy-nominated. And then came Novocaine where, for the second time, he played a dentist. This time, however, he's the hard-done-by one, being conned by patient Helena Bonham Carter into prescribing her drugs. After this, his whole life falls slowly and hilariously to pieces.

Sadly, his real life did, too. During filming, Steve began a relationship with Helena which he was very keen to continue. But, aside from being 21 years younger than him, she had just split from Kenneth Branagh after 5 years and was in no mood to enter another serious relationship. They split after a few months, Steve the lonely guy once more. And he'd take the lonely guy persona into his next big role. After a cameo in Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch, he starred in In The Houze where he played a poor wretch trying to meet women on the 'Net. Unfortunately, the one he meets is jailbird Queen Latifah who breaks out of pokey to be with him, bringing utter chaos to his nice middle-class life.

Having given us all those laughs, it seems sad that Steve Martin should be sat on his own, surrounded by an art collection including works by Hockney, Hopper and Picasso, but wracked by the fear that he'll be left on the shelf. This is the man who said "All I ever wanted was an honest week's pay for an honest day's work" and "I believe that sex is the most beautiful, natural and wholesome thing that money can buy". He deserves happiness - he's given so much to others. All we can say is thanks, Steve, and good luck.

FILMOGRAPHY

Dominic Wills


Now came a dark period. Steve was fine as Sgt Bilko in the movie adaptation, but the film was a big flop. On top of the Heche experience, this was a bad blow. He lost confidence and took an extended time-out. He made a low-budget return as mysterious stranger Jimmy Dell in David Mamet's slow, convoluted The Spanish Prisoner. Then came The Out-Of-Towners, a reunion with Goldie Hawn, and a remake of Neil Simon's earlier effort, starring Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis. Here Steve and Goldie played a couple who've fallen out of love over 25 years, and suffer every possible tourist-nightmare on their way to a job interview in New York. Planes, Trains and Goldie Hawn, really.

Those in the know reckoned Steve Martin, without a big hit for nearly a decade, was finished. Then up popped Eddie Murphy, old mucker Frank Oz and Bowfinger, the first script Steve had written in years. Here Steve played a producer desperate to get his sci-fi picture made. Big star Murphy won't get involved, so they rope in Murphy's poor brother (also played by Murphy), a super ambitious Heather Graham and a drama queen of a stage actress, secretly film the star Murphy going about his everyday business, and attempt to splice a feature together from the dodgy footage. It was funny, clever and a big hit. Steve was back.

For a while, Steve concentrated on writing. He released a novel, Shopgirl, concerning the sweet but wallflowerish Mirabelle, who charms a wealthy businessman twice her age, the pair of them struggling to come to terms with this odd relationship. It was tender, thoughtful and wise - Steve did, after all, have experience.

After this, there was a cameo in Stanley Tucci's Joe Gould's Secret, and an appearance as host of the 2001 Oscars, for which he was Emmy-nominated. And then came Novocaine where, for the second time, he played a dentist. This time, however, he's the hard-done-by one, being conned by patient Helena Bonham Carter into prescribing her drugs. After this, his whole life falls slowly and hilariously to pieces.

Sadly, his real life did, too. During filming, Steve began a relationship with Helena which he was very keen to continue. But, aside from being 21 years younger than him, she had just split from Kenneth Branagh after 5 years and was in no mood to enter another serious relationship. They split after a few months, Steve the lonely guy once more. And he'd take the lonely guy persona into his next big role. After a cameo in Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch, he starred in In The Houze where he played a poor wretch trying to meet women on the 'Net. Unfortunately, the one he meets is jailbird Queen Latifah who breaks out of pokey to be with him, bringing utter chaos to his nice middle-class life.

Having given us all those laughs, it seems sad that Steve Martin should be sat on his own, surrounded by an art collection including works by Hockney, Hopper and Picasso, but wracked by the fear that he'll be left on the shelf. This is the man who said "All I ever wanted was an honest week's pay for an honest day's work" and "I believe that sex is the most beautiful, natural and wholesome thing that money can buy". He deserves happiness - he's given so much to others. All we can say is thanks, Steve, and good luck.


Dominic Wills

- posted by sookeyjane 8/27/2003 10:34:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Something on BDtH

http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/03/17/people.cel.martin/index.html

CELEBRITY NEWS

Steve Martin's many roles
A perfect punchline
By Karen S. Schneider
PEOPLE
Monday, March 17, 2003 Posted: 2:52 PM EST (1952 GMT)

"There's a side of him that's extremely private, where he just wants to be by himself," Frank Oz says of his pal Martin.

(PEOPLE) -- Steve Martin is a careful man.

He keeps his collection of modern art meticulously catalogued in his laptop computer, and when playing craps with his longtime pal and gambling buddy Tony Andress, a Houston oilman, he arranged his money, says Andress, "in little stacks of ones and fives and tens and twenties."

He is mindful to remember the birthdays of friends, to answer their e-mails promptly -- and to keep his word. "If I call him on a bad day he'll just say, 'Let's talk Friday at noon,'" says Leigh Haber, editor on two of his three bestselling books ("Cruel Shoes," "Pure Drivel" and "Shopgirl"). "And that's what happens. You talk Friday at noon."

Though comedian pal Rita Rudner calls him "by nature a disciplined, organized man," now and then he's compelled to take a break -- as he did for a scene in the comedy "Bringing Down the House," when he put on gold chains and busted moves at a hip-hop club. But once director Adam Shankman called "Cut!" Martin, 57, was back to his New York Times crossword puzzle and a world where Eminem is just a chocolate candy. The culture he got a taste of in "House," he says with a laugh, is "foreign to me, and it shows."

But it also pays. The movie, featuring Martin as an uptight attorney whose life is upended by a foulmouthed, bighearted convict played by Queen Latifah, topped the box office with a $31.1 million opening weekend. Collecting Picassos and Seurats, writing for The New Yorker and hosting the Oscars (he'll do his second gig March 23) may make Martin happy, but so does falling funny into a pool. "House" gives him a chance to do the kind of physical comedy he enjoys as much as he did some 30 years ago, when he first wowed a "Tonight Show" audience by playing his banjo with a gag arrow stuck through his head. Says Shankman: "The first day of shooting he came up to me and said, 'I forgot how much fun this is.' He was like a kid; he was giddy."

From Waco, Texas
A rare state for the native of Waco, Texas, who grew up in a house where, he's said, "there was not a lot of hugging and kissing. We were not vocal or loud." A lifetime later, ensconced in his Manhattan apartment or in what Shankman calls his "warm, homey" house in L.A., Martin is far more content -- but hardly more vocal.

Friends like Frank Oz, who directed him in "Bowfinger," "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," "Housesitter" and "Little Shop of Horrors," know better than to inquire about, say, the details of his dating life. In December he was stepping out with New Yorker staffer Anne Stringfield, 30; now he is seeing Manhattan humor writer Patty Marx, 49. A Pennsylvania native who was one of the first female writers for "Saturday Night Live" as well as for the Harvard Lampoon, Marx uses Martin's books to teach comedy writing at New York University. She will confirm that they have a more personal connection only with a "Yeah, sorta."

As for Oz: "I don't ask him about personal stuff." But as his "House" daughter Kimberly J. Brown, 18, discovered, Martin himself knows no such bounds. "He asked a lot about how young people go on dates now, like 'Who pays? Do you meet the parents?' It was odd," she says, "but sweet."

Maybe it was just research. After all, the comic has been getting joke material from just about everyone else he knows. According to friend and former Monty Python member Eric Idle, Martin has been in a "panic" for the past few months, preparing to make 50 million or so viewers at the Academy Awards laugh. Whether over dinner with friends or in his frequent e-mail chats, "he'll try out material on us," says Idle. "We're like his test audience. It's a nightmare for Steve, a terrifying experience. The fact that he's done it before doesn't stop the angst."

What might? A night at home with his yellow Lab Roger and the new banjo Queen Latifah gave him. Says Shankman: "He gets this really relaxed look on his face when he plays." And in truth, not even a gold statue can compare with that.

Julie Jordan, Kwala Mandel, Ruth Andrew Ellenson, Shermakaye Bass, Rachel Felder and LIza Hamm contributed to this report.


- posted by sookeyjane 8/27/2003 08:21:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Something I just found on Shopgirl

http://www.cnn.com/2000/books/news/11/02/steve.martin/index.html

Comedian, actor, now 'Shopgirl' novelist measures words carefully
Steve Martin, seriously
November 2, 2000
Web posted at: 11:08 a.m. EST (1608 GMT)
by Leah Lessard
Special to CNN Interactive

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Steve Martin raises a leaden arm and gives the air an exhausted punch. "Don't worry," he reassures the audience in a wilted voice, "I'm still a wild and crazzzy guy."

The refrain and its accompanying gesture are delivered with a mocking half-heartedness that brings laughter from a literary Los Angeles audience. They've gathered to hear Martin -- the one-time star of "The Jerk" who used to wear an arrow through his head while dancing with "happy feet" -- talk about his new novella, "Shopgirl" (Hyperion).

Of course, the "wild and crazy guy" Martin was more than 20 years ago. In 1988, he won the coveted Writers Guild award for his "Cyrano de Bergerac"-inspired screenplay, "Roxanne," and since then, he has rather inconspicuously amassed writing credits in virtually every genre. He's written a well-received play ("Picasso at the Lapin Agile") and has become a regular contributor to The New Yorker. He has earned a reputation within the literary community as a serious writer of exceptional talent.

So now the truth is out: Steve Martin is more Renaissance man than maniac.

But was the distraction intentional? Could it be that while Martin was bobbing to "King Tut," he was secretly creating those plays and essays? Was that arrow through his head meant to divert attention while he honed the finer plot points of his future films "L.A. Story" and "Bowfinger"?

Not according to the former white-suited comedian himself. Martin sees "Shopgirl," a delicate portrait of a group of L.A. souls, as simply a natural extension to his previous works.

"I'm very proud to be a writer," Martin said. "I'm not trying to run away from 'comedian.' I love that. It's like the big umbrella of labels for me."

The bookworm from high school
Still, speaking with Martin today is more like talking to the bookworm from high school than the class clown. His ideas can be lofty (he holds a degree in philosophy, after all), such as when he talks about the different tasks of the conscious and subconscious mind in writing.

But there is nothing pretentious about Steve Martin. If he is talking about art, he is more likely to express a passion for art that is "accessible" than his own distinguished collection. He is more prone to refer to David Mamet's sentiments about writing (Martin worked with the prize-winning playwright on the film "The Spanish Prisoner") than talk about his own Emmys (or motives) for writing.

Steve Martin chooses his words carefully, yet is warm, disarming, and honest. It is a tone that resonates through "Shopgirl."

"Shopgirl" doesn't contain any zany passages that evoke knee-slapping belly laughs. The humor is present yet quiet; lucid, not ludicrous. Still, Martin's wit is irrepressible when it comes to translating the peculiarities of the City of Angels:

"In Los Angeles you can live in the tiniest apartment in the tiniest cul-de-sac with a 1/4 in your address and twenty minutes after placing an order a foreigner will knock on your door bearing yam fries and meatless meatloaf."
The book's original title was "Bergdorf's Girl," and it was going to be a play about the fragile relationship between a young clerk at an upscale New York department store and the older man she falls for. But Martin returned to Los Angeles and decided to recast the idea as a novella, changing the city and the department store in the process. Still, the writer stayed true to his original conception.

"I knew I wanted to write about this relationship, or this type of relationship," says Martin.

The result of living life
"Shopgirl" is the story of Mirabelle, a demure, 28-year-old woman who works behind the glove counter at the Beverly Hills Neiman Marcus, and Ray, a rich, 50-something businessman. What develops is a love story of the familiar and painful sort between two people who misunderstand each other -- and themselves. (The author writes of Ray, "If he thinks he would harm Mirabelle, he would back away. But he does not yet understand when and how people are hurt." )

Martin is clear that "Shopgirl" is not an autobiography in the strict sense. It is, rather, the result of living life.

"It's an accumulation. Many of the minor events in the book were verbatim from experiences I've had or people have told me," he says.

"When you start writing, it's amazing what you remember, and it's not major events. It's little tiny moments, and they have so much power."

One such moment took place two or three years ago when a female friend told Martin that she was going to a party and her goal was not be a wallflower.


"I found that so poignant," says Martin.

The character of Mirabelle appears to be a wallflower as well, though, as Martin writes, "What Mirabelle needs is some omniscient voice to illuminate and spotlight her, and to inform everyone that this one has value, this one over here." She spends dull, lonely days perched above a glass case of obsolete apparel, only to drive across town to her marginal existence in a sparse apartment she shares with two cats (one of which stays hidden under the bed).

Early in the book, Mirabelle's solitary evenings are comprised of sketching silhouettes of herself against black backgrounds and hoping she will get a phone call from either Jeremy, the blase young guy she occasionally dates, or one of her two unreliable girlfriends. She's also trying to stay a step ahead -- and a prescription away -- from the crushing depression that has marred her past.

Ray Porter enters Mirabelle's life by buying a pair of Dior gloves from her. He then mails them to her with a note that reads, "I would like to have dinner with you."

A man in his 50s, Ray is still trying to understand women. "This fact-finding mission, in the guise of philandering, is necessary because as a youth, he failed to observe women properly," Martin writes. On the surface, Ray and Mirabelle would not seem to be a good match: He believes that sex and commitment are unrelated enterprises; she believes that there are four distinct levels of being held.

Little conversation
There is very little dialogue in "Shopgirl." At first, this creates a certain remote quality, as though the reader can look at the characters -- like gloves on display -- yet not touch them. But when the characters do talk, the effect is dramatic, like the first Technicolor scene in "The Wizard of Oz."

Martin wrote "Shopgirl" that way by design, he says.

"The conversation between these two people is not scintillating. It can't be snappy and it can't be sharp and cynical and satirical. It's mostly, 'hi,' 'yeah,' 'how are you,' 'what's goin' on?', which is not good dialogue reading," says Martin. "But that's how most people talk and how these two probably talked, although there's an undercurrent always."

The writing in "Shopgirl" is fluid and at times gorgeous, making one hope that "Shopgirl" is the first of many novels. But when asked if there any planned, Martin is noncommittal.

"You have to sit and wait until your mind thinks for you," he says.


- posted by sookeyjane 8/27/2003 08:16:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



A bit in an article about Steve's upcoming fall movies


Associated Press
August 25, 2003, Monday, BC cycle
Entertainment News
Hollywood goes on warpath in battle-heavy fall lineup
By DAVID GERMAIN, AP Movie Writer

LOS ANGELES: [excerpt]

Also in family-flick mode is Steve Martin, who stars in an update of "Cheaper by the Dozen," a parenthood comedy about a couple with 12 kids, and plays the villain in "Looney Tunes: Back in Action," pairing him and Brendan Frazer with Bugs, Daffy and other Warner Bros. cartoon creatures.

"This will probably be considered the biggest performance I've ever given, the most over the top," Martin said. "You're working with Daffy Duck. So what am I going to do, be sensitive?"
- posted by sookeyjane 8/26/2003 11:23:00 AM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



An oldie, but one I didn't have

http://www.hollywood.com/celebs/features/feature/1097238

Two amigos: Martin and Short, together again
By Scott Huver, Hollywood.com Staff

Beverly Hills, Calif., Oct. 30, 2001-- As an accomplished actor, comedian, magician, author, playwright, screenwriter, Oscar host, New Yorker columnist and banjo maestro (he duets with the legendary Earl Scruggs on an upcoming album), Steve Martin may be Hollywood's leading Renaissance Man, but he hasn't forgotten his old friends.
At a media junket to promote his upcoming film Novocaine, a sly and subtle send-up of the crime noir genre in which the comic plays a dentist embroiled in a seamy murder plot, Martin surprised journalists by popping into a suite at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons with his frequent co-star Martin Short in tow. who just happened to be staying at the hotel. Although Short doesn't appear in Novocaine, he's co-starred with Martin in three big screen projects (Three Amigos and two Father of the Bride films).

Short burst into the room on Martin's heels and it seemed he could easily take over the interview session with his trademark high-volume energy, but instead practiced restraint, only occasionally tossing off what Jiminy Glick might call "the patented Marty Short zinger" from his seat on the couch while the silver-haired actor fielded questions from the press.

"I'm a lazy guy," said Martin, dismissing the notion that to be so diverse and prolific he must be constantly in front of the camera or the word processor. "I know it looks like I'm always working, but I'm not."He also reacted calmly to claims by some dental professionals that their profession is often maligned in the pop culture. "Only twice. By me," he said, referring to his over-the-top turn as a laughing gas-huffing oral surgeon in Little Shop of Horrors (1986). His worst experience on the other side of the dentist's chair? "All of them!"

When I asked if he would ever consent to be interviewed by the portly and perpetually misinformed Hollywood chat host Jiminy Glick on Comedy Central's Primetime Glick again, Martin angrily shot back "Never!" then winced as he realized that Glick's alter-ego was glaring at him from the sofa. "Oh God, Marty's in the room," Martin whispered, then diplomatically explained that Jiminy was looking for fresher faces to grill these days.

Indeed, Short told me--after indulging me with a few resonant "wonderful, wonderful" Glickisms, which my more easily amused friends and I are hopelessly addicted to--he had just come from another Four Seasons suite where he had interviewed Ben Stiller and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss in his full fat-suit regalia--which explained why I spotted the former Seinfeld star in the lobby earlier. "Steve wandered up and now we're having lunch," Short said.

The two comedy legends split to break bread before I could ask if they were working on an upcoming project together. But as Jiminy might say, I haven't heard anything about it but I know that it's wonderful, wonderful.







- posted by sookeyjane 8/25/2003 07:23:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



More Scots wha hae

Sunday Mail
August 24, 2003, Sunday
NEWS; Pg. 3
MONARCHS OF LONACH;
BIG TAM JOINS BIG YIN AT GAMES
BY: Georgina Balston

THE Big Yin made sure his favourite Highland Games were a smash yesterday - by inviting along Big Tam.

Billy Connolly was joined by Sir Sean Connery - both sporting salt-and-pepper beards - at the Lonach Games in Strathdon, Aberdeenshire.

Wearing a tartan ribbon on his tanned-coloured corduroy jacket, Connery was accompanied by his wife Micheline at the star-studded bash.

Also joining in the fun were actress Anna Friel - who starred with Connolly in the forthcoming adventure film Timeline, and her actor boyfriend David Thewlis.

Travis singer Fran Healy, who was dressed in tartan, was there with the rest of his band. Asked which tartan he had on, he laughed: "No idea... as long as it's not Rangers."

Fran and Connolly, who are both keen Celtic fans, missed their side's lunchtime victory over Partick Thistle on TV.

When told that the game kicked off early, Billy said: "Oh no! That means we have gone and missed the whole damned thing." Other big names at the games included regular guests Dame Judi Dench, American actor Steve Martin and Connolly's old friend Michael Parkinson.

In full Highland kit, the Big Yin spent the afternoon laughing and joking with daughters Scarlett and Cara, grandson Walter and his wife Pamela Stephenson.

He later presented his own trophy to the winner of the open piping contest.

Former Brookside star Friel also joined in the spirit of things by handing out sweets to children in the stand.

The collection of stars helped to attract a crowd of around 12,000 to yesterday's gathering.

Show secretary George Thompson said: "Billy and his guests had a great time. They always enjoy themselves here."

Later, the celebrities were expected to attend a ceilidh at Connolly's nearby home, Candacraig, in honour of Sir Sean, who will be 73 tomorrow.
- posted by sookeyjane 8/24/2003 06:48:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



It's that time of year.... Steve is in Scotland again

Sunday Mirror
August 24, 2003, Sunday
NEWS; Pg. 9
THE KILTY PARTY;
STARS TURN OUT IN TRADITIONAL GEAR FOR BIG YIN'S GAMES
BY: STUART PATTERSON

IT'S A HOOT, MON: Billy Connolly, above, and ex-Brookie girl Anna Friel, left; GRANDSTAND VIEW: Sean Connery

FAMOUS Celtic fans Billy Connolly and Sean Connery yesterday missed watching their beloved team to attend Highland games.

The superstar pair of die-hard supporters forgot the football game kicked off early at 12.30pm.

So, instead of watching it live on TV, they were both sitting in the main grandstand at Billy's local Lonach Gathering in Strathdon, Aberdeenshire.

When told the game kicked off early, Billy said: "Oh no! That means we have gone and missed the whole damned thing."

But Billy, who kept the Lonach games supporters waiting last year as he viewed Celtic on TV, put on a brave face.

He added: "I would have liked very much to see the game today, but never mind."

The comedian and the former James Bond star - accompanied by his wife Micheline - were joined at the games by Hollywood star Steve Martin and actress Dame Judi Dench.

Despite being on his sick-bed with flu last week, Connolly was on great form, cracking jokes and signing autographs.

But his full Highland dress, including tweed jacket, seemed to be too hot for the blazing sunshine.

At one point, he slipped away from the grandstand to buy himself an ice cream cone to cool down.

Since Connolly bought his estate five years ago near Connery's Scottish pile, the comedian and his family have become regular fixtures at the Lonach Gathering, along with Hollywood stars.

But funnyman Steve Martin seemed distracted and found it hard to raise a smile.

By contrast, Dame Judi joined in with the crowds and tried on hats at one of the stalls.

This year's Lonach Gathering - the 162nd - started as it does every year with the Men of Lonach making a six-mile trek through their picturesque glen.

They stopped off at every house on the way, including Connolly's Candacraig, and enjoyed their traditional dram.

The Lonach games were once a modest affair but the patronage of Connolly and his famous friends has helped it to become one of the most popular in the Highland Games circuit.

Its popularity is rivalled only by Royal favourite, the Braemar Gathering, which takes place in two weeks' time.

Connolly fell in love with the Strathdon area near Aberdeen when he filmed Mrs Brown with Dame Judi.

He bought Candacraig House and the surrounding estate, which was owned at the time by Anita Roddick, and the former shipyard welder quickly grew into the role of Highland laird.

He was even made an honorary member of the Lonach Highland Society after donating cash from a show to renovate a local hall.

But despite the stars giving the games their high-profile reputation, event organisers have spoken out against them.

They complained that the celebrities were beginning to overshadow the competitors and the hardy Men of Lonach.

Yesterday, singer Fran Healey and the other band members of top Scots group Travis were at the star-studded bash, dressed in tartan with a not so traditional tammy.

With no idea what tartan he was wearing, Fran joked: "As long as it's not Rangers!"

Other new faces included ex-Brookie star Anna Friel, who was in tweed jacket and jodhpurs and was joined by her actor partner David Thewlis, after starring with Connolly in new adventure film Timeline.

Actor, comedian and writer Kevin Nealon and his companion, actress Susan Yeagley, made an 11-hour journey to the games.

The Saturday Night Live star had got to know Connolly through his contact with Monty Python funnyman Eric Idle. Yeagley is set to appear in the next George Clooney film.

Actor Aidan Quinn was among the stars, as was chat show host Michael Parkinson.

Also among the guests was 20-year-old leukaemia victim Millie Forbes, who is a step closer to finding the vital bone marrow match that could save her life. Billy Connolly highlighted Millie's desperate race against time to find a life-saving donor after a search of 320,000 donors on the Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust register failed to find a match for the student.

Since Millie's plight touched the heart of the nation the Trust has been inundated with applications from thousands of potential donors.

- posted by sookeyjane 8/24/2003 06:39:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



A bit about Cheaper by the Dozen

Written and Reported by Jennifer Armstrong, Rebecca Ascher-Walsh, Sumeet Bal, Karyn L. Barr, Mandi Bierly, Scott Brown, Bob Cann,
Entertainment Weekly, 08-22-2003, pp 82.
December
[excerpt]

Cheaper by the Dozen

STARRING Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Hilary Duff, Piper Perabo, Tom Welling WRITTEN BY Craig Titley, Sam Harper DIRECTED BY Shawn Levy THE KILLER MOMENT After his underwear gets soaked in a vat of meat, Ashton Kutcher (making a cameo) gets some unwanted below-the-belt attention from the family dog.

Not so much a remake of the 1950 original (which, needless to say, did not include the aforementioned Killer Moment), but an updated reinvention, Cheaper finds Martin again doing the Parenthood thing, as a college football coach and dad to 12 kids. Things turn slapsticky when Martin's author wife (Hunt, who penned an early draft of the screenplay) goes on tour for her new book, leaving him home alone with their brood. "This is a very different movie from the original- -the character is different, the situation different, the crisis is different," says Martin, who agreed to star after superproducer Brian Grazer vouched for Levy, the up-and-coming helmer behind Just Married and Big Fat Liar.

Kutcher's canine crotchcapades aside, Cheaper milks many of its yuks from Martin and Hunt's quick-witted interplay. Says Levy, "They riff so cleverly, most of us are playing catch-up." WHAT'S AT STAKE In the wake of Bringing Down the House, this could consolidate (or squelch) Martin's return to the A list. (Dec. 25)

- posted by sookeyjane 8/22/2003 08:45:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Steve stars in Rutles 2 -- okay, maybe not stars, but he's in there

http://www.dailyllama.com/news/2003/llama196.html

RUTLES 2: CAN'T BUY ME LUNCH TO HAVE WORLD PREMIERE IN LOS ANGELES
by Hans ten Cate
Tuesday, 5 August 2003

Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch will premiere at the Don't Knock the Rock Festival on August 16, 7:30 PM and 11:45 PM at the ArcLight Cinemas
After sitting on a shelf at Warner Brothers for over a year, Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch, the much anticipated sequel to Eric Idle's 1978 mockumentary, will receive its world premiere in Los Angeles on August 16. The screening is part of the first annual Don't Knock the Rock Festival, which is being held August 15-17 in various venues throughout Hollywood.

The festival's organizers have arranged two showings, the first at 7:30 PM and again at 11:45 PM that same night. Both screenings will take place at the ArcLight Cinema on Sunset Blvd.

The first Don't Knock the Rock Festival launches what will be an annual film and music event celebrating the rock and roll roots of Hollywood. The three-day festival is a historical journey of classic and new rock and roll films.

Saturday night will be the world premiere of Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch, which actually wrapped production last year. Written and directed by Eric Idle, Rutles 2 is the sequel to All You Need is Cash and, like the original, it is a parody of the myriad documentaries made about the Beatles.

For Rutles 2, Eric dug up some outtakes and old footage from the original documentary. “Yes, there's found footage,” confessed Eric. “I went to New Jersey and found the original outtakes – the negatives – which are fabulous. Mechanically, you could just process them, and the positive was all fresh and great.” [1] In addition, the film uses the Rutles' second album, Archeology (1996), to look back on the Rutles' influence on contemporary artists.

“It’s a documentary with my same narrator character,” said Eric, “only it’s 30 years later, and he goes around talking to Salman Rushdie, Tom Hanks, James Taylor, David Bowie and Bonnie Raitt about how the world has been influenced, and how their lives have been changed by the Rutles.” [2]


The same narrator (Eric Idle), nearly 25 years later, outside the same famed hotel in which the same Rutles actually stayed Tom Hanks tells how the Rutles released the world's first and only triangular LP record

“He pursues Jennifer Lopez and Madonna trying to get interviews, which is really funny, and Gary Shandling is just brilliant. I made it under the aegis of Lorne Michaels again, and we sold it to Warners.” [2] For reasons unbeknownst to even Eric, Warner Brothers sat on the project and the film has, until recently, only seen limited test screenings. August 16 will be the official world premiere.


Rutles 2 will feature some "found footage" and outtakes from the original documentary Hans Hänkie (Robin Williams) discusses the impact the Rutles had on Germany

The cast includes Eric Idle, Neil Innes, Ricky Fataar and John Halsey as The Rutles, along with Rutles fans and foes David Bowie, Billy Connolly, Carrie Fisher, Tom Hanks, Jewel, Steve Martin, Mike Nichols, Conan O'Brien, Salman Rushdie, Garry Shandling, Robin Williams, and cameos from the first installment by Mick Jagger, George Harrison, and Ron Wood.


- posted by sookeyjane 8/17/2003 02:35:00 PM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Just for the record....

Steve's essay was in the New York Times as follows:

The New York Times
August 8, 2003, Friday, Late Edition - Final
Section A; Page 17; Column 1; Editorial Desk
It All Depends on What You Mean by 'Have'

- posted by sookeyjane 8/17/2003 01:05:00 AM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



This article has a section about Steve, but I put the whole thing here for completeness

Sydney Morning Herald
August 16, 2003 Saturday
Metropolitan; Pg. 5
Fred Of The Family
By Anthony Dennis

He was the best director in Hollywood not making movies - now he has been adopted by the Douglas clan.

It Runs in the Family opens on Thursday.

It's been three decades or so since Fred Schepisi - and fellow directors Peter Weir, Bruce Beresford and Phil Noyce - rode the new wave of Australian cinema into Hollywood. Now in their 50s and 60s, they are largely long gone from our shores.

The process of ageing figures prominently in Schepisi's last film, Last Orders, and the film he was recently in Sydney to promote, It Runs in the Family.

He is 62, but does not necessarily look it with his smooth, pale skin and rosy cheeks. His girth is generous though not excessive. His oversized grin extends from earlobe to earlobe at the notion that Australia's original new wave is, if not over the hill, then at least within a glimpse of it.

"Peter Weir's very old," he says.

"In fact, Bruce Beresford's ancient, you know. You'd better make sure that comes across as irony. Tom Stoppard says there should be a typeface for irony. As for me, well, I'm only 12 years old and I intend to stay that way."

It Runs in the Family features one of cinema's most illustrious clans, the Douglases. It's the first film Kirk and son Michael have appeared in together. And it's not a moment too soon, with Douglas snr making the movie, his 86th, in his 86th year.

It tells the story of a cantankerous New York Jewish family, the uncommunicative Grombergs (who might well be the Grimbergs), struggling with the kind of suffocating familial issues that build into layers of bitterness over generations.

The film is distinguished by the remarkably indefatigable performance of Kirk, delivering his lines with impaired speech caused by a stroke. It Runs in the Family is notable, as well, for the on-screen debut of Cameron Douglas, Michael's 24-year-old son.

Schepisi was uncertain whether Cameron would apply himself to his work with an acting coach or possess the talent to perform in the company of two of "the most polished actors of their generation".

However, his overriding concern was for Kirk. "I sat with him," he says. "I tested him. Actually, the first time I met him he had a couple of whiskies and his diction was not good at all. I was very nervous after that meeting."

Kirk's speech caused Schepisi to hesitate about the project but he was persuaded by Baz Luhrmann, who stopped him on a New York street one day and asked if was going to do the movie.

"He said, 'You should do that picture. It's a chance to make history. You've got to do it. Don't be mad,' " Schepisi recalls. "I agreed with him."

Schepisi says that he somehow "plotted a course" to ensure Kirk's speech wasn't a liability.

The results are gruelling for the viewer. Schepisi concedes that Kirk's impaired diction is "not something we're used to hearing on the screen".

If it was a challenge for Schepisi to work with the Douglases en masse - even Michael's mother and Kirk's ex-wife, Diana Douglas, has a role as Mrs Gromberg - it was a greater one for the family themselves.

"Michael looked around at the end of the first week and said, 'Oh, this is too much family for me' and then darted off to his motorhome. And, really, everything had been fine, but saying it out loud like that made everybody relax.

"And with that much family, in those intense circumstances, for that long a period, you would expect there would be some arguments but there was not one cross word. It was really quite pleasurable, it was good."

Like his Australian contemporaries, Schepisi, responsible for groundbreaking works such as The Devil's Playground, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and the underrated Evil Angels, was lured to Hollywood by the prospect of bigger budgets.

Perhaps paradoxically, having left Australia in the early 1980s, Schepisi has developed an unenviable reputation for struggling to get projects to the screen. For nearly a decade he was the best director in Hollywood not making films. There were seven years between 1994's I.Q. and the much admired Last Orders , with its stellar British cast including Helen Mirren and Bob Hoskins.

Schepisi's latest problem project is Picasso at the Lapin Agile, written by the comedian-cum-playwright, Steve Martin. It is $US1 million ($1.5 million) short of what he believes he needs to get it to the big screen.

"I've never made excessively expensive films. I've always made them for just the right amount of money that enables them to be made the way they should be made. I should be shooting Picasso at the Lapin Agile right now.

"The producer's going, 'Look, this is all you can get, so let's cut our cloth accordingly and we'll make it for $12 million instead of $13.5 million.' They don't understand. I've already cut the costs as it was then and it'd be more expensive now."
Of course, securing a decent budget is not always a path to success. Some US critics panned It Runs in the Family for being a flawed indulgence by the Douglas family and, pointedly, a waste of the director's talents.

After this film and Last Orders, which dealt with death in an ageing community, Schepisi appears to be Hollywood's unofficial custodian of old codgers. During the interview, he is interrupted by a telephone call from Los Angeles. It's about 78-year-old Paul Newman and his role in Empire Falls - a "made-for-television movie" about small-town America for the cable network HBO.

Schepisi explains HBO has been pursuing him for five years to make a television movie and even placed him on an annual salary. It's not ideal but he is pragmatic. "It's a very poor-paying area," he says. "But you get it done fast and you can do it as an adult, exactly as you want it, because you don't have to deal with all the usual nonsense."

He also has a number of Australian films in the pipeline. There's a project about an Aboriginal fighter pilot in World War II and one about teenage hitchhikers travelling down the east coast. Schepisi also has a script based on the Robyn Davidson classic, Tracks, about her camel trek through the Australian outback. He figures he'll need at least $20 million to make it but his ambition is held hostage by, yes, finance.
- posted by sookeyjane 8/17/2003 12:47:00 AM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



Steve writes a new piece for the NY Times, but others like it, too

The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec)
August 11, 2003 Monday Final Edition
Editorial / Op-ed; Pg. A19
It depends on what you mean by 'have': Did Iraq have WMD? Who knows?

Originally in the New York Times
BY: STEVE MARTIN

So if you're asking me did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction, I'm saying, well, it all depends on what you mean by "have."

See, I can "have" something without actually having it. I can "have" a cold, but I don't own the cold, nor do I harbour it. Really, when you think about it, the cold has me, or even more precisely, the cold has passed through me. Plus, the word "have" has the complicated letter "v" in it. It seems that so many words with the letter "v" are words that are difficult to use and spell. Like "verisimilitude." And "envelope."

Therefore, when you ask me, "Did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction," I frankly don't know what you're talking about. Do you mean currently? Then why did you say "did?" Think about "did." What the heck does that mean? Say it a few times out loud. Sounds silly. I'm beginning to think it's just the media's effort to use a fancy palindrome, rather than ask a pertinent question.

And how do I know you're not saying "halve?" "Did Iraq halve weapons of mass destruction?" How should I know? What difference does it make? That's a stupid question.

Let me try and clear it up for you. I think what you were trying to say was, "At any time, did anyone in Iraq think about, wish for, dream of, or search the Internet for weapons of mass destruction?"

Of course they did have. Come on, Iraq is just one big salt flat and no dictator can look out on his vast desert and not imagine an A-test going on. And let's face it, it really doesn't matter if they had them or not, because they hate us like a lassoed shorthorn heifer hates bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

Finally, all this fuss over 16 lousy words. Shoot, "Honey, I'm home," already has three, with an extra one implied, and practically nothing has been said. It would take way more than 16 words to say something that could be considered a gaffe. I don't really take anything people say seriously until they've used at least 20, sometimes 25, words.

When I was criticized for my comment, I was reluctant to point out it was only 16 words, and I was glad when someone else took the trouble to count them and point out that I wasn't even in paragraph territory. (When hosting the Academy Awards, Martin said: "You probably noticed there was no fancy red carpet tonight. That will send them a message.") When people heard it was only 16 words, I'm sure most people threw their head back and laughed. And I never heard one negative comment from any of our coalition forces, and they all speak English, too.

Steve Martin is author of Shopgirl and the forthcoming The Pleasure of My Company.
- posted by sookeyjane 8/17/2003 12:20:00 AM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



See him! Live! In New York!


http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/8944/

CELEBRITY BOOK SIGNINGS & EVENTS
Updated August 10, 2003
These celebrity appearances are ones that I have come up with from various sources. Always contact the bookstore for more information about events, they will often reserve a copy of the book and ship it to you.

Steve Martin, comedy superstar, signing copies of The Pleasure of My Company
9/30/03 7:00 PM at Barnes & Noble – Union Square. New York, NY.
- posted by sookeyjane 8/10/2003 02:35:00 AM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



On Underpants and Steve

http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2003/02/21/1045638482713.htm

Smarty pants
Date: February 22 2003

The curtain goes up, the undies fall down. Steve Martin's comic genius touches Sydney again. By Matt Buchanan

He's saying it, but I don't believe it. "Hosting the Oscars is kinda fun," Steve Martin says, in his highly elastic, familiar, West Coast twang. "The audience, they're people I know. They're a bunch of friends. And," he adds, "when I did it last time I really enjoyed it. I love, actually, these abbreviated TV appearances ..."

This disclosure from Martin is rare indeed. Not because he seldom gives interviews, although it is true he rarely agrees to them. And it's not because Martin seems to be the only person on the planet who considers hosting the 75th Academy Awards to be more like a cosy bull session with a few pals rather than, say, a heart-freezing tightrope walk in front of multiple billions. No, it is a rare moment because we're not talking about underpants.

You see, for the past 20 minutes the subject has been set: it's been underpants, underpants, underpants and yet more underpants. Or rather, it's been The Underpants, Martin's adaptation of German playwright Carl Sternheim's 1911 farce, Die Hosen. Next month's production of the work by Sydney's Company B continues a collaboration the LA-based Martin has enjoyed with the company's director, Neil Armfield, since Armfield successfully midwifed Martin's first play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, in the mid-'90s.

And, as polite, modest, intelligent and witty as Martin has been during our conversation, he has also shown himself to be a man who likes to keep the conversation on rails. His rails. And the looming Oscars ceremony is not a scheduled stop.

Yet, here we are. And, as long we've made the detour, there is something I'd like to know about Martin and the Oscars, and it's not about hosting. It's about standing there all night watching them being given away when he's never been handed one to call his own.

"Oh, no," he says, emphatically. "They don't give Oscars to comedians."

But they do give them to comic screenwriters. What about Martin's screenplays for Bowfinger, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and The Man with Two Brains, and the well thought-of LA Story? What of his own favourite, Roxanne, a hit adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac (on which he collaborated with another Australian, director Fred Schepisi)?

"Oh, look, no, I mean. No," he says. "Me thinking about winning Oscars, it just doesn't come up. And anyway ..." there's a brief pause, an imperceptible click in the signal box as Martin realigns the track. "Hey," he says, "weren't we talking about The Underpants?"

Of course, Martin is best known as a comedian and comedic actor, successful screenplays or not. Most of us summon the same simple but vivid CV when we hear his name - the whacky, zany, arrow-through-the-head guy on stage at the Hollywood Bowl or Saturday Night Live. The snowy-haired clown with the rubbery face who made a string of early, funny, movies (The Jerk, The Lonely Guy, etc) before becoming the likeable, almost handsome lead in undemanding and faintly disappointing roles as Hollywood's favourite middle-class, muddle-headed husband and father (Parenthood, Father of the Bride, The Out-of-Towners). That is Steve Martin. At least it was.

For the past five or six years, Martin has been more prolific and successful performing not on the stage or screen - can we ever forgive him for Sgt. Bilko? - but on the page. Indeed, having renounced stand-up comedy almost entirely during the early '90s, and having scaled down his movie commitments, Martin has found himself enjoying a surging literary career.

His well-received debut novella, the bittersweet Shopgirl, was followed by Pure Drivel, a best-selling collection of humorous "miniatures" he had published in The New Yorker. The first of his two original plays, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, was a great success in Australia and did well in the US (a screen adaptation for release later this year reunited him again with Schepisi). While his theatrical follow-up, WASP, also produced by Company B, won widespread praise, if not quite the same size audience. His second novel, The Pleasure of My Company, will be published this year, just before shooting begins on the screenplay he wrote for Shopgirl (which is to star Claire Danes). All of this has led, strangely enough, to Sternheim's evidently irresistible 100-year-old Die Hosen.

"It was brought to me by the director of the Classic Stage Company in New York who knew it as a dense German play, but who thought that it had a great premise," says Martin. "Then I read it, and I felt it had potential to be ... call it ... modernised."

Sternheim's premise is indeed ripe for fooling: the bloomers of a naive young woman named Louise (to be played by Lucy Taylor in her first role with Company B) drop to her ankles as she strains to watch a passing parade, electrifying several male bystanders, two of whom, [named Cohen and Versati in Martin's adaptation], descend upon her home with a view to "renting out the spare room". Theo, her inflexible, preoccupied husband, does not recognise Versati and Cohen as suitors, and Louise glimpses a sensual life hitherto denied her.

However, whereas Die Hosen is overtly moralising, casually brutal in its treatment of women and, quite frankly, a yawn when read in translation, Martin's The Underpants hoists Sternheim into the 21st century, conjuring a spirited, comic sketch of male lust, its confounding motivations and eccentric trajectories.

"Every word's been changed, but it definitely has Sternheim's structure," Martin says. "I really liked the idea that a very small incident has such ramifications; especially an erotic incident. I also thought it just sounds funny, the idea that someone's underpants fall down in public and huge mechanics are set in motion. That something so small can arouse something in men so very deep.

"But, really, I just saw it as the complications of behaviour that the simplest sexual incident can arouse, even if it's just the peek of a breast through a sweater. For these men, the underpants falling down is an erotic event. Even saying the word 'underpants' gets us all excited."

Sure enough, the very mention of Louise's unfortunate exposure is more than enough to keep the foppish Versati fluttering and the malingering Cohen agonising until doomsday. However, despite their obvious silliness, their ardour arouses Louise and, spurred on by the lovelorn spinster Gertrude, she finds herself looking to Versati for love. Cohen, whose hypochondria is something of a talent, watches on twitchily, too meek to act, but big enough to get in Versati's way. The men are idiots, of course, but then we've all been there, haven't we?

"I think when it comes to romance, men go crazy," Martin says. "Men are the ones with the peacock feathers, the ones who have to dance around, go crazy and dress themselves, move in and lie. And also, in the play, the romantic character Versati is a perfect character because he's so swept up by the romance, but the moment it becomes real, he leaves, like many romantic people do."

The Underpants received fair to good reviews when it was performed in New York last year, although Martin did attract some determined quibbling for his jettisoning of the broad social criticism that drives much of Die Hosen and, in particular, his new ending.

"Well, the original play ended on a very sad note with Louise resigned to being with this brute for her whole life," Martin says. "And I felt like I had rewritten it much lighter, and to do that ending would be a contradiction of the first 90 per cent of the play. And it's such a fun premise, I wanted to show that the ramifications were ongoing."

Does he have any artistic reservations about tinkering with someone else's work?

"Well, I've done it many times," he laughs. "I did it with Cyrano de Bergerac. I did it with Silas Marner [which became the film A Simple Twist of Fate]. I just had to learn there was a great tradition of it, including Shakespeare, who was adapting Roman plays. So it's a part of our artistic heritage."

I mention to Martin that his collaborator, Neil Armfield, has just endured a much publicised encounter with the Beckett estate over the introduction of music into Company B's production of Waiting for Godot.

"I really like Neil," he says. "I became very friendly with him when we worked on Picasso and I think he's a great director. But with Beckett ... they're very strict about that. And that's their right to be upset about it. Eventually it falls into the public domain and that's just the way it works. But I don't blame the Beckett estate or Neil Armfield. It's just one of those struggles.

"By the way," he adds, "Neil and I have recently traded phone messages. But I haven't been able to find him. He's asked me to call him because he has a couple of questions. So, you can tell him to call me. I left my number on his machine."

Later, in Newtown, during a lunch break from rehearsing The Underpants, Armfield nods cheerfully but silently when I pass on Martin's thoughts about the artist and adaptation. As for returning Martin's phone calls, he looks at first a trifle sheepish.

"Well, I did call him," Armfield protests. "But then he rang and I wasn't there. I did leave a message the other day: 'Steve. Working on the play. It's going really well. But there are few lines and things I think, well, they could be better ... if I may be so bold as to say that.'"

Can you be so bold with Steve Martin?

"Of course you can."

But then Martin and Armfield go way back. In 1993, Martin arrived in Australia with his then wife, Victoria Tennant. Tennant was here to shoot Snowy River: The McGregor Saga, after which she dumped Martin for co-star Andrew Clarke. Martin's subsequent relationship with Anne Heche proved equally disastrous when she left him for Ellen DeGeneres. But I digress.

Martin had brought along Picasso, his first script, stashed in his luggage, and soon found himself scouting for someone to workshop it. Armfield's name was suggested.

"He didn't want to be workshopping it in America," says Armfield, who admits he was initially more "a fan rather than a fanatic" of Martin's humour.

"So I put together a group including Richard Roxburgh, Tyler Coppin, Deborah Kennedy and Shane Bourne. I remember the first day Steve Martin arrived. He swung around the corner on his bicycle and said, 'Hmm ... I smell actors.'"

It was the start of a beneficial relationship for both parties. Armfield's production was so successful the play was immediately picked up in the US by Chicago's Steppenwolf Studio Theatre. Company B, in turn, was saved from the bailiffs.

"Picasso had an incredible impact for us," says Armfield. "The more we played it, the more popular it became, and the better it got, too. It was one of the shows that turned around the fortunes of Company B; that bankrolled it. It came at the end of a year, when our future was really uncertain. But it just played and played and did really well."

Having directed all three of Martin's theatre pieces, Armfield must feel he's in a better position than most to assess his artistic development.

"That's right," Armfield says, "but so are the actors (in The Underpants). Rebecca Massey was in WASP and Paul Blackwell and Keith Robinson were in Picasso, so they have a real kind of history and feel for his work. I thought Picasso was slight when I first read it. But working on it, I realised how good it was. And that was the thing with The Underpants, too. There are great lines and stuff but it has this wonderful kind of framework for clowning, which is so great because this cast is made up of some of the best clowns in the country."

Martin hasn't quite given up on clowning himself. In April he'll be reprising his timeworn incredulous, all-at-sea, 50-something opposite Chicago's Queen Latifah in Bringing Down the House, a movie that somehow promises not to achieve all that its title urges. But you feel the new Martin, the one who prefers to talk about underpants rather than Oscars, is leading the way.

"I used to do two or three movies a year and that just beat me down," he says. "It wasn't too healthy or smart. I'd prefer to do one every two years. And the truth is, that's about how long it takes to get a good script. Making a movie is a very isolating experience that takes you away from home. But writing; I like writing. I can do it anywhere. I don't have to go anywhere to do it. I like my life now."

- posted by sookeyjane 8/10/2003 02:31:00 AM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS

 



There is another version of this interview later, but this has more info. Compare compare

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2003/apr/25/enter/20030425ent2.html

Saturday, April 25, 2003
Q&A with Steve Martin: House sitter
The comedian says making Bringing Down the House was a joy from start to finish
By Elaine Lipworth

STEVE Martin lives up to his reputation as one of the world’s funniest actors in the hilarious new comedy Bringing Down The House. Here, he plays a divorced lawyer who finds his world turned upside when he does some internet dating and the woman who turns up at his door Queen Latifah—is not quite the kind of romantic partner he was expecting.

The movie also stars the talented Eugene Levy, Joan Plowright and Betty White.

Q: What motivates you these days to do a film? And why this one?

A: I met the director Adam Shankman and he had so much energy and that gave me supreme confidence, I just liked him. That’s really why I did the movie. I felt he wanted to make a fast moving, fast paced comedy. It’s hard to find those people like Adam; they can be too serious or too mechanical to make a comedy. A comedy has to have room to breathe. You just have to walk on that set on any given day and know that anything’s a possibility.

Q: How do you choose your roles?

A: Poorly. Seriously I choose based on the script but also the people I’m working with. If I get the feeling that it could be funny and fun to do, then that starts to feel really good to me. Having a lot of good people to work with makes a big difference.

Q: Do you still have a passion for comedies like this? A lot of Hollywood observers are saying they’re glad to see you return to the old Steve Martin type of film.

A: What I really have a passion for is the kind of fun we had on this one. The drudgery of making a movie can only be ameliorated by the fun you have making it. You’ve got to feel like you’re in a creative space. Between Queen Latifah and Eugene Levy and Adam it was great. They’re just bright people. But you know I never viewed myself as having gone away from this kind of thing. For example, I did Bowfinger three years ago, a big physical comedy that I wrote.

Q: Is acting still a thrill for you, when you have so many other interests, like writing for instance?

A: Yes it is. This was a thrilling movie to make and to watch. You know movie making is hard; it’s a minimum 12-hour day. It’s exhausting. But then after finally seeing the finished film, I thought “this is all worth it, this is what you worked for, those kind of laughs from the audience.”

Q: Do you think in the current international situation, which is pretty grim, that there’s a real purpose served by comedies like this?

A: I really do. I also think that films like this are antidotes to violent films. This film is edgy but also conventional. It’s a comedy: two people don’t get along and then they do. But violent films are also extremely conventional. I have no problem with violence if its relevant but I often feel that a lot of the violence in movies can be purely ugly. For example, they’ll say “We want you to hate this bad guy so we’re going to open the film by killing three children and you’re suddenly manipulated into artificial hate.” And I think films like Bringing Down The House are kind they’re good, and they’re funny. So I think movies like this do have an important place.

Q: How well did you know Queen Latifah’s work and music?

A: Not so well before the film, but don’t tell her. (Whispers.) I knew who she was and I’d heard her music but I didn’t know what kind of person she was. When we met, it was an instant connection; she’s a warm happy loving person. We got along really well.

Q: There’s a lot of African American street language and slang in the film. Did you check everything culturally with her to make sure it was authentic?

A: Oh yeah. I checked everything with her. She came up with a lot of the slang, everything was passed by her. She vetted all the language to make sure it was real and true.

Q: You did hip dancing in a scene, when you’re out clubbing, are you naturally a good mover?

A: I never considered myself as a dancer but I can learn things by rote. In this case it was a little different, this was not choreographed dancing, it was just how insane you can go and it was fun knowing I didn’t have to get a Fred Astaire look, this was just me being crazy.

Q: Do you have a favorite scene?

A: Yes it’s in Gangs Of New York (laughs). No my favorite scene is when Queen Latifah teaches me how to make love to my wife. I loved doing that scene, it was something I didn’t want to do but I had to.

Q: Did your relationship with Queen Latifah remain professional?

A: Strictly professional—although at one point I did say, “now you do me!”

Q: What happened on the set when you weren’t filming?

A: Intercourse. No not really. When the camera’s off, we would sit around talking, the director is lively and funny and shouting, so we always had fun, sometimes we wouldn’t go back to the trailer because you just want to hang out with funny people. And I played the banjo, I actually learned two new songs.

Q: Queen Latifah is very sexy and stylish in the film; completely different from the usual skinny Hollywood actresses. What do you think this film will do for normal sized curvaceous women?

A: Now you’re making me want to be one. Well certainly when you see a sexy full figured woman you’ve got a new idea in your head, even if you didn’t have that idea of a beautiful woman before. But its not about measurements, its about—what they’ll do for you! (laughs). It’s about what’s inside.

Q: What makes you tick as a person? Is it still the acting?

A: Everything, I love doing the writing, I love writing jokes, I love it all. And I play the banjo for the dog. I have for me a perfect creative life. Writing and acting are opposites, like sleeping and waking. You’re home and you’re asleep and you go. “I’d like to get up and go out” and when you’re out you think, “I’d like to go home and go to bed.” When I’m writing I think, “maybe I’d like to do a movie” and when I’m doing a movie I think, “I’d like to go home and write.”

Q: Is your comic ability a God given talent do you think or something you’ve created?

A: I don’t feel it was God given because I really worked hard but I also feel after a while you get comic baggage and people do expect you to do something funny and they’re anticipating something funny and that makes it easier.

Q: Were you funny when you were young?

A: Yeah I was always trying to entertain. I had a magic act that I did and I worked at Disneyland as a magician, and I worked at a theatre when I was 18 for three years doing comedy performances. I have good funny friends and we’re always sparring in the nicest, friendliest way.

Q: What’s the key to comedy? Is it timing?

A: Timing? I don’t even know what that is anymore. Timing to me is how long you wait before you say the punch line. Or you can jump the timing doing it a little too soon or a little longer. Really it’s about the twist and the surprise, it’s a mystery.

Q: Do you still have loads of goals and ambitions?

A: Yeah there are still things I want to write, I have a book coming out in the fall I’m very pleased with. It’s a novel called The Pleasure Of My Company. It is located here in LA in Santa Monica, it’s contemporary. It’s very different from my last novel Shopgirl. The central character is a man, it’s written in the first person and there’s some similarity in the sense of the isolated person.

Q: How do you identify with these people you write about, these lonely characters having ordinary lives so different from your own?

A: Well I think when I was a kid I was a dreamer. Of course I could never have dreamt what happened to me, not even in my wildest dreams. The fantasy I’d have as a 15-year-old kid would be to be a good magician and actually levitate someone. I thought that would be incredibly mythmaking and attractive. So I was off in a world of my own and I think the characters in my novels are in a world of their own too.

Q: Presumably as a writer and actor it’s not that easy to get access to ordinary people living ordinary lives?

A: Well the people I know are real. Actors, writers, celebrities, art dealers, artists they’re just as real as anybody else, they don’t have to be in a mall somewhere to be real. So all the experiences that the Queen Of England has are the same as experiences other people have, they’re emotional I think. She has her heart broken too.

Q: You have a big influence as an actor and comedian, do you think you inspire people?

A: I don’t think that’s true. But I do think comedies like Bringing Down The House can turn a knob in your head. You know—maybe there’s someone who had this racial prejudice that was expressed angrily and they’ll see this movie and it’ll turn that knob a little bit and they’ll go “oh you know what, I’m tired of that. “But that’s the movie I don’t think that’s me.”

Q: But you obviously lift people’s spirits.

A: Yeah that’s a good thing but I think it’s like an aspirin. It’ll take your headache away for a while but then some day it’ll come back unless you treat it in a different way.


- posted by sookeyjane 8/10/2003 02:08:00 AM PERMALINK 0 COMMENTS